Last week’s parasha included the episode of five sisters who petition to inherit their family’s land after their father’s death, since they have no brothers. Moses consults with God and the women win the right to inherit the land. This week, the case is followed up, as a new problem has arisen out of the solution – if the women inherit the land and then marry into other tribes, the land will be lost to their tribe for the coming generations.
The solution to this new problem is to require that women who inherit the land of their families “may marry anyone they wish, provided they marry into a clan of their father’s tribe…Thus no inheritance shall pass from one tribe to another, but the Israelite tribes shall remain bound each to its portion” (Num. 36:6, 9).
Limiting who some women can marry doesn’t sound good from a current perspective. But without larger context, we may assume that such limits were even more complete than they were. While only men were counted in the original apportionment of the land to the tribes, women did inherit property in the bible. As noted in The Torah, A Women’s Commentary, “the appearance of some of the [daughters of Zelophedad]’s names as place names on early clay fragments suggests that they were primary owners” of property, and that it did not become their husbands’ after they were married.
Further, documents from the Jewish community Elephantine, Egypt, include several contracts from the 5th century B.C.E. in which a father bequeaths property to both sons and a daughter, and another document that shows a man transferring half of a new property to his wife and naming their daughter and son as equal heirs. (The Torah, A Women’s Commentary, p1028).
Why think about these ancient details? At least for me, learning this kind of history makes it easier to imagine not only our vast differences but also our continuity with the families of those years so long ago. Something about that connection feels hopeful.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller
Matot-Masei (Numbers 30:2-36:13) Torah Reading July 11, 2026
July 10, 2026 by Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller • D'var Torah, Julie Saxe-Taller
Last week’s parasha included the episode of five sisters who petition to inherit their family’s land after their father’s death, since they have no brothers. Moses consults with God and the women win the right to inherit the land. This week, the case is followed up, as a new problem has arisen out of the solution – if the women inherit the land and then marry into other tribes, the land will be lost to their tribe for the coming generations.
The solution to this new problem is to require that women who inherit the land of their families “may marry anyone they wish, provided they marry into a clan of their father’s tribe…Thus no inheritance shall pass from one tribe to another, but the Israelite tribes shall remain bound each to its portion” (Num. 36:6, 9).
Limiting who some women can marry doesn’t sound good from a current perspective. But without larger context, we may assume that such limits were even more complete than they were. While only men were counted in the original apportionment of the land to the tribes, women did inherit property in the bible. As noted in The Torah, A Women’s Commentary, “the appearance of some of the [daughters of Zelophedad]’s names as place names on early clay fragments suggests that they were primary owners” of property, and that it did not become their husbands’ after they were married.
Further, documents from the Jewish community Elephantine, Egypt, include several contracts from the 5th century B.C.E. in which a father bequeaths property to both sons and a daughter, and another document that shows a man transferring half of a new property to his wife and naming their daughter and son as equal heirs. (The Torah, A Women’s Commentary, p1028).
Why think about these ancient details? At least for me, learning this kind of history makes it easier to imagine not only our vast differences but also our continuity with the families of those years so long ago. Something about that connection feels hopeful.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller