{"id":338448,"date":"2026-07-13T14:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338448\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T14:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:44:11","slug":"the-great-wealth-transfer-began-here-jewish-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338448\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cGreat Wealth Transfer\u201d Began Here – Jewish Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Economists report that by 2045 our country will experience a \u201cGreat Wealth Transfer.\u201d 84 trillion dollars will pass from one generation to the next. Because women statistically outlive men, they stand to inherit not only from their spouses and partners, but also from their spouses\u2019 and parents\u2019 estates. Add a woman\u2019s personal wealth to this windfall, and you will see why experts say that by 2030, women will inherit and control 30 trillion dollars of the transfer. This represents a seismic advance in women\u2019s rights and financial clout.<\/p>\n

Israelite women 2500 years ago did not enjoy this right. Biblical law held that a father\u2019s estate passed only to his sons, and if he had no sons, it passed to other male relatives in his tribal clan. This exclusion of women consigned them to a life of financial dependence on men, and often to poverty.<\/p>\n

But the five daughters of a man named Zelophehad, from the tribe of Manasseh, challenged that law. In Torah portion Pinchas, we read that because their father died leaving no sons, they approached God, Moses and the leaders of the tribe with a question and a demand. They asked, \u201cWhy should our father\u2019s name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father\u2019s relatives.\u201d Moses brought their case before God, and God said to him, \u201cWhat Zelophehad\u2019s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father\u2019s relatives \u2026\u201d (Nu 27:1-5) Later, we learn the daughters received ten tracts of land from their father\u2019s estate. (Joshua 17:3-6)<\/p>\n

This transfer represented a significant coup for women\u2019s empowerment, though the daughters\u2019 victory was not total. When the leaders of Manasseh realized that Zelophehad\u2019s daughters could potentially marry husbands from other tribes and take their inheritance with them, they prohibited the women from marrying out. This setback was disappointing, but it does not diminish the magnitude of their tradition-defying, gender-affirming achievement.<\/p>\n

In fact, the added restriction may have indirectly solidified the daughters\u2019 gain. The wording suggests that the tribal leaders were fearful of losing land to neighboring tribes. They may have reasoned that if they allowed the women to inherit, the women would have an incentive to keep their family property within the tribe. The women may have sensed this and believed that the men\u2019s self-interest at least guaranteed the continuation of their newly won right, even if their right was restricted.<\/p>\n

Effecting social change is messy. It proceeds in fits and starts, with a few advances and retreats mixed in. Today\u2019s political climate is a prime example. Changes in law are rarely permanent, and outcomes are seldom perfect. But even an imperfect win is still a win!<\/p>\n

Had the women won their rights in full, it would have been far more gratifying. But their courageous first step toward financial freedom was a giant one, no matter how incomplete.<\/p>\n

Who knows, the coming \u201cGreat Wealth Transfer\u201d for women may have started with these five, unheralded daughters of Zelophehad. It is not that much of a stretch to connect the dots.<\/p>\n

This column is published as a public service by the Jewish Press in cooperation with the Tampa Rabbinical Association, which assigns the column on a rotating basis. The views expressed are those of the rabbi and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Jewish Press or the TRA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Economists report that by 2045 our country will experience a \u201cGreat Wealth Transfer.\u201d 84 trillion dollars will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-338448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}