Five sisters - Machlah, Noah, Choglah, Milkah, and Tirzah - have a problem. Their father, Zelophehad, died in the wilderness. The good news is that Zelophehad was part of the generation that was promised a portion of the Promised Land. The bad news is that inheritance can only be passed down through sons, but alas, Zelophehad had only daughters.
So the five sisters do what sisters do - they use their intellect, legal knowledge, and solidarity to approach Moses and the rest of the communal leadership to argue their case. They plea with Moshe: "Why should our father's name be eliminated from his family when they have no sons?" And they include one mysterious fact to support their case: that their father “died for his own sin.”
What did the sisters mean? Why is it notable to die for your own sin? What sin was it, exactly? The rabbis have thoughts. They try to match Zelophehad’s sin with an unnamed sinner from elsewhere in Torah. Perhaps he sinned by gathering sticks on Shabbat or perhaps he sinned by believing the lies of the spies. In either case, the sisters are making a targeted argument: Their father may have sinned, but the sin was not against the Land, and that's what this case is about. Therefore, the portion of the land promised to Zelophehad should remain in his family name. Fast forward to the end: Moshe and the leadership agree, the sisters win their case, and women can officially inherit land.
Sounds like an inspiring conclusion, but the rabbis aren’t quite finished with this story of sisterly success. They assert that after Moses led us out of Egypt, the men revolted, complained, and in fact wanted to return to familiar, idolatrous Egypt. The Rabbis argue that it was the men who said: Let us appoint a head and we will return to Egypt (Numbers 14:4). The women, on the other hand, had none of this foolishness. Rather, they held the Land dear, (Toledot Yitzchak on Torah, Numbers 26:65:1) and knew they would never let it go even in the face of resistance from within or beyond the Jewish people.
The five sisters in our story were doing much more than arguing for their own personal inheritance. They were carrying on a generations’ long tradition of women who cling to the Land no matter what.
Rabbi Diana Fersko is the Chief Jewish Life Officer at the JCC in Manhattan.
