Pinchas 5773: Machla, Noa, Chogla, Milcha and Tirtza

In this week’s Torah portion, Moshe (Moses) apportions the Land of Israel as an inheritance to the tribes, to the men and not to the women. “The daughters of Tzelophchad came forward…Machla, Noa, Chogla, Milcha and Tirtza. They stood before Moshe and before Eleazar the Kohen (priest) and before the chieftains and the entire congregation, saying, ‘Our father died in the desert…and he had no sons. Why should our father’s name be eliminated from his family because he had no son? Give us a portion along with our father’s brothers.’” (Bamidbar/Numbers 27:1-4)

The Midrash in Sifrei explains the thought process behind the daughters’ challenge. They contend that human compassion favors males, and that this vastly differs from G-d’s gender-blind compassion. “His mercy extends to all, to the males and to the females, as it is said [in Tehillim/Psalms 145:9] ‘The L-rd is good to all, and His mercy is on all His works.’”

Comments Sarah Schneider in B’Or haTorah Journal: “[The daughters] identified the underlying spiritual principle being violated…Because they were focused on truth and the higher good, they had the strength to persist.”  Talmud (Baba Basra 119b) characterizes the daughters: “They were chachamot (wise women) because they spoke at the proper time.”

Talmud explains that the daughters approach Moshe while he is expounding on the laws of Levirate marriage (See Devarim/Deuteronomy 25:5-10). These laws instruct a childless widow to marry her deceased husband’s brother in order to continue the husband’s name. Talmud relates that the daughters ask hypothetically if their widowed mother could enter into a Levirate marriage in order to conceive a male inheritor. Moshe answers that it is impossible since their mother has already borne children. The daughters point out the contradiction and persuade Moshe to pray to G-d to change the laws of inheritance so they will apply to daughters when there is no son. G-d favorably answers Moshe’s petition and the laws are amended.

Talmud teaches that the laws of inheritance ought to have been taught in the name of Moshe, but were taught instead by the daughters of Tzelophchad because of their special merit. Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum explains in Women at the Crossroads: at a time when all the men but Calev and Yehoshua (Joshua) lose hope of possessing the Land, these women have tremendous faith, and they arise to demand a portion in the Land, their rightful inheritance as descendants of Avraham (Abraham). Like their forefather Yosef (Joseph), who loves the Holy Land so much that he requests that his bones be brought there for burial, Tzelophchad’s daughters also intensely and faithfully love the Land.

Writes Mrs. Schneider: “There is no holier mission than to reveal a Torah law that will influence the behavior of Jews until the end of time…to be the source of one of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) is the highest possible honor.”  

http://www.dafyomi.co.il/bbasra/points/bb-ps-119.htm

http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/torah_portion/chanas_blessing/outstanding_daughters.aspx?id=12308&language=english

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/daughters-of-zelophehad-midrash-and-aggadah

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2222/jewish/A-Daughter-of-Zelophehad-Speaks.htm

Balak 5773: Guardians of the Goodly Tents

In this week’s Torah portion, the Moabite king Balak sends Bilam to curse the Israelites. Bilam finds he is unable to do so and he instead issues blessings, including the well known opening to the contemporary worship service: Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael – How goodly are your tents, Yaakov (Jacob); your dwelling places, Israel.

Rashi explains that Bilam sees that in the Israelite encampment the tent openings do not face one another, affording each tent privacy from the prying eyes of others. Writes Chana Bracha Siegelbaum in Women at the Crossroads (p. 148), “The woman personifies the tent, which served as the home for the Jewish people during their wandering in the wilderness. Likewise, the name Yaakov refers to the Jewish women (see Rashi on Shemot/Exodus 19:3).”

The Rebbetzin continues: “[The tent] protects the Jewish people from every negative influence. As long as the Jewish men were under the faithful shield of their Jewish women – the guardians of the goodly tents of Yaakov – no evil could befall them. However, as soon as they left their tents, to go astray after strange [Moabite and Midianite] women, they made themselves vulnerable to every sin conceivable, including idol worship.”

The shrewd Bilam understands that the holiness of privacy and modesty ensures Jewish survival. Talmud (Sanhedrin 106a) relates that Bilam advises Balak: “Hashem hates harlotry and the men of Israel love linen garments. Make curtains, have elderly harlots selling linens outside and young ones selling inside…Israel ate, drank and were merry. The old harlots offered the curtains for their true value; the young ones sold them for less.”  The men enter the tents to consort with the young harlots and the women refuse to have relations with them until the Jewish men engage in idolatry.

Normally, the Moabite women would not venture outside their tents. Talmud (Yevamot 77a) notes that the Moabite women do not come out to offer food and drink to the Israelites when the Israelites leave Egypt since “it is not the way of women to go out towards wayfarers.” The Moabite men, however, are faulted for not offering refreshments. Torah therefore prohibits Moabite men from converting to Judaism (Devarim/Deuteronomy 23:4-5), while it allows Moabite women to convert “because of their notion of modesty.” (Siegelbaum)

The Haftorah for Balak (Michah 5:6-6:8) ends with instructions for serving G-d: “He has told you, O man, what is good (mah tov) and what the L-rd requires of you: only to do justice, love kindness and walk modestly with your G-d.” Concludes the Rebbetzin: “If we Jewish women learn to excel in tzniut (modesty) and model exemplary modest behavior, in spite of the immodest spirit prevailing in our current western society, we will b’ezrat Hashem (With G-d’s help), walk with Hashem on the path of our final redemption.” 

Published in honor of the opening of the Mei Tova Mikvah in Dix Hills, New York. May its holy waters bring down many blessings.

http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/torah_portion/chanas_blessing/the_tents_of_jacob.aspx?id=12271&language=english

http://www.berotbatayin.org/Torah/Parsha/Haftorah%20Balak.pdf

http://dafyomi.co.il/sanhedrin/points/sn-ps-106.htm  

Chukat 5773: Bat Yiftach haGileadi (Jephthah's Daughter)

This week’s Haftorah is from Shoftim/Judges 11:1-33. Its correlation to the Torah portion is the battle against Sichon which is recalled in the Haftorah before the judge Yiftach haGileadi (Jepthah) engages in battle against the Ammonites. Yiftach then vows to G-d: “If You deliver the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the L-rd’s and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” The Haftorah ends with Yiftach’s victory. The disturbing story that follows (Shoftim/Judges 11:34-40) involves his daughter, who is unnamed. To celebrate her father’s success, Yiftach’s daughter comes out of their home, dancing with a timbrel. Yiftach rents his clothing, distressed that he now must fulfill his vow and sacrifice his only child. Yiftach’s daughter is level-headed. She says: “My father, you opened your mouth unto the L-rd; do unto me according to that which came out of your mouth…let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months that I may depart and go down to the mountains and bewail my virginity and my companions.” The Midrash (Tanchuma Bechukotai) sheds light on the daughter’s response. Using her knowledge of Torah, she challenges her father. “Did G-d write in His Torah that Israel should sacrifice human lives before G-d? Does it not say in Vayikra (Leviticus) 1:2 ‘when a man among you brings an offering to Hashem from an animal’ – and not from humans?  Yaakov Avinu (Jacob, our patriarch) in Bereishit (Genesis) 28:22 vowed ‘whatever you will give me, I will tithe you’ and G-d gave him twelve sons. Did he sacrifice one of them?” Despite his daughter’s challenge, Yiftach, a man unschooled in Torah, does not believe he can annul his vow. However, he does allow his daughter to go down to the mountains. Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Greenbaum explains the strange wording. “What she was really saying was, ‘let me go down to the elders of the Sanhedrin (who are called mountains) in case they can find some release clause from your vow.’” Because Yiftach’s daughter asks thought-provoking, challenging questions of her father and the Sanhedrin, the Midrash sometimes refers to her as Sheilah, from the Hebrew root sha’ol, to ask or to demand. The Midrash Tanchuma says, “If a person does not have a Torah in his hand, he has nothing. So you find regarding Yiftach haGileadi: because he was not a ben Torah (Torah scholar and practitioner) he lost his daughter.” Had Yiftach known something about the teachings of the Torah, he would have known that Torah explicitly forbids human sacrifice.  And Yiftach would also have known how to annul his oath. In fact, Midrash notes that out of false pride, Yiftach misses the opportunity to consult with Pinchas, the learned high priest who has the power to absolve vows. The Sanhedrin unfortunately does not find a way to release Yiftach from his vow. “After two months’ time, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed.”  The daughter’s fate is ambiguous and the subject of much commentary since the text does not explicitly state that Yiftach kills his daughter. Rabbi Moshe Reiss writes that the word in the vow, olah, from the Hebrew root “to go up” can mean burnt offering or some other form of consecration. Many commentators suggest that perhaps Yiftach merely offers his daughter into the lifetime service of G-d, thus forfeiting marriage and motherhood and terminating Yiftach’s lineage. The text is clear that Yiftach’s daughter remains a virgin. “She had never known a man. So it became a custom in Israel for the maidens of Israel to go every year, for four days in the year, and chant dirges lamenting the daughter of Yiftach haGileadi.” And what becomes of Yiftach? “He was buried in the cities of Gilead.” According to the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 60:3, Vayikra Rabbah 37:4), G-d punishes Yiftach: his limbs fall off one by one and each is buried in the city in which it fell. http://www.azamra.org/Bible/Judges%2011-12.htm http://www.moshereiss.org/articles/21_jephthah.htm http://www.kby.org/english/torat-yavneh/view.asp?id=3812

Korach 5773: WIfe of Korach and Wife of On ben Pelet

In this week’s Torah portion (Bamidbar/Numbers 16:1-18:32), Korach plots to overthrow Moshe (Moses). “Korach…took [himself to one side] along with Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eliav, and On ben (son of) Pelet, descendants of Reuven. They confronted Moshe together with 250 men...” The earth opens and swallows Korach and his followers, but the Sages teach that On ben Pelet is spared, and that it is his wife who saves him.

The story is found in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109b): “On ben Pelet was saved by his wife. She said [to her husband], ‘What difference does it make to you who is Rebbe [in charge]? In any case, you will [always just] be a student/follower…They [the men who are rebelling] are all virtuous. Sit back and I will save you.’ She got him drunk with wine and put him inside the tent. She sat outside with uncovered hair [so that] anyone who came to get On turned away, so he was never called to come [to the rebellion].” The wife of On understands that the Congregation of Israel is holy and modest, so she could be sure that no man would dare enter her tent if she were to appear immodest (with uncovered hair).

The Midrash continues the story. “When death struck the evildoers, the bed in which On slept began to slide toward the abyss. On’s wife gripped its edge and prayed [for his salvation].”  Tiferet Tzion explains that the letter taf at the end of Pelet indicates the feminine gender to hint that On was saved by his wife. (Pele, ending in aleph, is the Hebrew word for miracle.)

Talmud (Sanhedrin 110) goes on with the story of the wife of Korach, relating conversations between Korach and his wife. A shaven and bald Korach returns from the purification ceremony inaugurating the Levites and his wife hardly recognizes him. She says, “He [Moshe] treated you like excrement, he made you shave all your hair, he wants that only he will look important…He made a mockery of you…Also, he tells you to put [fringes of] techelet (blue) on your garments. If it is so important, you should clothe your entire academy in garments of techelet [not just the fringes].”  She incites Korach against Moshe by implying that Moshe has made up the mitzvot (commandments) that Levites must be shaven and that only the fringes must be the color techelet.

Talmud (Sanhedrin 110) says that King Solomon wrote about these two wives in Mishlei/Proverbs 14:1: “The wise woman [Wife of On] builds her house; the foolish one [Wife of Korach] tears it down with her own hands.”

In her book, Women at the Crossroads (p. 142), Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Sielgelbaum cites the explanation of author Shoshanna Lepon: “A man is motivated by the respect of his wife. On’s wife was interested in building him up.  She expressed concern for her husband’s esteem when she asked, ‘What are you going to get out of Korach’s rebellion?’ On’s wife was able to persuade her husband by caring about his respect and demonstrating that he had nothing to gain by joining Korach.”

“Korach’s wife, on the other hand, related to her husband in precisely the opposite way. Instead of building him up, she put him down and degraded him by making fun of the way he looked after complying with Moshe’s command to shave all the hair of his body. It was thus Korach’s attempt to regain the respect of his wife that incited him to rebel against the authority of Moshe. He wanted to save face and show his wife that he was enough of a man to stand up against Moshe and prevent being made a fool in her eyes.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/2452#.UafMD5zDmM0

http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/dafyomi2/sanhedrin/points/sn-ps-109.htm

http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/dafyomi2/sanhedrin/points/sn-ps-110.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=4HVwBMI5zK0C&pg=PR12&lpg=PR12&dq=women+at+the+crossroads+siegelbaum