{"id":54239,"date":"2019-04-23T09:53:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T06:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=54239"},"modified":"2022-11-14T18:42:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T16:42:24","slug":"the-return-of-the-five-daughters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-return-of-the-five-daughters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Return of the Five Daughters"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[430,373,381,600],"acf":{"old_id":"54239","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":37333,"related_cahpter":"204","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Like Austen\u2019s Bennet sisters and Tevye\u2019s daughters, the daughters of Zelophehad challenge their community\u2019s rules for young women - and win","content":"

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The opening sets the scene: eighteenth-century English country house estates perhaps, or a charming shtetl in Tsarist Russia. We meet the characters: five sisters on the cusp of womanhood, a father with five daughters of marriageable age \u2013 protagonists of both Jane Austen\u2019s <\/span>Pride and Prejudice<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Fiddler on the Roof<\/span><\/i>. But, as Shakespeare reminds us in <\/span>A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/span><\/i>, \u2018the course of true love never did run smooth\u2019. The middle of the story brings tension, action, drama, an insurmountable problem of cosmic proportions. The younger generation revolts against their parents\u2019 ways: daughters refuse to marry the man their father found for them, each declining to settle for a husband she knows is not right for her. Yet both these stories end with a resolution of sorts. The daughters make their choices, and their parents must live with their decisions, even if it means never speaking to their daughters again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Long before these stories, there was another family of five daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. We first meet these sisters in the Book of Numbers, as the people of Israel dwell in the wilderness. Just like the Bennet sisters and Tevye\u2019s daughters, the daughters of Zelophehad challenge their community\u2019s rules for young women. As they have no brothers, they are not entitled to inherit their late father\u2019s land. Yet they approach Moses, who does not immediately acquiesce to their request to inherit from their father, but consults with God, who agrees with the sisters. Thus the law is changed, and even though a couple of chapters later it is refined to restrict female heirs to marrying within their father\u2019s tribe, the entitlement of Zelophehad\u2019s daughters to inherit their father\u2019s land remains.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet the Torah gives us only the beginning, and the middle. For the ending of the story, we need to wait until deep in the Book of Joshua. Here, the people of Israel are no longer wandering in the desert. They have finally arrived in Canaan, the promised land. And Joshua, who has succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites, divides the land between the tribes. It is finally time for the daughters of Zelophehad to receive their inheritance. Yet, they have to ask for it. They approach Eleazar the Priest, Joshua, and the princes, explaining that \u2018God commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers\u2019 (Joshua 17:4). And thus, they are granted a portion of land belonging to Manasseh\u2019s tribe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ending of a story is not always satisfying. It is gratifying to read that the daughters of Zelophehad finally receive what God promised to them. Realising that they had to ask for it \u2013 more than once \u2013 is far less pleasant. Yet, the ending of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah\u2019s story remains inspirational. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the words of Theodor Herzl: \u2018If you will it, it is no dream\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

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