Dear Friends,
We take rights for granted in America. But this summer showed us that rights are not permanent, or guaranteed…
And, we take the right to own property for granted, in 21st century America. Yet, it wasn’t always so.
In many third world nations, today, women cannot own real property. In America, for years the same held true. Women were not granted many rights until the last century.
In the biblical days, the issue of women owning property arose. But, thousands of years ago in the Torah, women were granted a right to own property.
Zelophehad had five daughters, and when he died in the desert without leaving a male heir, his gutsy daughters came before Moses and Eleazar the priest, and petitioned to receive the inheritance of their father’s possession. Moses, not certain what to do, sought Divine judgment, and God found in favor of the supplicants, saying, “If a man die and have no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughters.” [Num 27:8]
This statute was intended to maintain real property within ancestral tribes, and not allow it to pass from tribe to tribe, thus risking the land-impoverishment of one tribe and the self-aggrandizement of another. Yet, it also had the corollary benefit of establishing a revolutionary precedent: women could own property.
The radical nature of this decision was not merely in the domain of land-ownership, rather it also asserted an otherwise unheard of value: that women bore an intrinsic social and communal worth which, in the male-dominated world of the Bible, was ground-breaking. It might even be in today’s America!
Moreover, that the daughters of Zelophehad could step forward and receive a hearing with Moses further advanced their position, and that of women. In that time and place, men alone had rights to recourse. Even today in many societies, women do not have these privileges; witness Saudi Arabia.
Torah, and Judaism were not only ahead of their times, but were setting ethical standards for all time.
Now, today, such Torah pronouncements demand us to continue that march forward. The story of the daughters of Zelophehad rightfully ought charge us to work for the widest application of rights - in our community and beyond. Otherwise, the victories won in the Torah may be lost today.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
We take rights for granted in America. But this summer showed us that rights are not permanent, or guaranteed…
And, we take the right to own property for granted, in 21st century America. Yet, it wasn’t always so.
In many third world nations, today, women cannot own real property. In America, for years the same held true. Women were not granted many rights until the last century.
In the biblical days, the issue of women owning property arose. But, thousands of years ago in the Torah, women were granted a right to own property.
Zelophehad had five daughters, and when he died in the desert without leaving a male heir, his gutsy daughters came before Moses and Eleazar the priest, and petitioned to receive the inheritance of their father’s possession. Moses, not certain what to do, sought Divine judgment, and God found in favor of the supplicants, saying, “If a man die and have no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughters.” [Num 27:8]
This statute was intended to maintain real property within ancestral tribes, and not allow it to pass from tribe to tribe, thus risking the land-impoverishment of one tribe and the self-aggrandizement of another. Yet, it also had the corollary benefit of establishing a revolutionary precedent: women could own property.
The radical nature of this decision was not merely in the domain of land-ownership, rather it also asserted an otherwise unheard of value: that women bore an intrinsic social and communal worth which, in the male-dominated world of the Bible, was ground-breaking. It might even be in today’s America!
Moreover, that the daughters of Zelophehad could step forward and receive a hearing with Moses further advanced their position, and that of women. In that time and place, men alone had rights to recourse. Even today in many societies, women do not have these privileges; witness Saudi Arabia.
Torah, and Judaism were not only ahead of their times, but were setting ethical standards for all time.
Now, today, such Torah pronouncements demand us to continue that march forward. The story of the daughters of Zelophehad rightfully ought charge us to work for the widest application of rights - in our community and beyond. Otherwise, the victories won in the Torah may be lost today.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
