This week’s Torah Portion is Vayishlach – Sermon by Susan Shmookler
There are two significant episodes in this Torah portion. The first is Jacob and Esau’s meeting after being estranged for 20 years. The second is the rape of Dina.
First I’ll speak about Jacob and Esau’s reproachment.
As we remember, when Jacob was young, he robbed Esau of his birthright by exploiting him when he was hungry and exhausted. Not long after that Jacob, with help from his mother, Rebekah, takes upon himself the special blessing of his father meant for Esau. These are significant actions committed against his brother and Jacob leaves his family home as a result. Jacob harbors an angry sense of division from Esau for decades and when the brothers finally face the prospect of reuniting, Jacob is in a panic.
Jacob and his family and possessions are moving toward his homeland. He gets word that Esau is traveling the same course with 400 men. Jacob thinks his brother will try to exact revenge for his bad behavior years ago. Jacob is frightened and divides his family and herds and places them in different locations. He uses his servants to drive half of his herds ahead to meet Esau and present the herds as a gift. The other half of his family and possessions cross over into the land of Israel for safety. Alone, the night before he is to meet Esau, he wrestles with a stranger all night and in the morning before the stranger leaves, Jacob asks for a blessing. This stranger bestows the name of Israel on Jacob as he has withstood the stranger’s challenge.
This mysterious stranger is generally accepted to be an angel sent by God to test Jacob. Another interpretation is that the stranger represents Jacob’s dark side, which he has displayed most of his life, up to this point. Whichever interpretation is used, Jacob comes out of this trial a better person who will be able to shoulder the weight of the Jewish people. By changing his name to Israel, it signifies that Jacob has struggled with God and with human beings and he has prevailed.
The events of this portion go a long was to preparing Jacob for the rest of his life and giving him the stature to establish the Jewish nation. This is a significant event in Jacob’s life described as a “ah ha” moment. The angel, in response to Jacob’s asking for a blessing, renames him. It signifies that Jacob, once a deceiver, has become Israel, the person of conscience. Jacob can now see himself in an entirely different light.
But the people in the Torah are real characters who have both strengths and weaknesses. Even though Jacob has had this moment of insight, he and Esau remain estranged and quickly go their separate ways. Jacob’s guilt over what he did to Esau in childhood haunts him to the point of keeping them separated. The only other time they come together is when they bury their father, Issac. It takes place in only a few sentences and they part ways again.
The Rape of Dina
The rape of Dina takes place in the city of Shechem, the geographical center of a movement in which people of diverse backgrounds, customs and religious beliefs merged to become the community of Israel. Dina is a daughter of Jacob born to Leah. Her name means “judgment” which will become apparent as the story unfolds. She goes to visit the women of the region which indicates a certain openness to and acceptance of outsiders. It is during this visit that she is supposedly raped by Shechem, the Hivite Prince of the region. But there is a division of opinion as to whether the act was rape or consensual.
One reading suggests that Dina’s intercourse with Shechem represents the ultimate symbol of acceptance. Hamor, father of Shechem, even speaks to Jacob about giving his daughter in marriage to his son, in the same way as the two communities will share wives, trade and property in the region peacefully.
This idea of establishing social boundaries for marriage gives an inclusive perspective in which, when mutual respect and honor characterize the relationship, cooperation and bonding with outsiders can take place.
Another reading of the same incident represents the separatist tendencies within Jacob’s community, namely Simeon, Levi and the other sons of Jacob. They are threatened by this possibility of giving and taking with outsiders. Their idea is to take by the sword, killing all the Shechemite males, plundering the city and taking the wives and children as slaves. As such, the story passes Judgment (the meaning of Dina’s name) on their unfriendly attitudes.
As the story unfolds, Jacob is silent when he is first told of Dina’s plight. He then negotiates Dina’s marriage to Shechem. If Dina had truly been raped, Jacob ignores his obligation to protect the women of his household and Dina’s suffering. The text also says Shechem bonds with Dina, then that he loves her and speaks tenderly to her. If this was an act of rape, it certainly was unusual in that a man committing an exploitive act of rape feels hostility and hatred toward his victim, not love.
So why does the text say Dina was defiled? Shame, or intense humility, usually relates to failure to live up to societal goals and ideas. Because sexual intercourse should be part of marital bonding, it is shameful for an unmarried woman like Dina to have sex. The declaration of love and desire for marriage comes after the act. Dina has committed an unacceptable sexual act and it is intertwined with the response of her brothers. Shechem’s requested marriage with her would be an unacceptable union.
But Dina’s brothers pretend to agree to the union but say that first every man in the Hivite community must be circumcised. Three days after the circumcisions, when the mens’ pain is the most intense, Simeon and Levi “rape” the people of Shechem’s city. They kill all the men, take all the women and children as slaves and burn the town to the ground. It is their behavior that is violent, hostile and exploitative, not Shechem’s.
We never know the fate of Dina. After her brothers “rescue” her, she is never seen nor heard from again. Was she pregnant? Did she die in childbirth? Did she have a daughter, Asenat, that Joseph, her half-brother, married and had children with? Did she have a son raised by his paternal grandmother? No one knows since the Torah is silent after this incident. Was Dina raped or was she lovingly taken to wife? Was it the Lady or the Tiger?