Parashat Pinhas
To See With The
Heart
The daughters of
Zelophchad teach us to see people not as objects in our lives but as subjects
of their own lives.
By Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson
The following article is reprinted with permission from University of Judaism.
In a remarkable story, the Torah relates the courage and the
integrity of five women, known collectively as the daughters of Zelophchad.
What makes this story remarkable is not only that the heroes are women, itself
a rarity in the biblical age.
What makes this tale truly astonishing is that it represents
the earliest revision of biblical law. Here, within the Torah itself, God
revises an earlier piece of divine legislation because of an overriding moral
imperative.What a magnificent precedent to
set for later generations in their dealings with halakhah (Jewish law)
as well.
The tale is worth the telling: According to a law already
established in the wanderings in the wilderness, men alone were permitted to
inherit their parents' property. At the time, no one had objected. Neither
Moses nor any of the Seventy Elders saw a problem with that procedure for
transmitting parents' holdings in the Land of Israel. After all, it was
universal custom for men to own and inherit property, to handle finances, and
to run the economy--both of household and of communities. Women lived in the
generosity of powerful men. Alone among the children of Israel, the daughters
of Zelophchad pointed out that they had no brothers. If the law were rigidly
followed, their father's family would be completely dispossessed!
Moses, responding to their complaint with characteristic
modesty, promised that he would ask God what should be the law. And God acts in
a very Godly way, taking the side of those who have been wronged, those who
have been overlooked. Our God is passionate about human dignity, and, as a
result, intervenes and changes the law. The daughters of Zelophchad do, indeed,
inherit their father's land. Why hadn't Moses, or any of the other Elders, been
able to point out this legal injustice on their own? What special trait allowed
the daughters of Zelophchad to notice an injustice and to speak out?
The medieval Bible commentator Rashi (11th century France)
explains that the story teaches us that "their eyes saw what the eyes of
Moses did not see." In this regard, our own eyes generally resemble
Moses'. Most of us go through the rounds of our lives without truly seeing. We
are understandably wrapped up in prosaic issues of our own, so we fail to take
the time to see other people as people. Instead, we wind up treating other
people like objects--a butcher is a source of meat, a teacher provides our
children with skills, and so on.
Remember, as a child, just how shocked you were to see a
teacher or your rabbi in the supermarket? Suddenly it dawned on you that they
had a life too, their existence served a larger purpose than simply their role
in your life!
Or to take another example from the supermarket, I recall my
shock the first time I saw a sticker from PETA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals) affixed to a flank steak in the frozen foods section. It
said, "Meat stinks!" Since then I've seen others that point out that
what is immaculately wrapped inside that cellophane is the carcass of a dead
animal. But it is wrapped so beautifully that we don't even think that our
dinner is a dead cow, or lamb, or chicken. Our eyes simply don't see.
People, scenery, and animals enter our worldview in terms of
what function they can perform, rather than as human beings with feelings and
problems and dreams, as living creatures, or as a magnificent natural treasure.
Most of the time, we look but we don't really see.
The daughters of Zelophchad teach us an essential lesson for
being fully human. They teach us the imperative of truly seeing--not only with
our eyes, but with our minds and our hearts as well. They teach us not to turn
away from the homeless, the elderly, the disabled, or members of other
minorities. Rather than looking at people as objects, the Torah shows us--by
way of example--that the constant struggle to be fully human is really the
struggle to see all people as people. This Shabbat, and in the future, let us
take up the gift of the daughters of Zelophchad. Let us teach ourselves to see.
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson is the Dean of the Ziegler
School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. He is
the author of The Bedside Torah: Wisdom, Dreams, & Visions (McGraw Hill).
For a free subscription to his weekly email Torah commentary, please send an
email request to bartson@uj.edu.
