Dinah

Vayishlach, 5784

This week’s Torah portion deals with a sensitive issue. It deals with rape, and vengeance. I am going to be talking about these issues, so if you would prefer to leave the room, now is the time to do so.

Dinah means judgement, justice, but she does not get any. She goes out, while her family is encamped on the outskirts of the town of Shechem, לִרְאוֹת בִּבְנוֹת הָאָרֶץ, to see the daughters of the land. And Shechem, the prince of the town, named after the land he owned, saw her, kidnapped her, and raped her. We are told, revoltingly, that he fell in love with her, that he tried to speak to her heart. But she does not respond to him. Keeping her locked up in his house, Shechem demands to marry Dinah, and make his ownership of her legal in the eyes of the law. But Yaakov, her father, keeps silent. Her brothers answer, saying they will accept the marriage if all the men of Shechem circumcise themselves, and Shechem agrees. On the third day after the circumcision, with the men recovering, two of Dinah’s full brothers, Shimon and Levi, lead a raid into town, slaughter all the men, and rescue Dinah. Now Yaakov speaks: you’ve done wrong, he says, because your action will convince the other Canaanites to rise against me. But Shimon and Levi respond simply “הַכְזוֹנָה יַעֲשֶׂה אֶת־אֲחוֹתֵנוּ” “Should our sister be treated like a whore?”

Yaakov doesn’t answer. And neither does Dinah. She speaks not one word this entire episode. Where is Dinah? Where is justice?

I debated about whether or not I wanted to be the one to give this dvar Torah. I didn’t want to seem like I was speaking for women, or over women, or mansplaining about rape and sexual assault. I asked Naima if she wanted to give this dvar Torah instead. But she reminded me that violence against women isn’t just something that women need to tell men about. It is not a women’s issue. It is an issue for all of us. And I know, in the aftermath of October 7th, this is going to feel especially resonant, but this is not about Hamas. This is about the women and girls who were hurt that day. And who are hurt every day.

So much of the discussion of the story of Dinah and Shechem focuses on her brother’s vengeance. Shimon and Levi are later cursed by their father for their deeds that day. שִׁמְעוֹן וְלֵוִי אַחִים כְּלֵי חָמָס מְכֵרֹתֵיהֶם Shimon and Levi are alike/Their weapons are tools of violence. Yaakov declares on deathbed, I will divide them in Yaakov, and scatter them in Yisrael. And the rabbis and commentators disagree over who is in the right in this scenario: Yaakov, or his sons. A friend of mine, Rabbi Avigayil Halpern, wrote a dvar Torah two years ago entitled “Destroying Cities,” where she discusses this very question. And she calls on us not to act like Yaakov, but to make a decisive choice between good and evil, to not worry about the world’s reaction to our passionate defense of her, but to stand strongly on her side. She concludes with “I think Dinah deserves for cities to be destroyed for her. What world will emerge once we’ve torn those cities down?” It is passionate, and moving. And yet I could not help but wonder as I read it: still, still, where is Dinah? Where is justice?

There is an odd line in the counting of Shimon’s children, near the end of Bereshit. Among them is listed שָׁא֖וּל בֶּן־הַֽכְּנַעֲנִֽית, Shaul, the son of the Canaanite. What is the story of Shaul? From this small line, the rabbis imagined that when her brothers came to rescue her, Dinah refused to leave. She was terrified, she was frightened, she was ashamed. She felt that she had nowhere to go, and no where she wanted to be, since she had been raped. For the first time in her narrative, the midrash gives her a voice: she cries out וַאֲנִי אָנָה אוֹלִיךְ אֶת חֶרְפָּתִי. And I, where will I carry my shame! These are the same words cried out by Tamar in the book of Samuel, when she is raped by her brother Amnon. These are the only words the Midrash knows to give Dinah: the voice of a woman crying out in pain. So Shimon vowed that he would marry her, so she would not be forced to marry anyone. Only when she had that assurance would she leave. The child of Dinah, that she had afterward, was raised by Shimon as his own. That is why Shaul is called the son of the Canaanite, since Dinah had been raped by the Canaanite man, Shechem.

All Dinah wants, in the aftermath of everything, is to be left alone. To not have to feel ashamed. And the most praiseworthy act Shimon takes in the whole episode, more than slaughtering a city to save her, is to listen, in that moment, and make sure that she never has to deal with another man again.

The debate about whether or not Shimon or Levi or Yaakov is in the right in this episode is irrelevant without Dinah’s voice. Yaakov is cunning, Levi is a zealot, Shimon seeks vengeance, but Dinah stands for justice.  Yet here the Torah does not let her speak. That is a challenge for us: to hear Dinah’s voice. To not let Shechem, Shimon, Levi, or the Torah silence her.

The odds are you know a Dinah-a woman whose body has been violated, maybe by rape, maybe by other sexual violence or harassment. Or you know someone who does. Or you have read of a Dinah. Or maybe you are Dinah. Across time and space her name calls out to us: judgement. Justice. We must listen to her. It is upon everyone here to listen to the Dinah they know, to center her story, and act based on how she wants to feel safe. How Yaakov or Shimon or Levi feel is secondary. We must, we must, listen to the voice of judgement. Listen to Dinah.