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The Daughters of Tzlofchad Speak
Ilana Kurshan
No woman is so brazen as to come
Petition Moses with her own request
But we are five. Our strength in numbers lies
We dare to hope he’ll act at our behest.
For not just for ourselves do we come forth
We seek out neither fortune nor great fame
Tzlofchad was our father. When he died
He left just us to carry on his name.
We’re not so young. Yet none of us has wed
We’re Tzlofchad’s daughters still. That’s how we’re known.
Why shouldn’t we inherit? Though not men,
We seek to call his share of land our own.
Our plea comes from our love not just for Father
But also for the land. Unlike those spies
Who quaked inside their boots and warned of giants
We long to see the land with our own eyes.
And surely Moses whose most fervent dream
Was crossing with his people to the land
Which he, their leader, longed to see himself—
We dare to hope to God he’ll understand.
For Moses is a man of God. And yet--
A man of God is nonetheless a man.
And men have far more mercy on their kind
It’s always been that way. Since time began.
But God is not like man. His grace extends
To all God’s creatures. Though we make our plea
To Moses, we direct our hearts above
To He who spoke and caused the world to be.
God of all flesh, of woman and of man,
Grant us our father’s portion in the land.
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The Talmud teaches that the Torah was given in black fire on white fire (Y. Shekalim 6:1). The black fire is the letters of the Torah scroll, and the white fire is the parchment background. In this column, consisting of a poem on each parashah, I will try to illuminate the white fire of Torah – the midrashim, stories, and interpretations that carve out the negative space of the letters and give them shape.
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