Musar על במדבר 27:2

ותעמודנה לפני משה ולפני אלעזר הכהן ולפני הנשיאים וכל העדה . TheZohar on Parshat Balak queries the peculiar statement of the daughters of Tzelofchod who said (27,3) "our father has died in the desert." Did not hundreds of thousands of that generation die in the desert? Why did the daughters of Tzelofchod use such a preamble in their request for a share in the land of Israel? There are a variety of answers to this. Some say that they were asserting that their father's sin and cause of death had been associated with a particular activity in the desert, namely that he had collected firewood on the Sabbath (Numbers 15,32). They try to prove this by pointing out that his daughters had added the words כי בחטאו מת, "he died due to his personal sin" (not the collective sin of refusing to go up to the land of Canaan). Others claim that their father had been one of the people who had gone to war against the Canaanites after the episode of the spies, something that Moses had specifically prohibited (14,40-45). It is actually more likely that the argument of the daughters of Tzelofchod was that though their father was a head of the ancestral tribe of Joseph (ראש בית אב), he had never risen to the position of prince of that tribe due to his not possessing sufficient Torah knowledge. He had not been discreet enough and had spoken out in the presence of Moses. Concerning this, the Torah says "a great many people of Israel died" (21,6). The construction of that verse i.e. וימת, (singular) instead of וימותו (plural) is strange. We are entitled to assume therefore, that one important man, (רב) is the subject in this verse. It refers to Tzelofchod, who, because he was relatively ignorant, i.e. an עם הארץ, is described by the Torah as עם רב. The word רב may also refer to the fact that the man in question was a member of Menashe [of the tribe of Joseph], a tribe that is described elsewhere as particularly numerous. (Joshua 17,14) Tzelofchod's daughters were afraid that since their father had sinned in the desert by unseemly remarks, Moses would hold this against his family at the distribution of the land of Israel. This is why they made a point of appealing not only to Moses, but to all the other notables. They did not actually address Moses. Rather, they addressed all the other notables in Moses' presence. The lesson to be learned from the conduct of the daughters of Tzelofchod is, that if someone is afraid that a certain tribunal of judges may be prejudiced against him, he should ask for additional judges to be co-opted to that tribunal. Tzelofchod's daughters had been unaware of Moses' extreme humility and had no need to submit their argument to any additional judges. As soon as Moses realized what bothered the daughters of Tzelofchod, he immediately excused himself from the hearing. This is the true meaning of: ויקרב משה את השפטן לפני השם, "Moses brought their case before the Lord" (27,5). Whenever a litigant requests additional judges to hear his case, the judges who feel that they do not enjoy the confidence of the litigant must voluntarily disqualify themselves. Any judge who fails to do so is considered an עזות פנים, an arrogant person, one who displays the very reverse of Moses' qualities.