John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, once said
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
What he wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail on 12 May 1780 has transformed over time into the pithy quotation
I am a revolutionary, so my sons can be farmers, so their sons may be artists
Every generation inherits something different. We inherit land, names, traditions, languages and memories. John Adams imagined that what one generation really leaves the next is not simply territory but possibility. With that in mind, the story of the daughters of Zelophehad that we read in this week’s parashah becomes something much larger than a legal dispute about inheritance.
In Parashat Pinchas the five daughters of Zelophehad Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah come to talk to Moses as they want the right to their inheritance from their father who died without sons. Usually, we think about the laws of inheritance and consider this a place in Torah where the rights of women are recognised. There is, however, an interesting peace theology buried inside the commentary, where the inheritance of land becomes intertwined with gender equality.
The extent to which the story of the daughters of Zelophehad is advocating for gender equality, is however limited in so much as that it is affirming the primacy of the sons, as daughters only inherit if there are no sons as is discussed in the Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra 110b:3
Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: The proof is from here: “Why should our father’s name be diminished from among his family because he has no son?” (Numbers 27:4) The implication is that because he has no son the daughters are asking to inherit; had he had a son, the son would have precedence.
The conversation changes once we notice what is actually being inherited as The Torah; A Women’s Commentary explains:
hereditary portion. In the Bible, the land is Israel’s inheritance, promised by God to Israel’s ancestors. Although women share in the blessing of its bounty, they generally do not seem to inherit land—the basis for survival. The Bible mentions several cases of women able to inherit land, such as Zelophehad’s daughters (see at Numbers 27:1–11 and 36:1–12)
This is not just wealth. It is the portion of the land promised to the generation of the Exodus from Mitzrayim. The question is no longer simply who inherits, but an invitation to consider if the intangible can be passed from one generation to the next. This is ultimately why Moses turns to God to adjudicate the dispute.
The question that appears to be too difficult for Moses is whether someone can inherit land they have never seen? Chizkuni, French exegete of the 13th Century, known for insights that were culled from rabbinic literature but not attributed, explains:
Vayakrev Moshe et mishpatan lifnei Adonai (Numbers 27:5)
Moses brought their case before Adonai.
Moses knew that women are entitled to inherit. What he did not know or agreed with, was if people such as Zelophehad had only a potential claim to such land, and that seeing that he never set foot on the land that he was still entitled to pass on that claim to his daughters.
Chizkuni suggests Moses was not puzzled about their right to inherit wealth, but rather, if they could inherit a promise that was made to their father? Zelophehad had died in the wilderness. He had never stood in the land. Can a promise be inherited before it is realised?
And God said to Moses, “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them. (Number 27:7)
The daughters knew.
They understood something which was too difficult for Moses. A peace theology which considers the wide-ranging implications of whether one can inherit land that one has never set foot on. And that even if that promise of inheritance never materialises it is still applicable to both sons and daughters. Sifrei Bamidbar 133:1 elaborates on this statement of equality:
John Adams imagined one generation fighting wars so that another could write poetry. The daughters of Zelophehad imagine something even more radical: that a dream born from exodus from slavery can be inherited.
In our own generation, perhaps the question is not simply who owns the land, but what kind of inheritance we are preparing for those who come after us.
Will we leave them borders alone, or the possibility of living together within them? Will they leave their children more than merely coexistence but a peaceful society where culture grows and flourishes?
The daughters ask for a holding in the land. The rabbis remind us that the claim to that holding begins with justice. And perhaps that is still true: peace begins when inheritance is understood not as an absolute right, but as a responsibility to ensure that those who come after us receive a future worth inheriting.
Jennifer Verson, LBC rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.