Get Up, Stand Up Together: The Daughters of Zelophehad in Parashat Pinchas

“The cheek, the nerve, the gall, the audacity, and the GUMPTION!” [i]

This is not actually a quote found in the Torah. However, it’s a solid reaction to the daughters of Zelophehad and their advocacy for equal inheritance for women, detailed in this week’s portion, parashat Pinchas.

The daughters of Zelophehad are first mentioned in Numbers 26:33 amidst a long census filled with the names of men and their tribes. But it is in this week’s parashah that the five sisters make their main appearance: “The daughters of Zelophehad…came forward. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the chieftains, and the whole assembly, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and they said…” (Numbers 27:1-2). In these and the following verses, the five daughters together do something remarkable: They come forward, stand in front of an assembly of important, decision-making men, and speak.

What is curious about these verses lies in the Hebrew verbs: va-tikravna (“they came forward”) and va-ta’amodna (“they stood”). The two verbs used in these particular verses are in the feminine plural form; we do not see a particular sister step forward, stand, and speak alone before the assembly of men. Instead, the sisters move and speak as a whole unit, in a unified voice for what they believe in.

Contemporary scholar Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg writes, “The two verbs - va-tikravna, va-ta’amodna - declare the significant acts of the sisters. Before they even open their mouths, they come forward: and they stand before all the dignitaries of the people. Both verbs, each introducing a separate verse, express audacity: the root karav (‘they came forward’) signifies intimacy, struggle, sacrifice, possibly encroachment. Standing, too, implies that they stand their ground ‘in the presence of all of them,’ as Rashi puts it.” [ii] The daughters’ actions require a level of audacity and a deep-seated belief that advocating for their cause outweighs the risk of speaking out in the wrong place at the wrong time. They must stand strong in their convictions, regardless of the possible cost.

Standing before the assembly, the sisters make their case: “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the faction, Korach’s faction, that banded together against God but died for his own sin; and he has left no sons. Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!” (Numbers 27:8-9). Give us a holding, the sisters insist. They do not gently plead or try to ingratiate themselves; they demand to receive their fair share, using an imperative, commanding verb and make a case about their father's legacy that could appeal to their entirely male audience.

Zelophehad’s daughters do not simply ask for an equal holding because they think they deserve it. Rather, they make their case by using “the language of loyalty to family, making a claim on behalf of their dead father. By emphasizing the desire to perpetuate their father’s name, they speak to a timely communal and familial concern in an era of transition.” [iii]

Moses then brings their case before God, and God responds, saying: “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. Further, speak to the Israelite people as follows: ‘If a man dies without leaving a son, you shall transfer his property to his daughter’” (Numbers 27:8-9). The exact language in Hebrew that God uses is the word kein, “yes.” Kein, yes, God is saying, the words of Zelophehad’s daughters are correct; they are justified in their words.

This is significant, as Zornberg notes: “Before instructing Moses to give the women the family land, God speaks about their act of speech.” [iv] In deeming their words just, God begins simply with kein. Yes. Perhaps the implication here is that after the many unreasonable complaints and misadventures of the Israelites throughout the book of Numbers, God finally feels a level of relief in hearing a reasonable complaint near the end of the book of Numbers.

The clear, concise answer given by God pertains not only to the petitioners, but also to all women in a similar predicament. And to think— if the daughters of Zelophehad did not work together to find the gall, the audacity, the gumption to come forward, to stand before the assembly, and speak together, they would not have made systemic change for women in the Torah and beyond.

Advocacy requires audacity, thoughtful leadership, and showing up even when doing so might be uncomfortable. It requires seeing what’s broken in a system or community and caring enough to do something about it. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah demonstrate an effective tactic to alleviate the discomfort of being an advocate for systemic change: doing it together. This Shabbat, inspired by these brave women, may we also come together in our own communities and advocate for the systemic change we want to see in the world.

[i] While a somewhat common phrase, most recently Tayce from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK said it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW1tHoCnkwA

[ii] Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg, Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers (New York: Schocken Books, 2015), p. 264.

[iii] The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, ed. Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D. (New York: URJ Press, 2008), p. 972.

[iv] Bewilderments, p. 263.