I am the founder, sole dues-paying member, and self-appointed president of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of Minor Characters in the Torah. Let me explain. We all know the names of the major-league figures: Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah; some, though not all the names of the Twelve Tribes, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam; and who can forget Pharaoh. Follow the chronology of these names and you have the basic narrative of the Torah. Along the way, these figures have to meet and reckon with a variety of people that emerge for just a brief moment or two, and are never heard from again. Without them the narrative can’t move forward. The major figures are like the great stars and planets in the sky. They are there. They are familiar. We know them. The minor figures flash across the sky of the Torah like a bright dazzling comet, and for a brief moment capture our attention. Here at the end of the Book of Bamidbar, we meet five minor figures from whom we will never again hear. Yet, it is no exaggeration to say, they cause a revolution in one area of Halacha, Jewish law, and establish a new posture for Halachic authorities and communal leaders.
This poor man Moses, he has had a lot of trouble in the desert. First his sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron, rebel. Then 10 of the 12 spies, representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, return from the Land of Israel and tell the people it is not worth it. They should all just go back to Egypt. Then Moses’s cousin Korakh rebels. Finally, Moses and the Jewish people, after 40 years, make it to the shores of the Jordan River. They are about to divide up the Land that God has promised to the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs. They are about to divide it up according to the Twelve Tribes, and in order to do that, they need to know how many people are in each tribe. So in chapter 26 we have an extended census. The moment that census ends we read:
The daughters of Zelophehad,—son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh son of Joseph—came forward. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. 2 They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the chieftains, and the whole assembly, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and they said, 3 "Our father died in the wilderness…he has left no sons. 4 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!" 5 Moses brought their case before the LORD. 6 And the LORD said to Moses, 7 "The plea of Zelophehad's daughters is just… Numbers 27:1-7
These verses are clear. Not much explanation is needed. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah bring a full stop to the administration of the Jewish people in the desert. The census must stop. The apportionment of land to each tribe cannot go further. They present their claim to Moshe. This is just one of four or five cases where Moshe decides he doesn’t really know what to do. He turns to God. The rabbis writing in the second century, in the classic Midrash, wonder about this. They present the daughters of Zelophehad in this way:
When the daughters of Zelophehad heard that the Land was to be divided according to tribes, to the males and not to the females, they gathered together to take counsel with each other. They reasoned, the compassion of those of flesh and blood is not like the compassion of Almighty God. The compassion of flesh and blood extends more to males than to females. But the One, who spoke and brought the world into being, He is not like that at all. Rather His compassion extends equally to males and females. His compassion is for all of His creatures. As it says, ‘God nurtures all life’ (Psalm 136:25), and ‘God is good to all and His compassion is on all of His creatures’ (Psalm 145:9).
With this midrash, the rabbis of the second century explain why it is that Moshe had to bring the claim of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah before God. Indeed the rabbis tell us that God declares, “Wonderful was the claim of the five daughters of Zelophehad, because on their account, a (new) section of the Torah is now inscribed before Me on high. How fortunate is a person whose claim is acknowledged by God.”
Well, it isn’t just that this passage gives us property rights for women in their own name for the first time in Western law, something not achieved in many Western democracies until quite recently. It also sets forth a standard for those who would make decisions that affect the lives of individuals. It is the Test of the Daughters of Zelophehad. A Jewish judge or rabbinic authority, or communal leader has to have the divine standard. Only the Creator, who brings all life into being, has equal compassion for all of His creatures, for old and young, for men and women, for boys and girls, for learned and ignorant, for wise and foolish, and even for Litvaks and Galitsianers!
All this we owe to the initiative of five young women, orphaned by the death of their father while wandering in the desert, whose comet shoots across the sky of the Torah, burning ever so brightly for just a few verses, and then is gone. What they accomplished is with us to this very day both in Jewish and Western law. So, as president of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of Minor Characters in the Torah, please try this year to remember their names: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, thus gaining one year free membership in the Society.
