Best ways to make Change? Mattot Maasei 5785
There are many ways to make change – incrementally, slowly, slowly, or rapidly and quickly, breaking anything that might resist the onslaught and worrying about the collateral damage later. In this week’s parsha, mattot- Ma’asei, we have a reiteration of a project of change that we first heard about in last week’s parsha. The change agents are measured and considered in their approach. And this is why Rashi on Numbers 27: 5 following Sanhedrin 8 a says that even though it would have been fitting for Moses to write this law, the change agents themselves achieved the merit of having it written for them. And they are praised for this, in Bava Batra 119b that they are “wise, interpreters of verses and righteous,” which seems quite high praise for those who might otherwise be slighted as changemakers or radical or dangerous for appealing a law they feel is unjust.
Yet in a well organized and just society, there is an appeal process that leaves all litigants satisfied. And those in leadership are able to admit the limits of their knowledge. The case of the daughters of Tzelofchad is one of four cases in the Torah where Moses is unsure how to adjudicate and turns directly to God. The others are the case of the mikallel, the blasphemer, in Leviticus 24:10-22; those unable to bring the Passover sacrifice at the proper time in Numbers 9: 6-14; and the case of the unnamed wood gatherer on the Sabbath in Numbers 15: 32-36. In all cases, Moses needs a period of time to go before God and ask about the law as in the first discussion of it in last week’s parsha.
The daughters of Tzelophad in Numbers 27:1-11 bring their case before Moses in a measured collected voice, “let not our father’s claim be lost… give us a holding(ahuzah)(27:4).” By phrasing their ask not in terms of something they wish for but in terms of what should belong to their father, what his rights should have been.
The question is: was their argument enough? Certainly, as modern Jews, we don’t feel that enabling women to be placeholders and keep the land for a generation in order to pass along to male offspring.
But the value in the story is in both parts of it, Numbers 27 and Numbers 36. They complement each other. The complaint made by the five sisters is that the situation as it exists is unfair. They are able to speak up, express their concerns and are heard. Moses brings their judgment close( a literal translation of the verb in Numbers 27:5 that means both “to offer” and “to bring close” ) to God and in verse 7, the correctness of their claim and how they have spoken is posited. The intellectual argument has been made and the precedent established.
The value of chapter 36 is in the follow up, the demonstration of how this ruling will be applied practically. It isn’t enough to have the decision; there has to be a way to carry out the law and put it in practice. So the laws of chapter 36 telling the daughters of Tzelophchad that they must marry within their tribe so the inheritance remains, while not as exhilarating as the thrill of knowing they are right – even God said so!- but are equally important in ensuring that they do in fact get to pass their father’s land to their sons.
This is the very last law in the book of Numbers, after which we are told, “These are the commandments and regulations that YHWH enjoined upon the Israelites, through Moses, on the steppes of Moab, at the Jordan near Jericho.” The work of enabling each member of society to bring an objection to a law or application of a law which is unfair, ensuring a proper hearing and then enacting a method of having that ruling continue to be applied is the work that must be done before the Jordan River is crossed. A Promised Land will only remain so when all its members are allowed and encouraged to note their objections to any unfair applications of the law or violations of the civil rights of themselves or others.
The work of these sisters is both incremental and radical. Radical in a shifting of the idea of who can possess land and incremental in that they themselves are only placeholders. Yet as gradual as the change is, it opens a space not only for an entrance into the promised land but for future changes.
The Sifrei 133, as quoted by Tamar Kadari for the Jewish Women’s Archive, has the sisters saying to one another, “The Omnipresent’s compassion is not like that of flesh and blood. Flesh-and-blood creatures have greater compassion for males than for females. But the One who spoke and the world came into being is not like that. Rather, His mercy extends to all, to the males and to the females, as it is said [Ps. 145:9]: ‘The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is upon all His works.’” The future we can look forward to is one of radical equality where men and women are equally recipients of God’s mercy; this can come about through changes both large and small.