Torah: Genesis 32:4 through chapter 36
Haftarah: Obadiah (full book).
For today's D'var Torah, I've decided to focus in on the story of Dinah in Genesis 34. The setting is the land of Shechem in Canaan, where Jacob and his family are staying after their reconciliation with his brother Esau. I normally begin by summarizing the story briefly -- but as you'll see, we run into problems right from the second sentence.
Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and...
And what?
Some versions read "raped" her, others "subdued" or simply "lay with" her. Sexual intercourse is obviously implied -- but was it consensual on Dinah's part? Some commentators argue that the Hebrew words clearly imply rape. Others point out that Shechem's subsequent behaviour ("loving" Dinah and speaking tenderly to her) is hardly that of a typical rapist. In her book "The Red Tent", Anita Diamant portrays a passionate love affair between Dinah and Shechem, leading to a marriage proposal that is cut short by Simeon and Levi's misplaced vengeance.
But what "really happened"? The problem is that we can't know; throughout the whole story, we don't hear Dinah herself speak even once. This silencing of Dinah put us into an uncomfortable position as readers: simply by reading and interpreting the text, we find ourselves passing judgment without hearing her side of the story. I believe this is an intentional device used by the author to reinforce the story's message. Dinah has not only been kidnapped and (apparently) raped; she is also silenced by first Shechem and Hamor, then her father and brothers, and thus, implicitly, by the reader as well.
One could argue, of course, that the story was based on oral tradition, and the oral tradition (which is highly patriarchal) simply contained no information about what Dinah, as a woman, said or thought. But in other stories involving women (Rachel and Leah, Hagar, Rebekah, and so on) we are given dialogue -- sometimes fairly extensive. So why is Dinah so silent?
She is silent because the men around her have silenced her. Not once, throughout the entire story, does anyone ask what she thinks or feels or wishes. To Shechem, Dinah is a prize to be first "taken" and then won: "Get me this girl as my wife." To Hamor and (worse) to Jacob, Dinah's fate is a bargaining chip, relevant only within the larger economic context. To Simeon and Levi, Dinah represents the purity of their tribe: if she has been "defiled" (willingly or not), then they have all been defiled, and must avenge themselves. The very fact that they "take" Dinah back from the palace (where, presumably, she has been all this time), just as Shechem "took" her in the first place, suggests that the last thing they thought of doing was actually asking their sister what her wishes in the matter were before launching their brutal campaign of vengeance. Even worse, their idea of justice consists of killing all Shechem's men and, again, taking the women and children into captivity.
The word "taken", in fact, is very telling here. In nearly every sentence through this entire chapter, something is either being "taken", "given" or "gotten." Livestock? Possessions? Let's have a look.
Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her. His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.”
When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home.
Then Shechem’s father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.
But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it.”
Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I’ll pay whatever you ask me. Only give me the young woman as my wife.”
Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor. They said to them, “We can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and become one people with you. But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.”
Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. The young man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.”
All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised.
Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.
Jacob and his sons, no less than Shechem and Hamor, see Dinah (and, implicitly, all the other women she represents) as
possessions: something to be "taken", "given" and "gotten" in trade. (Interestingly, it is Hamor and Shechem -- the "outsiders" -- who use more personal, less objectifying language: when they speak to the men of their city, they talk about "marrying" the other tribe's daughters rather than, as Jacob's sons did, "taking" them.)
Analyses of this passage generally try to pin down who is "in the right." Was Jacob right to treat his daughter as a bargaining chip? I think we'd agree the answer is a resounding "No." Were Simeon and Levi right to do the "chivalrous" thing and rescue her -- by slaughtering and enslaving an entire tribe? No. Was Shechem right to kidnap Dinah and force himself upon her (assuming this is what happened)? Of course not! All the characters (with the exception of, presumably, Dinah) are in the wrong. Whether acting out of lust, economic self-interest or out of injured honor, they have all sidelined and silenced Dinah herself. By the end of the story, she has been "rescued" from Shechem's palace by her brothers; but he never appears as a character in the Biblical text again, any more than if she had died in the slaughter herself. Interestingly, in Genesis 35 Rachel has another son, bringing up the total, once more, to twelve. Dinah has just been replaced...by yet another boy.
And so Dinah -- Jacob's only daughter -- is allowed to speak to us only through her silence.