Parshat Pinchas: Equal Opportunities (c. 1300 BCE)
I don't think it would be a generalization to say that many Jews have an abiding interest in history. This is not to suggest that people who aren't of the faith don't share this interest, but due to the rhythm of the Jewish year and its focus on history, we find ourselves delving into our past more frequently than we probably realise.
From dipping our greens into the saltwater of the Passover tears and breaking our teeth on matzah, to remembering the Maccabees' victory through munching our way through too many donuts, to remembering to forget to remember the evil Haman via his Hamantaschen (which symbolise his ears/hat/pockets - delete as per your own understanding). Judaism does history in a grand style and, even if you don't partake of the above too often, we don't need to journey too far to bring us to the delicious weekly Challah which reminds us of the extra portion of Manna that our ancestors received because of Shabbat.
In short, we 'get' history.
History, by
its very nature lends itself to the concept of anniversaries. Each year seems to bring with it an
anniversary of some sort or another. I
guarantee that within the next few months, both the Jews and the general
population at large will be reminded of something or other that took place, 10,
20, 30, 40, 50....100 years ago. To be
honest, without anniversaries, life would be rather dull and understanding the
significance of certain significant anniversaries helps to ground us and remind
us that, despite all this as going on, we have experienced other very difficult
times too.
This year of 2020 will itself go down in history as a year that I guarantee no-one who is alive and old enough to understand its significance, will ever forget. It is also the 75th anniversary of both the liberation of the Concentration Camps and the end of the Second World War (I'm including both VE and VJ days). It's also the fortieth anniversary of the killing of John Lennon and the 30th of the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam which led to the first Gulf War to name a few of the many red-letter days that we will be recalling over the next half-year.
On a personal basis, it is the 30th anniversary of two seminal events that shaped my life.
Back in June 1990, on Monday the 25th, I passed my driving test - first time noch! Being able to drive has impacted my life in a way that few other skills could achieve. It has allowed me to take on jobs that I would not have been able to undertake had I not owned a car and visit places that would have been too difficult to reach by other means. Passing my driving test thirty years ago literally changed my life.
In October of the same year, I entered University for the first time and it helped to shape the person that I am today. This is not to suggest that University is suited to everyone because each of us carves out our own path in the world. I can only speak for myself and having reflected on where I started and where I am today, I know that, in hindsight, it was one of the most significant stages in my life.
Although I loved being a student, if the truth be told, the topics I studied didn't exactly fire me up with a great deal of enthusiasm. I opted for a Degree in Business Studies which meant that I had to study a wide variety of subjects ranging from micro and macroeconomics to statistics and organizational psychology. That being said, my favourite subject was Business Law, which, though it was the most challenging of all the courses I took in my first year, also proved to be the most rewarding.
I don't remember many of the essays I had to write throughout the duration of my three-year programme of study, but one that does stay in mind was learning about the Equal Pay Act (1970) in terms of its effectiveness in addressing the imbalance of equality in the way that men and women were rewarded for carrying out the same work.
I hope you will forgive me for not being able to recall the exact context on how I used the information I gleaned from the Act, but I do recall how much its subject-matter bothered me. As someone with an innate sense of fairness, I couldn't comprehend why men and women were being treated so differently when it came to the contents of their respective pay-packets. That I recall such detail after all these years reminds me of how much that knowledge affected me. In the years before Google made life so simple, one had to read through an Act (or if you were lucky, your lecturer might have given you a handout with a summary, if it wasn't already referenced in your text book).
Alongside this Act, we also had to learn about the contents of the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) and the Race Relations Act (1976). In 1990, these three Acts were the only Legislation in place to address Equality.
With the passage of time, The Equalities Act (2010) served to bring these Acts (as well as numerous others that were passed in the following years) under one umbrella. So, in terms of this discussion, this year marks both the 50th year of the passing of the Equal Pay Act and the 10th since its replacement was enacted.
One would have thought that, with all these Acts, women and men would be treated equally when it came to both their salaries and their positions in the workplace. Unfortunately, this is still not the case. In January of this year, the BBC news presenter Samira Ahmed won an employment tribunal she brought against the BBC where she claimed that she had been paid £700,000 less for the same kind of work being undertaken by Jeremy Vine.
“The
tribunal judgement said: “The difference in pay in this case is striking.
Jeremy Vine was paid more than six times what the claimant was paid for doing
the same work as her.”
~~~~~~~
The Israelites were residing on the Eastern banks of the River Jordan waiting to enter the Promised Land. Gd had commanded Moses to take another census of all males over the age of twenty, with the subtext that they were to be apportioned the land, tribe by tribe and within each tribe, their individual family allotments. The total figure was six hundred thousand, one thousand and seven hundred-and-fifty souls (a number which doesn't include women and children) This is a large number of people!
We learn the following in the next few verses (and some additional information in the Book of Devarim/Deuteronomy)
(52) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, (53) “Among these shall the land be apportioned as shares, according to the listed names: (54) with larger groups increase the share, with smaller groups reduce the share. Each is to be assigned its share according to its enrolment. (55) The land, moreover, is to be apportioned by lot; and the allotment shall be made according to the listings of their ancestral tribes. (56) Each portion shall be assigned by lot, whether for larger or smaller groups.”
(17) Instead, he must accept the first-born, the son of the unloved one, and allot to him a double portion of all he possesses; since he is the first fruit of his vigour, the birth right is his due.
In both of the above quotes, the apportionment of the land passes from the father to his sons with the firstborn son being a gifted a second parcel of land. There is no mention of any such arrangement for daughters, which makes the following episode so interesting...
(1) The daughters of Zelophehad, of Manassite family—son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh son of Joseph—came forward. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. (2) They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the chieftains, and the whole assembly, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and they said, (3) “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the factions, Korah’s faction, which banded together against the LORD, but died for his own sin; and he has left no sons. (4) Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!
Who was Zelophehad? Our Rabbis (Chazal) are divided as to the identity of this gentleman.
Some say that he was the man who was caught carrying sticks on Shabbat, which we read about in Parshat Shelach Lecha a few weeks ago (the episode is described in Numbers 15:32-36). Others state that he was amongst the men who left the encampment (after Gd told the people that they would die in the desert over the forty-year period) and tried to enter the Promised Land before being massacred by the Canaanites.
His daughters are asking a fundamental question, “We are his only heirs and as women, don't we too have the right to inherit our father's land?”
If we refer back to my discussion, one can see that these five brave ladies are asking exactly the same question as Samira Ahmed. Why should they, as women, be treated any differently to men when it comes to their entitlement to an inheritance that is due to them?
Additionally, their rationale that they too want to inherit the land of Israel (or Canaan as it was known then), demonstrates a view that is in polar opposition to the complaints that Moses' had had to endure for four decades regarding how some people want to return to Egypt. These women want to go to Israel!
Our Rabbis tell us that they came to see Moses and Elazar (Aaron's heir) in the Beit Hamidrash (study house) where Moses had been studying the laws of Yibum (the Levirite marriage where the widow of a childless man is to marry his brother to further the continuation of the family line through their son). An Aggadaic Compilation from around the 11th Century CE, known as the Yalkut Shimoni provides a fascinating narrative:
The five
women said five different things:
1. The first
one (Mahlah) said, “Our father died in the Wilderness.”
2. The second
one (Noah) said, “He was not one of the faction, Korah’s faction, which banded
together against the Lord.”
3. The third
one (Hoglah) said, “But he died for his own sin - he was the one who gathered
sticks.”
4. The fourth
one (Milcah) said, “And he has left no sons.”
5. The fifth one (Tirzah) concluded saying, “Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!”
The women's
petition was carefully thought out.
1. Mahlah's comment that he died in the Wilderness referred to the fact that he had left Egypt with Gd's initial promise that he would reach his destination in the land 'flowing with milk and honey'.
2. Noah knew how Moses' felt about those who had rebelled against him (Chazal tells us that this revolt affected Moses' more than any of the others as it had emanated from his own clan) and wanted him to know their father had not been involved, which would help to further their case.
3. Hoglah said that he had died as a result of his own sin and no-one else's and so he had already been punished without his soul being denied a place in the world to come.
4. Milcah explained the rationale for their approaching Moses' in the first place and finally,
5. Tirzah appealed to Moses' to let the women rightfully claim their inheritance.
Moses appreciated their plea and responded by quoting his understanding of the Law, that only sons can inherit from their fathers. They question why this is the case. He replied, “Because you are women.”
They said (quoting the laws Yibum), “Since the male will inherit, let our mother marry our father's brother so that he may have a son who will inherit the land.”
Moses
responded, “We can't enact this since your father already has children!
They said, “What is this that you are doing, Moshe Rabbenu (Moses our teacher!) that you won't let us inherit from our father as he doesn't have sons but, at the same time you won’t will let our mother marry our uncle to be able to perform Yibum? (i.e. you can’t have it both ways)”
At that moment, Moses was summoned by Gd to discuss the matter and the women left.
This discussion is fascinating as it seems so contemporary. The women who, are highly intelligent, have asked Moses a question. He responded in the only way he knew how to, by quoting the Torah. They then tied his argument into a neat little knot. This sounds awfully familiar!
Gd stepped in to provide the answer in the next few verses:
(5) Moses brought their case before the LORD. (6) And the LORD said to Moses, (7) “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them. (8) Further, speak to the Israelite people as follows, “If a man dies without leaving a son, you shall transfer his property to his daughter.””
Gd expanded by detailing the different permutations of what might happen:
(9) If he has no daughter, you shall assign his property to his brothers. (10) If he has no brothers, you shall assign his property to his father’s brothers. (11) If his father had no brothers, you shall assign his property to his nearest relative in his own clan, and he shall inherit it.’ This shall be the law of procedure for the Israelites, in accordance with the LORD’s command to Moses.”
All the above took place three millennia before the Suffragette movement. This was three thousand years before women were to enter University and be recognized as equal in status to their male counterparts.
Five brave women who were members of a small, fledgling nation in a vast desert challenged our greatest leader in order to establish their right to be treated equally and have the same inheritance rights as men. Yes, it took Gd to sort out the problem and these days, we don't have that luxury in such an overt way - but it shouldn't have taken this long for mankind to be able to address such a fundamental issue.
That Ms Ahmed had to take recourse to Law, despite the presence of Acts that dated back nearly half a century is extremely disappointing. I would have thought that ensuring equal pay for all workers should have been ingrained into the fabric of every single country in our contemporary world. Unfortunately, still today, that is not the case.
Perhaps, if our fellow citizens took more notice of the kind of society envisaged in the Torah, we wouldn't need Acts which simply describe what is patently obvious.
Shabbat
Shalom.
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