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Shabbat Shalom. This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayishlach, in which Jacob wrestles with the angel (?), reunites with Esau, and in which Dinah is sexually violated. We discussed in Torah study yesterday how Simeon and Levi enact vengeance for Dinah by slaughtering all of the men of Shechem, but we don’t actually know if Dinah needed avenging. The Hebrew certainly communicates violence, or at least aggression from the Prince of Shechem. One scholar I read years ago and cannot recall now who it was, referred to this verse as a staccato set of verbs, implying the sharpness with which Prince Shechem 

• Saw her

• Took her

• Lay with her

• Disgraced her

However, as I’ve spoken about before, the verb “Aneha”, often translated as “disgraced” or “afflicted” and sometimes in modern Hebrew used to mean “rape” is difficult to pin down because women of the Biblical era did not have sexual agency. So it is not really her consent the Biblical author is concerned with, it’s Jacob’s. She is disgraced, defiled, lowered in esteem, afflicted, because Shechem did not ask her father for her hand in marriage before laying with her. Many feminist biblical scholars conclude, based on the series of staccato verbs, that she was indeed raped, but of course Anita Diament’s famous midrash in The Red Tent takes advantage of the ambiguity of the Hebrew, the ethics of the Biblical era, and Dinah’s silence, to suggest Dinah consented and loved Prince Shechem. 

Either way, we agreed during Torah study that Levi and Shimon’s actions were over the top, but it does make some difference, I think, in how we understand their anger and violence. I brought up the comparison to Tamar’s rape in II Samuel, how her brother Absalom takes her in and professes to be acting in her name when he starts his war against his brother(s). But it seems clear to me in the text that he is merely using her name as part of his reasoning as he wages war primarily about his dying father’s throne. Similarly, the level of violence Shimon and Levi enact, as well as the looting the rest of the brothers do in their wake, seems to me to be more about their own masculinity and violence, using their sister as a mere excuse to do what they really wanted to do. 

I’m still not entirely convinced this isn’t true, but in clicking around Sefaria, I found some midrashim and commentary that complicates the narrative somewhat. First, the chapter opens with identifying Dinah as “The daughter of Leah, whom she had borne unto Jacob.” Several commentators say this is because “she went out” to see the city folk, thus inviting Prince Shechem’s sexual advances, and Leah similarly “went out” to greet Jacob in a previous scene when she is sexually forward. However, Ramban has a different explanation than all the others: “to state that she was the sister of Simeon and Levi, who were envious for her sake and avenged her cause.” I double-checked, and yes, Absalom and Tamar also share a mother, a distinct bond in these families of many wives and half-siblings. So maybe there is something to these brothers’ particular violence. 

Further, many of the ancient rabbis expound on the “aneha” verb. Among the explanations, HaEmek HaDavar says, “Elsewhere this word implies deprivation from relations (see Rashi 31:50). She believed that after this no Israelite would want to marry her, but in the end her brother Shimon married her.” I have no idea where he got this from, since we never hear from Dinah again, and I don’t recall the lineages of the tribes mentioning wives. The laws detailing which relatives are off-limits for marriage or sex are in Leviticus, so I suppose it is possible there was no taboo for Shimon to marry his full-blooded sister. However, I have a hard time accepting this would be allowed. Again comparing it to the story of Tamar, Tamar tells Amnon, her half-brother who rapes her, that “such a thing is not done in Israel” - meaning that since they share the same father, she should be forbidden to him. During the course of their conversation leading up to her assault, she tries another tactic: suggesting that since their father is king, surely he could bend the rules and allow them to marry, as long as he asks first. While I’ve seen some commentary suggesting she truly believes that, anyone socialized as a woman can recognize that as a delay and distract tactic to get herself out of the situation safely. Unfortunately, both fail, and while Dinah’s violation is a little more vague, Tamar’s responses both leading up to and following her assault leaves no question that she was raped and traumatized. Absalom then takes her into his home, but he doesn’t MARRY HER! Because that would be weird! He offers her refuge because she’s too traumatized to interact with other men. 

This Tuesday was International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights. Among the various human rights concerns the United Nations continues to focus on these 76 years later, is the right to bodily autonomy, and fighting the worldwide sexual violence ongoing particularly against women and children. They seek to free trafficked people, end the practice of child-brides, and enforce laws that are meant to protect women from domestic, stochastic, and sexual violence, as well as prosecute rape used as war crimes and reproductive violence in genocides. We don’t know how old Dinah and Tamar were, but we know they were unmarried maidens, in a time when marrying age was considerably younger than the norm now. So we can guess they were taken advantage of for their age, and presumably an associated small size and naïveté, as well as for their gender. While there are a lot of missing details, and of course the obfuscation of being stories from a very different time and place, it seems that even those seeking to protect and avenge them did not wholly do right by them. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the current UN Special Rapporteurs on both the sale and sexual exploitation of children and violence against women and girls are women. 

The most important factor in addressing the needs and concerns of victims and survivors is to take a trauma-informed, survivor-centered approach. Rash reactions of rage-filled violence on someone else’s behalf rarely seems to actually cure the survivor of their trauma, although I do admit that female-led revenge movies are pretty satisfying. But not actually realistic. While proper paths of justice, particularly restorative justice, can be very slow and painful, they have greater opportunities to lead to actual resolution, closure, healing. And sometimes, no outward response is what the survivor wants, and that has to be respected too, while doubling efforts to ensure that no one else experiences such violations under our watch or in our community. This Shabbat and always, may we believe and support survivors, may we seek to end all forms of gender-based violence and sexual aggression, and may all who have been affected by such find particular peace. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.