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Divine Inspiration and Aspiration: Shabbat Message by Rabbi Greg Weisman

Shabbat Message by Rabbi Greg Weisman graphic for Temple Beth El of Boca Raton

Of the many things I love about our Jewish tradition, near the top is the fact that we are an aspirational people and ours is an aspirational tradition. Rather than limit our view to how the world is in the moment we inhabit it, we are challenged by our tradition to think of what could be, and then act to shape and fashion that imagined world.

When Sarah and Abraham left their home to travel to the land that God would show them, they did not know what the future would bring. But the Holy One promised that they would be made into a blessing and become the progenitors of a great nation. So off they went, with grand aspirations in mind.

Moses spent his adult life challenging the Israelites to be hopeful and confident that what was ahead of them was better than what was behind them. Returning to the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, was always their destination, yet the Israelites often let their minds take them back to what they knew from Egypt. The lesson? To borrow a phrase, the wonderful future we aspired to would be better than the devil we knew.

While on that journey is where we meet the Israelites in this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Pinchas. Making their way through the wilderness, they are imagining what life will be like when they arrive in the Promised Land. Part of that arrival was to include the apportionment of the lands among the Twelve Tribes, and the 601,730 Israelite men in the nation. The land would be divided by tribe, and then by clan, and ultimately to each household headed by the leading male.

There was one man, Zelophechad, from the tribe of Menashe, the great-great-great-grandson of Joseph, who had died during the journey. He was the father of five daughters, and the Torah notes that he was not part of the group led by Korach who had died for the sin of starting a rebellion against Moses. He died, the Torah says, for his own sin, and had no sons. Much to my chagrin, as the father of three daughters, the rabbis suggest that his sin was the sin of having no sons…may I be forgiven for the same.

But if I am to be held accountable for my children like Zelophechad was, may my daughters be like his.

When they learned the Land was to be given out male by male, they did not simply accept what was given to them. Instead, they pushed themselves, Moses, and the entire Israelite community, to imagine a different, better version.

Nearly two thousand years ago, the rabbis of a midrashic collection on the Book of Numbers, Sifrei Bamidbar, imagined the conversation among the sisters. “The goodness of God,” they said to each other, “is not like the goodness of flesh and blood. Flesh and blood show greater goodness to males than to females, but the One­ Who­ Spoke ­the­ World­ into ­Being is not so, but is good to all.” Inspired by that understanding of the Holy One, they went before Moses to object. The unfairness of the situation was obvious- every family in the entire nation of Israel was to get a piece of the Land, except for them! But it must have been intimidating to have to ask for an audience with Moses, as five women, in a time and a culture where men were so clearly dominant.

Finding the gumption to advocate for themselves, they also showed a level of insight and brilliance. Rather than go before Moses and complain that they would have nowhere to live once the people arrived in the Land, they framed their objection around their father. “Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son!” they implored Moses. Moses took their plea to heart, and brought it to the Holy One, who told Moses that Zelophechad’s descendants, starting with is daughters, should get a holding just like every other Israelite family.

The daughters of Zelophechad’s aspirational instincts helped them to do the hard and the right thing because they rightly believed that it is what God would have wanted to happen in that moment. While their act certainly provided them with a modicum of safety and security upon entering the land, the goodness they showed was for the memory of their late father. As each clan and family that was making its way across the wilderness, imagining a time generations later when they would be remembered by name by future generations as the one who settled the family’s plot, they feared that their father would get no such honor. So, they did the hard thing for his benefit, and became an inspiration to each generation that has come after, in how to aspire to emulate the kindness of God in our lives.

For us, we can look at the daughters of Zelophechad as paragons of feminism and challenging the status quo for the good of half of our community. That is a deeply important and inspiring message, coming from what they did. But how they did it adds the additional layer, of care and concern, of showing kindness to their father and his ancestors; that should inspire us as well. When we see inequality, when we see unfairness, when we see an opportunity to spread and share kindness with those who need it, we should heed the lesson of the daughters of Zelophechad and do the right thing, not for ourselves but for those around us, and bring our aspirations for a better world to fruition

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Greg Weisman

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