Pinchas

The daughters of Zelophehad had previously been disenfranchised by the system but were able to advocate for themselves and not only did God heed their request, God changed the law entirely. We must act as the daughters of Zelophehad and reconcile the injustices we find.

We find in our tradition that God dwells not in the destruction, but in the moment right before rebuilding.

I would like to see us reclaim what women’s rights can mean – and note that our tradition supports our demand to be seen as fully human, however we identify.

According to the Netziv, the brit is meant as a healing salve. God knows the ways committing acts of violence may leave a permanent scar on those who commit them. Perhaps God is speaking from experience. 

Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, the daughters of Zelophehad, recognize and name another crisis, which is that the inheritance laws are set so that families with only daughters are unable to inherit land and instead their families lose their access to land. The five women respond powerfully to the crisis of their father’s death, and a structural shortcoming, with an eye towards intergenerational shifts rather than short-term reform.

Rabbi Maya Glasser points to the importance of recognition, whether with Zelophehad's daughters in Parshat Pinchas, or those in solitary confinement in our own day.

Rabbi David Ackerman on Pinchas' two distinct visions of leadership, and two sharply divergent paradigms of proper behavior on the part of a leader.

Zeal—In this day many of us are fired up. It is easy to see the injustice. It shouts at us every time we open our Facebook feeds, its red face looks up at us from the newspapers at our feet. We march, we sing, we chant. We scream out in agony demanding change. A while...

July has been a hard month. Elie Weisel passed away. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were senselessly shot and killed by policemen. Women wearing tallit, kippot, and tefilin while praying with the Torah were shouted down and called “Amalek” by fellow Jews at the Kotel. Eight police officers, five in Dallas and three in Baton...

“Hope is essential to our capacity to create justice. We have to believe in things we have never seen.” These are the words of Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an advocacy group that opposes mass incarceration and racial injustice. In the face of the racially motivated murder of nine...