Read on for Weekly Wisdom on parashat Pinchas by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, Or HaLev Teacher.
In Parashat Pinchas, we are introduced to the five daughters of Zelophehad. We’re told `Vatikravna b’not Zelophehad` – `and the daughters of Zelophehad came close`. They approached the Ohel Moed, the tent of meeting, with a particular ask about their ability to inherit land, because they don’t have brothers, and their father had just passed away, and they would lose out on the ability to continue to dwell in their ancestral holding were the law not to be changed.
There’s a lot that’s powerful here in this relatively short text. For our practice, there’s something profound about the way in which, as we dedicate ourselves to our practice, to sitting, to walking, however we practice, different kinds of insight may arise, and new ways of understanding become clear.
Vatikravna – the root of which is kuf-resh-bet, to come close – is, I think, what practice is deeply about.
In our particular text, the women come close because they have a particular sense of what is right and what is just. And in fact, the law changes. So too, when we really experience our own ever-changing reality directly, when we dedicate ourselves to practice and to being with ourselves, we too can come close to what is true, to what is right here, to what is right and just.
May we carry forward the courage of the daughters of Zelophehad as we practice and increase in our own insight and chokhmah, our wisdom and our deepest knowing.
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman 