[Avodah] Bnot tzlafchad

[Liron Kopinsky]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 12:43 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> 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?
>

This does seem to be correct (that they didn't know yet), but it seems like
a pretty cruel trick to say "sure you can enter" and then define "enter" as
where they already are. Especially since Menashe didn't ask for it.

>
> 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?
>
> Like RZS said, dodeihin literally would mean they were still in the family
of Machir. That begs the question with what the 2nd pasuk quoted above is
coming to tell us though.


> 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.
>
> I don't think Moshe Rabbeinu felt that way.


> 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?
>
> It would make sense to choose the other half of the tribe. Give them the
zechut to live in EY proper, and still maintain the family connection.

Kol Tuv,
Liron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20120719/06c2e627/attachment-0002.htm>