What’s the Answer?
This week’s Torah Portion, Pinhas, is famous in part because it
contains a major reform of the Torah’s laws concerning women: The five
daughters of Zelophehad, having no brothers, are worried that their late
father’s estate will not receive his portion of the Land of Israel; they seek
to inherit in place of the sons he did not have. Moses takes their plea to God,
who assents, establishing a structure for some daughters to inherit property
from their fathers.
While much has been written
about this innovation in family law, less attention is paid to the structure of
the story. When the daughters first approach Moses, he doesn’t know how to
answer them; his taking their question to God is atypical for Moses, the
Israelites’ primary lawgiver. Indeed, while questions arise with some
regularity, in the entire Torah we find only four occasions when Moses cannot
answer the question himself and must ask God.
What does the Torah expect us to
learn from Moses’ asking God to resolve these four questions? If we cared only
for the answer, the Torah might well skip the repetition of the questions and
cut to Moses giving back God’s answer. The fact that he needs to ask for
guidance must be significant in itself.
When Moses asks God to solve the
problem that has stumped him, he necessarily admits to the Israelites that he
doesn’t have the answer. Even Moses – the greatest prophet, the wisest teacher
of all time – does not have all the answers. And yet we see from the Torah’s
narrative that his uncertainty does not diminish his stature as a leader; on
the contrary, it underscores his suitability for command.
Each time Moses admits that he
is unsure of how to proceed, he reminds the people that no matter how great he
becomes, he is still human. He opens the door for successors – beginning with
Joshua, whose appointment as leader-in-waiting also appears in this week’s parshah – by showing that a leader does
not need to be perfect. The leader can ask for help or guidance without
diminishing his or her authority. By recording Moses’ uncertainty these four
times, the Torah offers us a lesson for our own leadership, wherever we might
have reason to apply it.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Abe Friedman
