Vayikra: The Daughters of Tzelafchad: A Precedent-Setting Claim for 'Women's Rights'?

00:04 Hello to all the listeners and viewers on COL. This week we’re in Parshas Pinchas, following the Festival of Liberation on 12 and 13 Tammuz. In our parsha, there’s a very interesting story about what might seem to be the first demand for women’s equal rights. Let’s see what happened. The Torah tells us: “The daughters of Tzelofchad, son of Chefer, came forward,” and they said to Moshe: “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the group that gathered against Hashem in Korach’s assembly; rather, he died for his own sin, and he had no sons.” So their claim was: “Why should our father’s name be lost from his family because he had no son? Give us a holding among our father’s brothers.” We know that under Jewish law, a daughter does not inherit when there are sons. So what are they suddenly asking for? It’s strange. Were they really complaining about discrimination against women? Did they want equal rights for women? Wait—perhaps they would also ask to lead the prayers and say Kaddish on the yahrzeit of their father, Tzelofchad. There are laws about what women are exempt from and what women cannot do. What sort of request is this? We’ll get to that later. First, let’s see how Rashi explains all the introductory remarks to their claim. They didn’t simply come and say, “Give us a holding.” They began with an explanation. On the words “He was not among the group that gathered against Hashem in Korach’s assembly,” Rashi explains why they said this: “Since they were going to say, ‘He died for his own sin,’ they needed to say that he was not among those who complained, nor in Korach’s assembly, who rose up against Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” He wasn’t one of that group. They died too, but he wasn’t one of them. Rather, he died for his sin alone and did not cause others to sin with him. That’s why they said all this before explaining why they wanted the inheritance. The Rebbe asks several questions about this Rashi. Seemingly, the daughters used more words here

03:29 than necessary. It would have been enough to say, “He died for his sin alone.” Then I would understand that he was neither among those who complained nor in Korach’s assembly. Why go on at such length? Rashi says they wanted to say, “He died for his own sin,” so they had to preface it. But why did they have to? They could just have said, “He died for his own sin.” Or, with the word Rashi adds, “He died for his sin alone and did not cause others to sin with him.” That’s it. We would already understand that he wasn’t among those who complained or in Korach’s assembly. Let’s see what the Ramban says about this. He quotes Rashi’s wording and says, “My view, following the plain meaning,” is that they said it because they thought Moshe Rabbeinu hated Korach’s assembly more than all the other sinners who died in the wilderness. Why? Because they had risen against him and denied everything he had done. Tzelofchad’s daughters thought that, because of his hatred for them, if their father had also been part of Korach’s assembly, Moshe would not show kindness or favor to his orphans. So it was as though they were emphasizing: Moshe Rabbeinu, our father wasn’t one of your opponents. That explanation sounds a little strange. It makes political sense, but if so, it turns out that they slipped flattery of Moshe into their argument. They came to him to judge their case and said, “Look, we’re not among your opponents. Our family wasn’t part of Korach’s assembly.” If so, after being flattered like that, he should have disqualified himself from judging their case. There are those who indeed suggest that this is why “Moshe brought their case before Hashem”: he didn’t want to judge it after they had, in a sense, bribed him with flattery. But that cannot be. He brought their case before Hashem because a new law concerning a daughter’s inheritance had to be established. If it had only been

06:21 because he had disqualified himself from judging, he could have passed their case to Aharon, to Elazar, or to the rest of the Sanhedrin, and simply not judged it himself. But he did deal with the case. So what were they trying to convey? The Rebbe asks another question: Why did they need to emphasize that “he did not cause others to sin with him”? That seems to imply that if he had caused others to sin with him, he clearly would have had no portion in the Land. The Rebbe asks: How do you know that? Where do we find such a thing? Where do we find that someone who causes others to sin—certainly a grave sin, both sinning himself and causing others to sin—loses his portion in the Land as a result? Nothing says that. The spies are a different matter. It wasn’t simply because they caused others to sin. They didn’t want to enter the Land, so they were told that they would not enter. But who says that a person who causes others to sin has no portion in the Land? Those are the questions about the first part of Rashi’s comment. Rashi then continues. After saying that Tzelofchad’s daughters indicated that he had died because of a sin of his own, Rashi tells us what that sin was. He brings two interpretations. Rabbi Akiva says he was the man who gathered wood: Tzelofchad was the well-known wood gatherer found in the wilderness and put to death for gathering wood in violation of Shabbos. Rabbi Shimon says he was one of those who tried to force their way into the Land. Right after the sin of the spies, the Jewish people regretted their crying and complaining and decided to go up. Moshe Rabbeinu told them not to go up, because Hashem was not among them. But, with self-sacrifice, they said, “Whatever happens—even if we fall in battle, we’re going up.” They insisted on going up to Eretz Yisroel, and those who went were killed in battle. Tzelofchad was one of them, according to Rabbi Shimon. The Rebbe asks: In the plain meaning of the verse, there is no hint as to what his sin was.

09:03 What difference does it make, really? The main point is that he wasn’t in Korach’s assembly and he wasn’t among those who complained. He sinned—but what sin? Why does it matter? He didn’t cause others to sin with him. Where does Rashi get the idea that he might have been the wood gatherer or one of those who tried to force their way into the Land? Now, I want to clarify the question, because some people will say: “What do you mean, where does he get it? Look in the Midrash—it says so there.” We have a rule that Rashi draws from the Midrash only things that have support in the plain meaning of the verse. He doesn’t quote everything written in the Midrash. So what leads Rashi to these two possibilities about the sin for which he died? He could have left it unspecified: “He died for his own sin.” Some particular sin. What difference does it make? Then there’s the familiar question the Rebbe always asks: Why does Rashi mention the names of those giving the interpretations, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon? The Rebbe established a principle here, a novel principle of his. You don’t find other commentators discussing why Rashi mentions the name of the person who made a statement. But the Rebbe demonstrated several times that when the speaker’s identity resolves a difficulty, Rashi names him, as if to say: “Do you know why I’m saying this? Look who said it, and you’ll understand how I arrived at it.” So the question is: What is the significance here of Rashi citing Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon? And there’s the other question that always comes up: If there are two interpretations, apparently neither is perfect. The first is closer to the plain meaning, but it has some difficulty, so Rashi brings the second. The second has a difficulty too, so he brings the first. What advantage does either interpretation have over the other? And again, I return to the general question: What were the daughters trying to achieve here at all? There are laws for men and laws for women. What were they trying to change—the whole established order? To say that women

11:37 should have the same rights as men would be a change throughout the entire Torah. The Rebbe explains it like this: When they made the statement “He died for his own sin,” they did not intend merely to rule out that he had been among those who complained or in Korach’s assembly. That wasn’t their only point. They had a positive interest in making known what sin he had died for. Why? If people knew exactly what sin had caused his death, it would strengthen their claim: Why should their father’s name be lost from his family? We’ll see later why. But the principle, the assumption, is that identifying the sin that caused his death would help their claim for a holding. But wait—if so, why didn’t they say it explicitly? If he was the wood gatherer, they could have said he was the wood gatherer. If he was one of those who tried to force their way into the Land, they could have said that. Why didn’t they? The Rebbe says: They were standing before Moshe, before Elazar, before the leaders, and before the entire assembly. How embarrassing would it have been to say in front of everyone, “Our father gathered wood on Shabbos. He violated Shabbos”? Or, “Our father was one of those about whom Moshe Rabbeinu said, ‘Do not rebel’”? They could not disgrace their deceased father that way. So they had to speak by allusion. They said, “For his own sin.” What sin? They said he wasn’t among those who complained and wasn’t in Korach’s assembly; rather, he died for his sin alone. Interestingly, the Rebbe pays close attention to Rashi’s wording. If you look at the source sheet I attached to the video, you’ll see that Rashi says “he died for his own sin” twice. First he says, “Since they were going to say, ‘He died for his own sin,’” without the word “alone.” Then he says they needed to specify that he wasn’t among those who complained or in Korach’s assembly, and he returns to the phrase, “Rather, he died for his sin”—this time adding “alone.” The Rebbe notes that, at the outset, the basis of their argument was specifically the positive point. They wanted it known that he died for his own sin,

14:53 And the sin for which he died would help them in their claim to receive an inheritance in the Land. But then they needed to make clear that no one should think he had been among the complainers or Korach’s assembly, so they added, “He died for his own sin.” That way, everyone would understand what kind of sin it was: an individual sin, rather than a collective sin for which he was sentenced to death. But they could not say it explicitly. They only ruled out those possibilities, so as not to disgrace their father. Ah, you might ask: if so, how could they say before the entire congregation, “He died for his sin”? They were announcing that he had sinned—and not just sinned, but committed a sin punishable by death. Isn’t that disgracing their father? The Rebbe offers a beautiful explanation. Everyone already knew that he had died. And if someone died in the wilderness, it could be one of two things. Most of those who died in the wilderness died because of the sin of the spies. Apart from the sin of the spies, according to Rashi—and we discussed this a few weeks ago—people were not supposed to die in the wilderness. Everyone there was meant to enter Eretz Yisroel alive. That is why, when the story of those who were impure through contact with a dead person comes up, we start asking: who were they? Who had died? As we said then, according to Rashi there were no ordinary deaths in the wilderness. So since everyone knew their father had died, they could understand on their own that he had committed some sin. The daughters were therefore revealing nothing disgraceful about their father. He had died, and that was certainly because of some sin; they were permitted to say that. They were adding nothing to his disgrace. They could not say which sin it was, so they spoke by way of allusion: not the sin of the complainers and not the sin of Korach’s assembly. So the Rebbe asks: why, in fact, was it important

17:22 to them that people know he died for his own sin? What sin did he die for? Why did they need to bring it up? As Rashi says, they went further and said, “He died for his sin.” Why was it important for them to say that there had been a sin, and that this actually helped their case? How did it help them make their claim? The Rebbe explains it this way. From the wording of their claim, “Why should our father’s name be lost from among his family?” it sounds as though they were asking to receive the portion belonging to their father himself, Tzelofchad—not the portion of their grandfather Chefer. This needs a little explanation. The Gemara records a dispute over whether the Land was divided among those who left Egypt or among those who entered the Land. What is the question here? Most of those who left Egypt never reached the Land at all. The question is: were the rights to the Land based on those who left Egypt? Do you take the 600,000 who left Egypt and divide Eretz Yisroel into 600,000 portions? And if Tzelofchad had, say, five sons, would they share Tzelofchad’s one portion? Or do we say that the Land was divided among those who entered it? Then, if five sons entered the Land, for example, they would receive five portions. In other words, one could claim an inheritance in Tzelofchad’s portion, or make a claim to the portion of Chefer, who was also among those who left Egypt, and say, “We want to take the—” But the Rebbe says no: that was not what they asked for. They said, “Why should our father’s name be lost from among his family?” They wanted to inherit the portion of their father Tzelofchad, who would have received a portion had he reached the Land. Now, Rashi’s ruling is that the Land was divided among those who entered it, and Tzelofchad was not one of them. But their argument was this: if Tzelofchad had had a son, that son would have inherited his father’s portion in the Land. Right? So we stand in the place of a son. Regard us as though he had

20:14 a son. The Rebbe says their argument seems puzzling. Let’s work it out. Suppose Tzelofchad had had a son. Whose portion would he have received? Tzelofchad’s? No—we said the Land was divided among those who entered it. So a son would have received his own portion, the son’s portion, not Tzelofchad’s. What, then, do you daughters want now? There is no son. Why should you get Tzelofchad’s portion? Even a son would not have received Tzelofchad’s portion; he would have received his own. But there is no son here. So what are you asking for? Don’t you know that women do not inherit? Their claim could not have been an attempt to overturn that distinction and establish that women should inherit. The clearest proof is that no other women of Israel submitted such a request: “Why should only the men receive a portion? We women also want a portion in addition to the men’s.” Nobody made such a claim. And our Sages say that Tzelofchad’s daughters were wise women, Torah scholars. So how could they have made such a demand? What basis did they have? The Rebbe offers the following explanation on the level of pshat. The basis of their claim was Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s explicit promise to all the Jewish people before they left Egypt, in Parshas Va’eira. It says there—and I’m quoting—Shemos, chapter 6, verse 6: “Therefore say to the children of Israel: I am Hashem, and I will bring you out, and I will rescue you, and I will redeem you, and I will take you.” Then He concludes: “And I will bring you to the Land concerning which I raised My hand.” Rashi explains that this means an oath: “to swear by My throne.” “And I will give it to you as an inheritance; I am Hashem.” And Rashi says there: “‘I am Hashem’—faithful to My promise. ‘I raised My hand’—I raised it to swear by My throne.” In other words, they assumed that everyone who left Egypt had an explicit promise that they were to

23:01 receive a portion in the Land. By the way, that is the basis for the assumption that, apart from those affected by the sin of the spies, no one was supposed to die in the wilderness: they all needed to receive a portion in the Land. Hakadosh Boruch Hu had promised it. But then you might ask: what about the spies? The Rebbe says that this promise, this right that Hashem had promised, was taken away from the complainers. What was their complaint? “Why did Hashem bring us to this land?” Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells them that their punishment will fit their words, measure for measure: “As you have spoken in My ears, so will I do to you.” Would they enter the Land? No. Instead, “Your children, whom you said would become prey—they shall inherit it.” That is, their children inherit it as their continuation. So we can conclude that even in the case of those who did not enter the Land because of the sin of the spies, the promise was still fulfilled. There is a principle: Hakadosh Boruch Hu cannot retract an oath. With an ordinary promise, one might say it depended on their merit, and since they were not worthy, the promise was withdrawn. But an oath, a covenant, cannot be retracted even if those to whom it was made are unworthy. So what happened? The Rebbe says the right was not taken away entirely. It was passed to “your children,” who are considered your continuing generation. After all, the promise was made to the nation as a whole, not personally to one particular generation. Here we can add an interpretation the Kli Yakar gives on Parshas Eikev. In Parshas Eikev it says, “And it will be, because you heed” all these ordinances and observe and perform them, “Hashem your G-d will keep for you the covenant, the kindness, and the oath that He swore to your fathers.” Chassidus also asks: a covenant, kindness, and an oath are three things that do not depend on the recipient at all—whether they are worthy or unworthy. Once You have sworn, there is no going back. So why does it say that if “you heed,” He will “keep for you,” implying that if we do not, He may retract His promise? The Kli Yakar gives a lovely explanation. His promise does not disappear. “Your word will not return

26:05 empty.” The promise was made, but I did not say it would be fulfilled in your generation. If you, the generation entering the Land, observe the ordinances, then “Hashem your G-d will keep for you the covenant and the kindness.” He has not retracted the covenant or the kindness; He has passed them on to you. So here too, the Rebbe explains, the complainers and Korach’s assembly did not receive a portion because that right really was taken away from them. Why? Measure for measure. They rejected the Land. Korach’s assembly said, “Nor have you brought us to a land flowing with milk...” And the complainers said, “Why did You bring us to this land?” You don’t want it? Fine. It was taken from them, but not from the nation. Therefore, “your children” would be their continuation, and My oath would be fulfilled in the next generation, in their children. This is where Tzelofchad’s daughters came in with an interesting argument. They argued—and this is what was new about their question—that at first glance, you might think women did not inherit a portion in the Land because they were not included in the promise. Hashem had promised everyone who left Egypt, “I will give it to you,” meaning the men, while the women did not count at all. Why? Weren’t they Jewish? Didn’t they also suf—didn’t they suffer under the burdens of Egypt? So Tzelofchad’s daughters argued as follows. Women do not inherit land in Eretz Yisroel not because Eretz Yisroel is inherently unrelated to women, but because where there is a son, there is someone to carry on the father’s family line. In that case, the daughter does not inherit, because the son carries it on. The fact that a daughter does not inherit is, again, like we said: there are many mitzvos women do not perform. Why didn’t they say, “Why should we be left out of putting on tefillin?” or ask to wear talleisim like the Women of the Wall? That was not their approach. There are things that women... So if the rule were that women had no connection to Eretz Yisroel at all, there would be no claim to make. Their argument was: no, by virtue of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s promise, there is no

28:58 There is no reason women should not inherit a portion of the land. But here is the question: If the father, as a member of the generation of the wilderness, does not enter the land, how will the promise Hashem made to him be fulfilled—that He would give each of them, including Tzelofchad, a portion of the land? Through his son. The son is the next generation: “your children.” Ah, but they argued that in a case where there is no son, could it be, G-d forbid, that their father Tzelofchad would lose out on Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s sworn promise, “I will give it to you,” and it would never be fulfilled? Tzelofchad himself was not among those who received the land, despite Hashem’s oath, and there are no sons here either. So they wanted to argue that in such a case, they are the next generation, and the promise would be fulfilled by giving the land to them. Now, I ask: How did they determine that women were not excluded as a matter of principle? What were they relying on? That is why they began by ruling something out. They said, “He was not among the assembly; he died for his own sin.” What sin? Either he gathered wood on Shabbos or he was one of those who tried to ascend to the land. What were they trying to say? Those who complained and Korach’s assembly lost the Divine promise. What had they done regarding Eretz Yisroel? Their right was taken away. Interesting. So according to their view, if someone from the generation of the wilderness had been among the spies who rejected the land, and his right was taken away, then even if he had no son but did have a daughter, she would not receive a portion of the land, because that right had been taken away from him. Only “your children” would. But about their father they argued, “Our father died in the wilderness.” Why did they add that he died in the wilderness? Because if he had died in Egypt, then the inheritance would not have been promised to him at all. If he died in the wilderness, he was among those who left Egypt. So the Divine promise, made under oath, applied to him: he had to receive a portion of the land, or it had to pass to the next generation. Therefore,

31:50 they added that since he died for his own sin and was not among those who rejected the land, it could not be that the Judge of all the earth would fail to do justice and give a portion to his next generation, who in this case were female. So what if they were? The oath that Hashem would give them the land still had to be fulfilled for him. “We take the place of a son.” That was their argument. In other words, this was not a demand for equal rights or an end to discrimination between men and women. There are many laws that women are not obligated in. That was not what they came to complain about. The proof is that other women did not complain. They said, “Our father has been left without the benefit of the oath: ‘I have given it to you as a heritage.’ Everyone else has ‘your children,’ the next generation. But we have no sons in our family. So just because we are female, our father’s next generation does not deserve to receive a portion of the land? We do deserve it, so that Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s oath will be fulfilled.” With all this, we can now understand why it mattered to them to establish not only that he was not among those who complained or Korach’s assembly. They also had an interest in people knowing exactly what his sin was, because that would strengthen their claim—their grounds for arguing that he could not be completely dispossessed of an inheritance in the land. Let’s look at each possibility. If he was the wood-gatherer—and that is why Rashi chooses this explanation first, because it fits the words “for his own sin” better, in the singular—what individual sin was there? We said that people did not simply die in the wilderness unless they had incurred a death sentence. With the spies, all of them incurred a death sentence. But where do we find one person dying for his own, individual sin? The wood-gatherer. Ah, you could ask: Wait a moment, perhaps it was the blasphemer? He also died in the wilderness. The blasphemer

34:39 was the son of an Egyptian man. He had no inheritance at all, because the division went by “your fathers’ tribes”—it followed the father. So who else could it have been? Only the wood-gatherer. He was the only one who died on his own because of his individual sin. Now, when did the incident of the wood-gatherer take place? The truth is that there are two views about this in the words of our Sages. We once had a sicha about it. We spoke about the blasphemer and the wood-gatherer. There is a view in Yalkut Shimoni in the name of Rabbi Shimon. Interestingly, it is the same Rabbi Shimon who says Tzelofchad was among those who tried to ascend to the land. Why doesn’t he say he was the wood-gatherer? Rabbi Shimon says that Tzelofchad could not have been the wood-gatherer, because the wood-gatherer’s incident took place in the first year, on 22 Iyar. So what is the problem? He says the daughters had not married; it could not be that they remained unmarried for forty years. So that cannot be. But what do I learn from his words along the way? When does he hold that the wood-gatherer’s incident happened? In the first year after they left Egypt, in the second month. Do you know what happened then? This was at Marah. And Rashi says they observed the first Shabbos, and on the second Shabbos this man came and desecrated it. So according to Rabbi Shimon’s interpretation, he means the first Shabbos after Marah. At Marah they were given some of the laws of Shabbos: “There He established for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested them.” They observed the first Shabbos there; on the second, which was 22 Iyar, he already desecrated it and was put to death. So according to Rabbi Shimon, according to [unclear][?], Tzelofchad clearly deserves a portion of the land. The fact that he died in the first year proves conclusively that he was not among the spies, because the spies’ incident took place in the second year, and he had already passed away. What is the advantage of that? Why does he deserve a portion of the land? First of all, as we said, he was not connected to those who complained. But beyond that,

37:20 Rashi prefers the first explanation because it makes his sin a less severe one. Why is it less severe? Because it was before the Giving of the Torah. True, it says there that Hashem gave them some passages to engage with, to learn a little about the laws of Shabbos, but the obligation had not yet taken effect before the Giving of the Torah. So it is obvious even to a five-year-old learning Chumash that a sin committed before the Giving of the Torah is not so severe. Why, then, should he lose his right to receive a portion of the land? And if he has no sons, his daughters will be the next generation. But there is another view. Tosafos in Bava Basra says that Tzelofchad was the wood-gatherer. Note this: he was the wood-gatherer at the beginning of the forty-year period, immediately after the incident of the spies. In other words, according to this view, the wood-gatherer’s incident took place in the second year, after the sin of the spies. And why did he sin? There is a very interesting account. The Midrash says the wood-gatherer intended it for the sake of Heaven. He heard the Jewish people whispering that, since it had been decreed that they would not enter Eretz Yisroel because of the incident of the spies, they were no longer obligated in the mitzvos. Now everyone could do whatever seemed right to them. There would be no punishments. If there was no reward, there would be no punishment either. He wanted to show them that this was not so: even though they would not enter the land, they were still bound by Torah and mitzvos. So he demonstrated it by deliberately going to desecrate Shabbos, intending to be caught and then executed, so everyone would see that they were obligated in the mitzvos. According to this view, then, why does the wood-gatherer deserve a portion of the land? It was a less severe sin. True, it happened after the incident of the spies, but if the daughters were alluding to the fact that “he died for his own sin,” meaning that he was the wood-gatherer, then according to this view it was a sin committed for the sake of Heaven. That makes it less severe. There is even an extensive halachic discussion of how they could execute him. After all,

40:08 there is a rule that one is liable for performing work on Shabbos only if one needs the work itself. If someone needs wood and therefore gathers it, he is liable. But this man did not need the work. He did it so people would see him punished. That means he performed the work without needing the work itself, so according to halachah he was not liable to be put to death. The explanation given is that there was a special, one-time directive from Hakadosh Boruch Hu to execute him, even though according to halachah he was not liable to be put to death. So again, it was a less severe sin. It was not an ordinary case of Shabbos desecration. Therefore, there is no reason to take away his right under the Divine promise. That is if he was the wood-gatherer. Now let’s look at the other possibility, Rabbi Shimon’s view that he was among those who tried to ascend to the land. Why is that the second explanation? Because it says “he died for his own sin,” his sin alone. If he was among those who tried to ascend, it was not exactly his alone. It was not one person’s sin; many people committed it. But you can still say “for his own sin” even though others were with him, because he did not cause them to sin. Each of those who tried to ascend died for his own sin. There is another reason why the explanation that he was among those who tried to ascend is more... The advantage of this second explanation is that it strengthens their claim that his right to Eretz Yisroel could not be taken away. Why? What happened with those who tried to ascend? It was an act of real, conscious mesirus nefesh, of self-sacrifice, to go up to the land. True, they had sinned. They had said they did not want to go up. Hakadosh Boruch Hu was angry with them. “The people mourned.” They did teshuvah, and they said, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place that Hashem spoke of, for we have sinned.” They wanted to correct their sin. Moshe warned them: “If you want to go, go, but I am not responsible for you. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not with you.” There is

43:02 The Amalekites and Canaanites were there, “and they struck them and beat them back as far as Hormah.” They knew this, yet they went to show that they were willing to give their lives for the Land of Israel. Such self-sacrifice—not only did they agree to go up, they were willing to give their lives for the Land of Israel even though they knew they would be killed. If he was one of those who tried to go up, how could Hakadosh Boruch Hu deny him the promise He had made, “I will give you this land”? So we deserve a share in the land. The fact that women do not inherit is not because women have no connection to the Land of Israel. Rather, when there is a son, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s oath is fulfilled through the next generation, through the son. And the woman, as with many laws in the Torah, is joined to the man, so she receives her share of the inheritance with him. There is no need to— But here they argued that there was no one to inherit. So what? Would Tzelofchad be the exception? All the Jewish people received the promise “to you,” and if not to you, then “to your children,” while he would be left with nothing. Why? Give it through the women. That was the wisdom of their argument. So, to conclude, this also helps us understand why Rashi cites Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon. Rabbi Akiva is known for speaking in the Jewish people’s favor; he always looked for their merits. So when he has a choice between saying that Tzelofchad was the wood-gatherer or that he was one of those who tried to go up, he prefers to say he was the wood-gatherer, because that sin was less severe. If it was before the Giving of the Torah—and even if it was after the sin of the spies—the sin was less severe, because it was a labor not needed for its own sake, and it was done for the sake of Heaven. So it is preferable to say that he committed the less severe sin, rather than make him out to be wicked. Not so with those who tried to go up: about them it was said, “Do not rebel against Hashem.” Rabbi Shimon, on the other hand, the Rebbe says, is known for an approach to learning in which he seeks the reason behind a verse.

45:40 He prefers an interpretation that gives a reason and a logical explanation for the verse. So if we need to explain what their argument was based on—why they deserved a share in the land—let me remind you again: they did not come to ask to remove the— They did not ask for equality between men and women. Incidentally, there is an interesting proof of this. When those who were ritually impure through contact with a dead person came to Moshe to ask for Pesach Sheni, they said, “Why should we be excluded?” Why should we personally be worse off than the rest of the Jewish people? What is our fault that we were impure? We demand the same rights as everyone else. Interestingly, here they did not argue, “Why should we be excluded?” as women. They knew there are laws that do not apply to women. There are things women cannot do—certain mitzvos, certain things, certain forms of acquisition. Here they asked, “Why should our father’s name be excluded?” Our father was among those who left Egypt. He was one of those who received the promise “to you,” and if not “to you,” then “to your children,” who come in your stead as the next generation. But if he has no next generation, then we should receive it. So Rabbi Shimon prefers to say that he was among those who tried to go up, because that gives their claim greater force. Here was someone who gave his life. True, the sin there was rebellion. Moshe said not to go up, and they went up anyway. But on the other hand, why did they do it? They did it to repent for having complained earlier, and they decided to correct that through teshuvah. So their descendants, even if they are daughters, deserve to receive the inheritance in the land. And the Rebbe draws a lesson from this. What do we learn from it during the exile? The greatness of the power of teshuvah. Those who tried to go up had, in fact, done teshuvah. They regretted the past—“the people mourned,” regret for the past—and “Here we are, and we will go up,” a resolve for the future. They did teshuvah, and their teshuvah helped: first, to annul

48:37 the decree that “in this wilderness they shall come to an end, and there they shall die.” At first, the decree was that they would all die at once, and Moshe pleaded with Hashem to spread it out over time. Through the teshuvah of those who tried to go up, that decree was annulled. They also secured the future for their next generation—even the next generation of the spies: “Your children, whom you said would be taken as plunder.” The generations would continue through them, and they would be the last generation of exile and the first generation of Geulah. They would enter the land, the Holy Land, and inherit it. And may our generation soon be the generation of Geulah, when we will merit the revelation of Moshiach Tzidkeinu very soon indeed, and the entire Jewish people will enter the Land of Israel. The whole of the Land of Israel will belong to the Jewish people, and no outsiders will have any claim to it.