At the conclusion of this week’s Torah portion, Tzelophchad’s
relatives express concern about his daughters’ inheritance. They worry that if
the women marry men from tribes other than their own, the married women’s inheritance
would transfer to their sons, who would belong to their fathers’ tribes. Their
landholdings would thus be lost to Tzelophchad’s tribe, Menashe (Menasseh).
Moshe (Moses) relays G-d’s commandments concerning this
issue, acknowledging that the relatives have a valid concern about the transfer
of inheritance. For the next fourteen years, until the Land is conquered and
divided, any woman who inherits her father’s property may only marry a member
of her father’s tribe.
“As the L-rd had commanded Moshe (Moses), so did the
daughters of Tzelophchad. Machla, Tirtza, Chogla, Milcha and Noa married their
cousins. They married into the families of the sons of Menashe, the son of
Yosef (Joseph), and their inheritance remained with the tribe of their father’s
family.” (Bamidbar/Numbers 36:10-12)
Talmud (Bava Basra 120a) relates that all five of
Tzelophchad’s daughters marry late in life, after age 40, and it states that
they wait for “suitable men.” This could mean that they hold out for men who are
as wise and righteous as they are. (The previous page in Talmud remarks on the
wisdom of the daughters who are able to expound on Torah and are described as righteous.) Talmud makes a point
of saying that the women miraculously are able to bear children despite their advanced
age (Baba Basra 119b).
Rashi, citing Talmud (Bava Basra 120a), writes that
the daughters’ names appear in a different order each time they are written in
Tanach. Of the verse in this week’s portion, he comments: “Here it enumerates
them according to seniority over each other in age, and they were married in
the order in which they were born. But throughout Scripture (Bamidbar/Numbers
26:33, Yehoshua/Joshua 17:3) it lists them in order of their
intelligence and informs us that they were all equal.”
It is interesting to note that the ban on inter-tribal marriages
was lifted on Tu B’Av (15th day of the month of Av) which this year
falls on July 22. Tu B’Av is a purely rabbinic Talmudic holiday which has not
been fully observed since the sixteenth century, although Tachanun (repentence
prayers) to this day are not said on that day. With Yom Kippur, Tu B’Av is
called “the most festive/happiest day of the year.” (Taanit 4:8)
The maidens of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards
in the outskirts of the city. They dressed in borrowed white garments so as not
to embarrass those who were poor. Rabbi Arthur Segal explains: “The girls would
wear the same white simple dress so that rich and poor would look alike, none adorned
with jewelry or make-up, so that the males would get to know them for their
intelligence and chesed (kindness), and not for their external
attributes…This allowed Jewish young men to fall in love for the right reasons
(Taanit 30b-31a).”
