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Pinhas Women are singled out by name in some unusual ways in this week's portion. In the first part of the portion, we pick up the end of another of the many religious rebellions described in the book of Numbers. Last week, the tale began with the Children of Israel becoming sexually involved with Moabite women, who drew them into the worship of a god called Baal Peor, or perhaps whose ritual practice was sexual. With Moses and the people assembled to bewail this, an Israelite brings a Midianite woman into his tent in plain sight. Pinhas, a grandson of Aaron, goes in and kills them both. This act is treated as proper and heroic. As this weeks portion begins, we learn that this killing stops God's wrath and prevents the total destruction of the people. Then the names and tribal affiliation of the dead lovers are presented: the man was Zimri, son of a tribal chief of Simeon, and the woman was Cozbi, daughter of a Midianite tribal chief. Then follows the listing of a complete census of the remaining people who will divide the land. We find tribe and clan, twelve times over, listing the names of all the men due to inherit portions of land. But there are two exceptions. Asher, one of Jacob's sons, is mentioned to have had a daughter named Serah, although no descendants of hers are listed. And more famously, Zelophehad (tslof-had), a sixth generation descendant of Jacob, is mentioned as having five daughters and no sons. All their names are given, and given again in the next chapter: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. There is an account of these women bringing their case before Moses: "Our father died in the wilderness. Heleft no sons. Let not our fathers name be lost to the clan just because he had no son!" (Numbers 27:3-4) Moses does not rule at once, but takes this question directly to God, who replies: "The plea of Zelophehad's daughters is just &endash; transfer their father's share to them." (Numbers 27:7) For modern women studying Torah and looking for spiritual guidance and insight, the portrayals of women can be difficult to relate to. An ancient tribal society is described in which women are always attached to male relatives. They hold no official office. Tribal heritage traces through the father's line. Rarely are women explicitly addressed or mentioned. Women have several choices about how to understand this. For many generations, it was unquestioned that women ranked lower than men in society. The Bible could be used to validate this arrangement as God's preference. Another approach is articulated by some modern feminists, who tend to dismiss the entire Bible and Western religions as being hopelessly mired in an authoritarian, patriarchal outlook that invalidates all claims that it presents a truthful, just, transcendant law for all time. The Reconstructionist view considers that over time, our religion and society evolve and progress in understanding. In each phase of our history, we have absorbed important new ideas and changed our practices and beliefs accordingly. We left sacrifice behind for worship through prayer. We redefined our holidays to have less of an agricultural basis when we were no longer farmers in the land. We developed a complex way of adapting the laws of the Torah to the demands of the lives of later generations in such a way that we did not dismiss the original constitutional document of our people, but were not particularly confined by it either. Our prayers and melodies and folktales adapted forms of the societies in which we were embedded. Our business practices changed with the economy. Our marital laws changed over time. Jewish lineage changed from being traced through the father to being traced through the mother, and then in modern times, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews moved to accept patrilineal descent again. The founder of Reconstructionist thought, Mordecai Kaplan, took this evolution to be a positive vital force that helped Judaism to survive. He considered it an imperative to help this evolution along by consciously adapting new and better ideas into Judaism. Moses was not a democrat or a feminist, but Kaplan saw that democracy was an important improvement on autocracy. Equality of women increased the meaning of justice for all. Kaplan's daughter Judith was the first public Bat Mitzvah, in 1922. Reconstructionists recognize that the generations described in the Bible inherited this social system of male authoritarianism from pre-Israelite people. We look at scenes like the attention given to Zelophehad's daughters' rights as evidence of a moral insight that transcended common social practice, even in ancient times. We look at how often it is not the elder son who becomes the important leader, but the second or the eleventh or the third. This could be seen as a quiet subversive critique of blind authoritarianism; God's choices are not confined to the habits of social systems. God chooses the right leaders on another basis entirely. So rather than accepting or dismissing what appears to be a very secondary role for women in the Bible, we look at the Torah as situated in a particular time and place where social attitudes were different than they are now. We look for truth that still resonates, and dont feel bound by practices that are obviously archaic or unjust. As we like to say, we take the Torah seriously but not literally. And we believe this is, to some extent, the case for most Jews. Even the most devoted practitioners of strictly halachic Judaism do not practice animal sacrifice, or keep slaves, or kill those who fail to observe Shabbat, or put women suspected of adultery through the ordeal described in Numbers 5:16 and following. The only real difference between Reconstructionism and more traditional approaches is that we are more audacious about making changes, often acting as kind of a bell weather for changes that are gradually widely adopted, such as the Bat Mitzvah. We understand our people always to have been struggling to find and carry out the will of God, and that it serves our people best to continue that struggle as fearlessly and honestly as possible. We believe that our boldness is one thing that will preserve the vitality of our people. Rabbi
Alexis Roberts |
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