I am attracted once again to the daughters of Tzlofchad. They are the five sisters whose father had no son to inherit from him, and so, when the time came for land distribution and they saw that only men were receiving inheritances, they came forward before Moshe and the elders and asked that they, too, the daughters, be given a portion in their father’s name. Moshe did not know what to do ,and so he brought their case before God (Numbers 27:1-5). God said – ken bnot Tzlofchad dovrot. Ken, yes – the daughters of Tzlofchad speak correctly (Numbers 27:7). They are right. Absolutely right.
Limitation of Human Authority
I want to focus in on this moment of Moshe not knowing and God affirming the view of these women, to notice the limitation of human authority, even the highest and wisest of human authorities, our beloved teacher Moshe. Moshe is still a human who cannot know or understand everything. And therefore, it is essential, in order for truth to continue to be revealed in the universe, it is essential that ordinary people, even women, perhaps especially women, trust their own sense of what is right and come forward with it, speak it courageously into the world.
Not Listening To Ourselves
Pausing here to check in with yourself around this issue of trusting what feels true to you. When you read or hear something from an expert or respected friend that does not sit well with you, what happens inside? Do you hold on to your own truth? Do you listen and trust yourself? Or do you assume that you are wrong and beat yourself into submission, squashing the alternative view inside by criticizing yourself into collapse? We have been socialized into not listening to ourselves and assuming others know better, handing over our power and knowing. For many of us this has been going on for so long that we have a hard time discerning what it is our souls are saying; our own truth has become a faint whisper that we experience as discomfort or depression because it has not been allowed proper expression.
What Only You Can See
But what if God needs us to contribute our truth? What if the world is incomplete without it? What if there is something that only you can see that no one else can see? Rashi says here — magid shera’atah einan mah shelo ra’atah eino shel Moshe. This teaches that their eye, the eye of these women, saw what Moshe’s eye did not – maybe could not – see.
Uncovering a Piece of God’s Torah
Your view, like that of the Tzlofchad daughters, is needed to fill out the full truth of God in the world. According to Rashi, when God heard what the women were saying, God said – kakh ketuvah parsha zu lefanay bamarom. Just so is this parsha written before Me on high. Ah, right, God says. That’s what it says in My Torah. The sense is that there is a divine Torah up in heaven that holds God’s fullest truth, and that these women intuited a certain aspect of it that had been missing from Moshe’s version down below. They somehow knew how God’s Torah read. Just so, God says. They know the secret.
Revelation is pictured here as an evolving dynamic process that requires our participation, our uncovering of further aspects of God’s hidden Torah and drawing them out, a process of correction and repair and redemption that involves the earth gradually coming into greater alignment with heaven. It is a gradual evolution of understanding that can only be revealed through us, through our willingness to trust, as the Tzlofchad women did, the truth of our own eyes and hearts and souls.
Something divine wants to reveal itself through you. How does this idea land for you? It can feel both empowering and frightening, like a shudder through your body, how much you are needed, the power and responsibility of it. It is easier to just sit passively and receive the truth from Moshe and other authorities and experts. But what if there is something you see that they can’t see and God needs you to offer that? What if you hold an essential piece of God’s truth as it is written in the heavens? Not alone necessarily. The daughters of Tzlofchad came in a group of 5. Maybe we uncover a piece of God’s hidden Torah together, strengthening it in one another as we dare to speak for it.
Ready
Sometimes I get a sense of a new understanding unfurling before us from all different corners of the universe, some previously unseen aspect of God’s Torah that is wanting to shine through at this moment. At this moment – as if it is ripening, getting ready to drop from the tree. Indeed, he word ken, right or appropriate, is related to nachon and muchan, meaning ready. Ki nachon hadavar me’im ha’Elokim (Genesis 41:32). For the thing is divinely ready to come into fruition right now.
The divine process of redemption is a slow gradual one, moving in a certain direction over long spans of history, gradually evolving into the ideal state in slow steps, each one coming into the world when it is ken and nakhon, it is right and ready, like a seed taking its time to sprout. Indeed, one of the first uses of the word ken in the Torah is when God says to the earth – tadshe ha’aretz deshe – let the earth sprout grasses and blossoms and trees. Vayehi khen. And it was so (Genesis 1:11). It was ken, the right moment to emerge and grow out of the earth. So it is with us and our evolving understandings, both personal and communal. They grow and come gradually into full ripeness, becoming ken in their own time as we water them with our patience and courage.
What The Tzlofchad Women Understood
What kinds of intuitions and knowings are we talking about here? What was it that these women saw that Moshe could not see? The midrash Sifre Bamidbar (133) tells it this way: The daughters of Tzlofchad gathered to take counsel with one another, saying: God is not like flesh and blood. Humans of flesh and blood care more about men than women, but the One who spoke and the world came to be is not like that, that One has mercy upon all equally. As it says in Psalms, Tov Hashem lakol. God is good to all, verachamav al kol ma’asav, and God’s mercies are upon all of God’s creations (Psalm 145:9).
What was it that these women knew that Moshe did not yet know? What was their piece of God’s Torah that was ripe to be unveiled through them at that moment? It was the idea of radical equality, the notion that God cares equally for all creations, male and female alike. The fact that contemporary flesh and blood humans were not manifesting this divine truth did not discourage these Tzlofchad women. God loves us all, they proclaimed. It cannot be otherwise.
The Vision of Equality
It moves me to see how these women chose to inhabit the divine mindframe, to stay connected to the divine truth of equality even in a cultural reality that was so distant from it. I know we have come far since then – perhaps partly through these women’s efforts – but I also know that we still live in a flesh and blood world of inequality in many ways (not just with respect to women).
I wonder if we could take a moment to honor the piece of God’s Torah that these women understood. Tov Hashem lakol. God is good to kol, to all, God does not make distinctions as we do, just goodness overflowing out to everyone, no scarcity or restriction or division. Ve’rachamav al kol ma’asav. There is no limit to rachamim, to mercy or compassion; no one needs to deserve it or earn it through comparative levels of suffering; there is plenty to go around; it falls naturally upon all of God’s creatures, big and small. Maybe imagining that divine goodness and compassion as a vast endless ocean, and immersing yourself and everyone you know and don’t know in those waters of care, friend and foe alike, animal and mineral as well as human, all of God’s creations, ma’asav, floating together and being nourished and held for a moment. This was the Tzlofchad women’s dream.
Starting With Yourself
Coming back to reality, you might say – but we are so far from that vision. What are we to do? Well, the daughters of Tzlofchad, what did they do? They spoke up for themselves. They asked for what they needed. This is important. They did not exclude themselves from God’s goodness. They did not say – we’ll fight for someone else first. Other people need it more. No, they started with themselves, giving themselves permission to ask for what they needed, to reclaim their voice, to believe in their right to take space and receive God’s mercy and kindness. They said – divine inclusion and care begin right here, with me, with my own empowerment.
Not Selfish
Here again I think these women defy conventional wisdom. We are taught by human authority that it is selfish to ask for what you need, to stand up for yourself, to assert yourself on your own behalf. But is that God’s truth? What happens here when the daughters of Tzlofchad stand up to their full height, vata’amodnah (Numbers 27:2), and claim their voice and their right to take space? God says yes. God affirms them. That’s right, God says. That’s the way. Stand up tall and claim your space. You, too, deserve My love and compassion. It’s not like they told you growing up, that you should shrink into the background and disappear, that others always come first. It’s not selfish to do this. It’s important. It’s right.
God’s Joy
Can you feel God’s joy at their standing up? See what happens when you do it. Don’t exclude yourself, whoever you are, male or female. Kol, all, doesn’t mean only men, but it also doesn’t mean only women. Stand up and take space, claim your right to be here as an equal member of God’s creations, fully inhabit yourself, try out your voice, maybe even shout – “I am here!” (A version of hineni). Stretch into your body, becoming as tall as the special elongated letter nun in our text (27:5), becoming yourself in all your fullness. Stick your chest out and be proud. Let God’s loving voice say ken, yes, to you. Don’t expect other humans to say yes. It’s complicated with other humans, but God is indeed saying yes to your standing up. God delights in your aliveness, in your self assertion, in your courage to be yourself.
Can you hear God’s laughter? You got it, God chuckles, you figured out My secret, another part of My hidden Torah – that it is ok to be yourself, no, not just ok, that I want you to be yourself, to love yourself, to ask for what you need, to stand up tall and proud and claim your place. It’s not just others that are important, but you. Isn’t that crazy? That God says yes to all of that? That we thought it was otherwise? That we thought we were being selfish when in fact God delights in our delight in ourselves, cheering us on as we learn to do it more confidently.
A Love Fest
It’s like a giant party where all the people and animals and plants are so proud of themselves, shining and brimming with self confidence and contentment and love, so that good vibes are overflowing everywhere, laughter bubbling up and spreading through the room, everyone nodding to one another: Ha, I matter, you matter, we are all in this love fest together..
Can you catch a whiff of that joy, that lightness, that overflow of love? It’s all the same, loving yourself and others. That’s another one of God’s great secrets that is being revealed now, ripe and ready for the picking. It’s all the same, loving yourself and others. Love is love. Goodness is goodness. Tov Hashem lakol, God is good to all. Make yourself part of that all, include yourself in that divine goodness, and it will take up residence in you, it will inhabit you and overflow from all your pores and become who you are. And even if that is not yet fully true for any of us, believing in it, sensing that possibility, taking in God’s encouraging call as we make our way: ken, yes, you’re doing great. That’s right. That’s exactly right. That’s how it’s written in My Torah.
With gratitude to the Tzlofchad women and their Torah as it continues to ripen and reveal itself in this moment through all of us.
Photo by Ivo Matijevic at Pexels
