[Avodah] Bnot tzlafchad

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 11:46:31PM +0300, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
: Why do we tend to focus on their love of the land when they may not have
: ever even set foot in it? (presuming the women stayed behind in the
: fortresses while the men went chalutzim.)

1- You assume they knew this at the time. Didn't their petition predate
HQBH splitting the sheivet's nachalah?

In any case, Benos Tzelafchad ended up marrying "livnei doeihen
lenashim. Mimishpechos benei Menasheh ben Yoseif hayu lenashim." (Bamidbar
36:11-12) Is it possible that peshat here is that the girls didn't inded
want to settle, and thus married from [the other] families of Menasheh,
ones that got land from the territory promised to the Avos?

2- You demote eiver hayardein more than I would. It has all the laws of
maaser, terumah, shemittah, arei miqlat. In fact, shemittah deOraisa
ended with the exile of the shevatim from eiver hayardein even before
any of the other shevatim were dislocated.

On a Brisker level, looking at halakhah to the exclusion of abstract
notions of qedushah, the two lands are the same.

3- Perhaps this is even why He chose sheivet Menasheh in particular.
Re'uvein and Gad choose the fertile plains over land in EY. Hashem then
adds to them half a sheivet, thereby guaranteeing that the new sheivet
won't lose ties to the original promised land, AND placing in their midst
an influence which has such ties. Thinking out loud now, wouldn't it make
the most sense, then, to choose the people who produced Benos Tzelafchad?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv