In this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, we got these amazing ladies. They’re called Bnot Zelophehad – the Daughters of Zelophehad. They say: “our father died for his sins. And, it seems like he’s not going to get his portion in the Land of Israel. So we really want that portion. We want to be able to inherit.”
The laws of inheritance are taught through their story. But barring the issues of inheritance, we can learn a lesson about the yearning for the Land of Israeli. The Daughters of Zelophehad come up to Moses and say, “but we really want it. We can’t give up on it. Give us that mitzvah. What’s the way forward? Because we are from the tribe of Manasseh, one of the tribes that were the sons of Joseph that rejected the Land of Israeli with the ten spies who gave a bad report. We want to fix that.” And the way we’re going to fix that is by yearning for the Land of Israel.
Today we can take their lesson by yearning for it, by saying: We’re going to come this summer. We want to buy that house in the Land of Israel. We drink wine from the Land of Israel on Friday nights. We take steps towards getting closer to the Land of Israel, towards Hashem’s abode, because we want to be part of it.
We want to fix that sin of the spies. We want to show God that we yearn for this land. We love it. We roll in its dirt metaphorically, like the rabbis of the Talmud.
And so as I walk up to the Tomb of the Mamas and the Papas, the Forefathers and Mothers of the Jewish people, here in Hevron, the community that lives here, the people that visit here, are people that yearn for it. We are all, in a sense, Bnot Zelophehad because we yearn for this land and we love this land.
And we thank Hashem for the opportunity of living at a time where we can actually touch it. And we’re indeed touching it.
God bless you wherever you are. Lots of love and lots of blessings from Hevron, and shalom.
