Accessing Bnot Zelophehad Energy
Click here for text in Hebrew.
It’s been a long journey getting to the Land. On the way, we received the Torah and along with it, lots of laws and rules. But were those rules and the guidance they provided really sufficient for all our future needs? Was it given complete to Moses for all time with us now simply using it as our guide for every situation going forward?
The following texts will give us clues for some answers:
“To the more numerous of the tribes you shall give a larger inheritance, etc.” — “Only through a Lot you shall apportion the Land” (Numbers 26:23-5). — (Deuteronomy 14:23) “In the place that Hashem will choose to establish His Name therein”, and this last text says God will, at some future time, choose the place where the Temple will be established, suggesting that there is something for which God is waiting before a decision is made. For what is God waiting to make the choice?
With respect to how to divvy up the Land, the two approaches conflict with one another, either to divide based upon population, or to do it by Lot. After all, don’t we learn that it was all given to Moses at Sinai? It’s clear from the discussion when the chachamim asked why Mount Sinai is specially referenced in Leviticus, 25:1, “And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying” that they concluded that it was all given on Mount Sinai with all its details. Therefore the chachamim would say our text mentioned above was given too. It was all given.
So why, then, didn’t Moshe act immediately to parcel out the Land at the moment when he was told to do it by population? It was after he had counted the Israelites this late time of his life and so, he knew the numbers and he knew which tribes were more populous. And the approach also seems reasonable because some tribes would need more. And why did the holy Torah make a place for using a Lot which is not so reasonable for then it would depend on luck instead of calculation and equity?
But the explanation is that from a secret intent of Hashem embedded in the name, (Exodus 3:14) Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh / I will be what I will be, that there are matters that are not revealed by God before it is their time. For there is a kind of thing for which reason will conclude it’s done, doesn’t require any more work and yet, passing of time will do something to it if that time is spent with attention and purpose which goes beyond just passing time idly. As it is written, Ecclesiastes 3:1 “Everything has an appointed season and there is a time for every matter.” For a person is given choices; we are not just following a program. And the passage of time bestows upon us time’s abundance with an inherent time-ordering that come from the Sefirot. And by means of these divine attributes, fortunes are made and lost. But there are also things which transcend time because they touch directly onto the throne of glory, as is the case of doing of Teshuvah (cf Yoma 86.) for in its power they can repair something even if it happened in the past, for Yom haKippurim by itself leaves it hanging but Teshuvah brings about an outcome. And Yom Kippur‘s secret touches upon Purim‘s secret – (Esther 3:7) [Purim] “which is a Lot,” and (Leviticus 16:9) and one Lot “For YHVH“, etc.
And the Lot has a voice (Rashi on Numbers 26:54) that “the Lot cried out saying, ‘I the Lot, have come up for such and such a district for such and such a tribe‘”, and so, the Land had to be divided when it was the time to divide up the Land, i.e., when the Lot cried out, and so it was not possible to say precisely where Hashem would choose to establish His name, (i.e. where the House of Eternity would be placed) until the Land was divided. (And it seems that even after the Lot, we are still not locked into the decision because if you look at a case in point, the tribe of Dan shifted their inhabiting from the vicinity of the parcel that the Lot had identified for them to a place in Palestine north of the Holy land, cf Judges 18:2), and so we can conclude by saying (regardless of our Lot), “therefore we give thanks, (Psalms 133:1), how goodly and fitting is our Lot”.
So Moses was puzzled by the question he was given by Bnot Zelophehad and “Moses brought their case before Hashem“, etc., “Zelophehad’s daughters speak justly“, etc. (Numbers 27 5-7). The daughter’s of Zelophehad were able to recognize that the Torah did not answer all questions for all time and they raised an innovation and Moses brought their case “lifnei Hashem” and Yom Kippur can purify “lifnei Hashem / before YHVH you shall be purified“. So why is letter Nun written larger in this text? The answer is that the daughters had to come before Moshe and Elazar and the princes and all the congregation which means that the B’not Zelophehad came in front of all of them and when you’re coming with a question that requires you do something new, as in this case – so it was happening for these women who knew what the Torah said and it didn’t address their needs, you can’t do it just through knowing all previous and known revelation, which is described as the forty-nine gates of Binah or Malchut. Rather, you must stand lifnei Hashem / before YHVH, i.e., beyond all that is known, beyond the name YHVH of Tiferet and beyond zeir anpin, (chesed gevurah tiferet netzach hod yesod), to the Nun = 50, the fiftieth gate, the gate of Binah, supernal mother, before YHVH. For the woman’s judgment was in the white letters of the Torah that surround the black ones and if you look at Zohar III 132, these are not yet completely revealed and will not be so until the days of the Moshiach. It’s that Moshiach energy that pulls us to the place of the future and therefore, Moses, by bringing the Zelophehad daughters’ case before Hashem, transcended the revelation time of his Sinai, the revelation that he had received in the paradigm of that age, the time when he had his revelation, i.e. as the author of “Ohev Yisrael” wrote in parashat Behaalotecha, if you look at v’hine ata, it says “on the lute of the days of Moshiach of the eight descendents”. And the lower seven Sefirot, “Binah’s offspring eight day’s”, (Hanukkah song), which points to supernal mother, for this is the actual Halachah for the Messianic age, and don’t just wait for the Messianic age, and don’t read it as the halachah to be practiced after our righteous Moshiach will come into the house of Israel, rather, to do the messianic halachah now because that will bring it that they live in such a way as though Moshiach already came (Mishnah Brachot 1:5) and this brings us the days of Moshiach. And in our days the leaders must listen especially attentively for the laws of women and to anticipate their case as they correct the wrongs done to women and the revelations of the past.