Shalom, I am Rabbi Jonathan Ginsberg. This video is about Judaism and the development of women’s rights. This specific story I want to tell comes from the Torah portion Pinhas in the Book of Numbers., where the daughters of Zelophehad, five girls, no brothers, and their father has died, come to Moses, just imagine this for a moment. These five young girls have the courage to come to the big cheese, the most important prophet of all history, Moses, the one who talks mouth to mouth with God, Lord for Lord, and challenged the law.
Until that time, men only could inherit and girls could not, and their petition to Moses was, that it was not fair. That their father did nothing wrong, they say he was not one of the rebellious people of Korah that we just read about. So why, after his death, should his land disappear because of inequitable Torah law was essentially their complaint. And, Moses does not argue with them, he simply turns it over to God.
Now, this is interesting in and of itself that the law is seemingly not fixed, it is amenable to change based on ethics, and this story proves it according to the Torah. And God says that the girls are right, it amends the law. So we have this amazing development of Judaism of women’s rights. There is another verse in the book of Deuteronomy which says that, “He writes for her a bill of divorce”.
So even today, divorce law is not necessarily favorable to women and there are many cultures where women cannot get divorced and get no compensation. But the Jewish law a thousands of years ago, women can not be divorced against their will and they had to get compensation if they are going to get divorced. The basis of Alimony is the Jewish wedding license.
So, those are just a few of the ideas in Judaism of bridging the gap, and there are so many cultures especially in the area of world where women cannot drive, women cannot vote, women have no rights. And here you have, in Judaism from the very beginning, based on the verse of Genesis, that male and female, he created them a basic equality. Now it is true that in Orthodoxy, women cannot lead services and with man there that some of extreme Orthodox groups do not think women’s voices can be heard. It is even debated about whether Orthodox is used in going to the opera and hears a woman sing but that is an extreme view.
In general, in the main, women are treated completely equal, and have all rights that man have in Judaism, and it goes way back to the origins way in advanced in rather civilizations, try to protect women’s rights. And the story of Zelophehad, the daughters of Zelophehad, is one of the great illustrations of that principle.
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