The daughters of Tzelofchad seem to be the first people in the Torah to change Jewish Law after Sinai. And they do it in a particular way: they do not act like Nadav and Avihu (action), or Korach (rebellion). Instead, they start with a question: “Why?”
Our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the faction, Korah’s faction, which banded together against G-d, but died for his own sin; and he has left no sons.
Why should our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son? Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!”
Are the daughters of Tzelofchad the first women in the Torah to plead their case to another person by asking a question?
If so, given their success, do the daughters set the trend for Jews going forward: internalizing that knowledge, growth and external change should always come as a result of asking thoughtful and well-reasoned questions?
Isn’t this the classic Jewish approach to, well, just about everything?