Pinhas

Bemidbar 25:10-30:1

The Daughters of Zelophehad's Sacred Challenge to Authority

Michael Rosenberg

(New devar torah, written for the website)

Bemidbar 27:1-5 tells the story of benot Zelophehad, the daughters of Zelophehad. Having heard that the land will be apportioned only to males, the daughters approach Moses in order to request an inheritance in the name of their father.

Note that the root ק-ר-ב appears twice in this five-verse section-at the beginning and again at the end, as shown in bold. In verse one, the root is used to describe the action of the daughters of Zelophehad. We are told that they came close to Moshe. The use of this root in the first verse connects us to the last verse in the section. There, ק-ר-ב is used to describe Moshe's bringing of benot Zelophehad's case before God. Professor Baruch Levine, in the Anchor Commentary, suggests that the bringing of the "case" is a symbol for the bringing of the daughters before God. In some sense, then, challenging authority in order to clarify the law, as benot Zelophehad do here, is understood in this passage as a means of coming closer to God.

This is a somewhat shocking message to receive near the end of Sefer Bemidbar, a book all about challenges to God's and Moshe's authority. Two of the most tragic revolts in the Bible occur in this book. In parashat Shelah-Lekha (Bemidbar 13-14), the spies, who are sent to scout out the Land of Israel, return with a fearful report of the strength of the local people, leading to the refusal of Benei Yisrael to enter the land and the accompanying punishment of forty years of wandering the desert. And in what might be the paradigmatic example of insurrection in the Torah, we have learned about the rebellion of Korah and his cohort, and the death that resulted (Bemidbar 16). After all of this, why would the Torah want to praise legal challenging, and even elevate it to the status of a means of connecting to God? The question is made even thornier by the fact that benot Zelophehad explicitly reference Korah in these verses, saying that their father was not part of his congregation, making the juxtaposition all the more in-your-face.

But in fact, this question is not really such a problem at all. What stands between benot Zelophehad, on the one hand, and Korah and the spies on the other, is intent and tone. Throughout the book, two different phrases are used to denote challenges to Moshe from the people. Sometimes we read that the people approach "לִפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה" ("before Moshe"), and sometimes "עַל מֹשֶׁה" ("upon Moshe"). Of the two, the latter is more common. The only times "לִפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה" is used are with the story of the Israelites requesting a second chance to perform the Pesah offering (9:6), the story of Korah, here, and in chapter 36, when the cousins of benot Zelophehad make a request for their land to remain in the family possession. With the exception of the Korah story, all of these uses preface a successful request: the Israelites are given a second chance to perform the Pesah offering (the basis for our observing Pesah Sheni on the 14th of Iyyar until the present), benot Zelophehad are given land, and their cousins' request for that land to stay in the family is honored. The phrase ‘al Moshe, by contrast, occurs in the story of Korah as well in stories about the Israelites' lack of faith when material supplies run short-see, for example, 14:2 and 20:2. The phrase lifnei Moshe then, signals either a more genuine intent or a healthier form of challenging (or both) than those cases where people are described as approaching or objecting ‘al Moshe.

This respect for the sincerity of benot Zelophehad's request is reflected in a stunning midrash found in the Sifrei on our verse (Bemidbar 133):

Benot Zelophehad offer a challenge not to Moshe or to God's authority; rather, they challenge Moshe to fashion a law that is in keeping with God's own principles. They do not want to dethrone God; rather, they want to make God more godly! The holiness of their objection is recognized in the Torah's use of the phrase "לִפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה".

In Korah's case, both phrases, "לִפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה" and "עַל מֹשֶׁה", are used. Perhaps there is some sort of signal here that Korah's revolt came from a place of rebellion as well as a place of holiness. According to 16:3, Korah's primary complaint against Moshe is that the latter had no right to treat himself as more endowed with holiness than any other member of the nation: "רַב לָכֶם כִּי כָל הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים וּבְתוֹכָם יְהֹוָה"-"You have too much! For the whole community-all of them-are holy and Hashem is among them." In other words, part of Korah's rebellion was simply a desire to live fully the injunction that the entire Jewish people should be a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation", as God commanded Israel to be in Shemot 19:6 ("וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹש"). The Torah cannot, or does not want to, refute this basic truth contained in Korah's claim against Moshe's leadership. However, this revolt also functioned as a power-grab, and thus both phrases, "לִפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה" and "עַל מֹשֶׁה", are used to describe the revolt, the former to express the truth of the claim, the latter to condemn its form and intent.

The book of Bemidbar is largely a work about the importance of challenging authority and about how difficult it is to do that appropriately. But despite the dire warnings about inappropriate revolts found in this work, the story of benot Zelophehad, and the language used to describe their challenge, make clear that objecting to the law-when the law does not reflect God's deepest values-is not only an obligation, it is a means of connecting to God. However, even when the message expressed in such a challenge is true, we must be careful always to take care to challenge "לִפְנֵי" and not "עַל" those in authority.