Okay, we're in the desert.
It's thousands of years ago.
Years before the Suffragettes,
eons before the Women's Rights moment,
and way before the
History of the Traveling Pantsuit.
It's hot. It's dry.
A bunch of drama has just gone down.
Loose morals, idolatry, an angry God,
24,000 people dead of a holy plague.
Pinchas, who this parsha is named after,
calms everyone down by flying into
a totally holy rage and killing two lovers
who may - or may not -
have been doing something
very inappropriate.
With a spear.
Through the both of them.
Ready for some more drama?
Zelophehad, one of the Elders
of the tribe of Menasheh,
has to go and die.
We don't know why
the Torah introduces him,
and then, three lines later,
he's kicking the bucket.
Now, homey has five daughters -
Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzach -
and, would you believe it?
Not a one of them is married.
For the gals, this does not bode well.
Why? Well, because,
according to the laws of the time,
women couldn't inherit property.
When a man died, his property
automatically went to his sons.
No sons? The estate would go
to his brothers or his parents –
but not his daughters.
Zelophehad's daughters were virtuous.
They were wise and powerful women,
so what did they do?
They went to the Tent of Meeting,
in front of all the chieftains
and the whole congregation,
and petitioned Moses and Aaron's son -
the priest Elazar, like,
"Why should the name of our father
be done away from among his family,
because he had no son?
Give us a portion along with
our father's brothers."
They made a rock solid case,
and reminded Moses and Elazar
that their father died as a good man,
not one of those fools
who rebelled with Korach.
What seems like an obvious case today
had never been raised at the time,
so this was huge!
Moses sensed the enormity of the issue,
so he went right to God
and asked God what to do.
God knows what's up.
So God goes back to Moses and says,
"The plea of Zelophehad's daughters is just.
You should give them
an inheritance along with their uncles."
In other words: God votes
with the Daughters of Zelophehad.
Then, God goes and takes it a step further,
and actually amends the laws of inheritance,
the laws of the Torah,
to take the women into account.
God tells Moses that
"If a man dies without leaving sons,
you must transfer his property
to his daughters."
What's totally awesome about the story
of the Daughters of Zelophehad is that,
even though they were
on an unprecedented tip,
before they said anything,
nobody in the entire, million-plus
person caravan of the Children of Israel
had ever said anything about this.
But, when the Daughters of Zeleophehad did
nobody questioned them.
They went straight to Moses,
and Moses took their issue
up with God directly.
These women protested
their unfair treatment, and as a result,
the laws were changed
for all people thereafter.
Awesome.
There was one stipulation.
A few Torah portions later,
some high ranking men
from the tribe of Menasheh
complained to Moses that
if the daughter's of Zelophehad
marry husbands who are part
of a different tribe, then the their land
- the land that's supposed to belong
to the Tribe of Menasheh forever -
would become part
of that other tribe's property.
Okay, that's not fair.
So, Moses decided that the daughters
could marry whomever they wanted
as long as they were part
of the Menashe tribe.
Yeah, it's a bit weird to tell the daughters
that they have to marry their cousins,
even if they might be
twelfth or fifteenth cousins.
But they stood up for
what they believed in, and they got it.
Baby steps!
Producer: Sarah Lefton
Animation Director: Nick Fox-Gieg
Animation: Colleen MacIsaac
Editorial Director: Matthue Roth
Theme Music: Tim Cosgrove
Written and narrated by Hesta Prynn
Sound Recording: Gabe Schwartz