NOW DINAH, THE DAUGHTER

OF LEAH, WHOM SHE HAD BORNE TO JACOB, WENT OUT TO VISIT THE DAUGHTERS OF THE

LAND.

 (Bereishit 34:1)

Who is Responsible: Dinah, Leah, Jacob or Shekhem

son of Hamor?

Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, went out – Read this in the

light of what Scripture says: All treasures of the king's daughter's are

kept within. (Tehillim

45:14).

Rabbi Tossi said: When the woman conceals herself in the house,

she is worthy of marrying a high-priest and shall produce high-priests, for it

is said All treasures…

(Tanhumah Vayishlah 6)

Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, went out – Was she not Jacob's daughter? Scripture associated

her with her mother; just as Leah was out-going, she too was out-going. From

where [do we know that Leah was out-going]? For it is written, Leah went out

to meet him (Bereishit

30:16).

(Loc. cit.)

Let my justness testify for me tomorrow (Bereishit 30:33) – Rabbi

Yehudah bar Simon said: It is written, Do not boast of tomorrow (Mishlei 27:1). You

said, Let my justness testify for me

tomorrow, and on the morrow your daughter went out and was raped, for it is

said, Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, went out.

(Bereishit Rabbah 73:9)

Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman said: Anyone

who vows and postpones its fulfillment will eventually come to worshiping

idols, performing illicit sexual acts, blood shed, and malicious speech. From

whom do you learn this? [We learn] all of them from Jacob. By vowing and

postponing the vow's fulfillment, he came to all of these.

Where do we find

idolatry? And Jacob told his household: "remove the alien gods…

" (Bereishit 35:2).

Where do we find

illicit sexual acts? By Dinah, for it is said, Now Dinah went out.

Where do we find

bloodshed? For it is said, On the third day,

when they were in pain… (34:25).

Where do we find

malicious speech? For it is said, And he

heard the words of Laban's sons… (31:1)

(Vayikra Rabbah

37:1)

Dinah's

Present Absence

Tamar Gingashvili

Leah's

daughter, Dinah, was born to Jacob after his having fathered ten boys with

three women. Leah had given birth to Zevulun, and his

name expressed both his being a gift as well as her expectation of being

honored by Jacob for having given him six sons. Dinah was born after Zevulun. Her name is unexplained, and no mention is made of

her serving any role in the wives' contest for Jacob's heart. A short verse

informs us: Afterwards, she gave girth to a daughter and called her Dinah

(Bereishit 30:21).

The

second and final episode in which we come across Dinah in the Torah appears in parashat Vayishlah, in chapter

34. The story is about her, but her voice remains unheard. Many relational

epithets are attached to her name in this chapter: Jacob's daughter, maiden,

girl, and sister to her brothers. Dinah never appears as an

independent personality. Her desires and thoughts are never described, leaving

a void to be filled by derashot. In this short

article, I would like to trace the issue of control and loss of control in

connection with two women who suffered sexual assault, namely, Dinah and Tamar.

Dinah

is the girl/maiden who appears as Dinah,

the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, who went out to visit

the daughters of the land. The plain meaning of the text implies that the only

girl in a family of boys longed for the friendship of girls her own age. Shekhem son of Hamor, son of the

sovereign of the land of the Hivites, takes her and

tries to rape her. If we read carefully, it is clear that she did not consent,

that she froze-up and became thing-like; he lay her

by force, hurting her (34:2). Shekhem "lays her" (shokhev

otah) and does not "lay with her" (shohkev itah). That is how he hurt her – through violent sexual

assault. It seems from the adjoining verses that the attempted rape was broken

off, since it says, Being strongly drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and in

love with the maiden, he spoke to the maiden tenderly (34:3). Shekhem

encounters Dinah's inexperience and lack of understanding of relations between

the sexes. He discovers that Dinah is a maiden/girl. This discovery seems to

have amazed him, causing him to fall in love with her, so that he desisted and

spoke to her tenderly. He went to his father and asked Hamor,

sovereign of the land of the Hivites to take for

me this girl for a wife (34:4) Internally, he thinks of Dinah as a maiden, but she does

remain a girl. He asks his father for this girl, Dinah unspoiled.

Dinah's

father, Jacob, hears that his daughter has been defiled but remains silent

until the brothers return from their shepherding. Jacob

has heard a rumor that Dinah has been defiled, i.e., raped. Dinah did not

return home, remaining in Shekhem's house, either

kidnapped, or perhaps of her own free will. (Verse 26 makes it clear that Dinah

had not returned home.) Jacob and the brothers appear as a single party to the

negotiations over Shekhem's request for Dinah's hand,

as is evidenced by the use of the plural possessive, my son Hamor longs for your [plural] daughter (34:8). The

brothers take control; Jacob is silent, not present as a father. The brothers

answer in his place and tell Hamor and Shekhem, We cannot… give our sister to a man with a

foreskin (34:14). It is reasonable that they act

as her patrons because she is a young only daughter. From the chapter's

continuation we see that Dinah remains in Shekhem's

house. Her brothers do not ask to see her, they do not inquire as to her

well-being, they do not seek to clarify exactly what happened to her, and they

are completely uninterested in what she thinks or wants – she is never asked. The

brothers hold control. They negotiate with an eye towards restoring the family's

good name and obtaining vengeance. Jacob's sons answered Shekhem…

with guile because he had defiled their sister Dinah (34:13). Shimon and Levy killed every

male, including Shekhem and Hamor,

and took Dinah from Shekhem's house (34:25-6). It is reasonable to assume

that they saw themselves as Dinah's rescuers. Afterwards, Jacob's sons came and

pillaged and took captive everything and everyone left in the town (34:27-8). The Torah never tells us what

became of Dinah after the sexual assault and her brothers' deed. As has been

said, the midrashim offer

answers, but I would like to stay with the plain meaning of the text.

In Devarim

22:28-9 it is written: If a man finds a virgin maiden who was not betrothed,

be his wife, he shall never be able to send her away. The law refers to the

seduction of a virgin maiden, even if the act was consensual – lay with her,

rather than laid her, which we saw by Dinah. Seduction is defined as

harm. It also counts as a violent act, since men are responsible for stopping outbreaks

of fornication. The Torah wants to create an opportunity for the rehabilitation

of the seduced maiden's personal status, for she has undergone harm for which

she may have to pay a weighty price. In a society which holds virginity to be a

necessary requirement for honorable marriage, she may become a deserted woman

or a harlot.

In Davor

Kosashvili's film, "Gift from Heaven" – a poor movie,

in my opinion – we are told of a girl whose family suspects she might have been

raped in the course of a rather un-amusing kidnapping. The family and community

force the girl to marry her abductor. The girl is never asked to give her

version of the events, nor to make known her own

wishes. She undergoes an additional rape at the hands of her own mother, who

wants to inspect her virginity. She finds herself forced to marry the abductor,

who did not in fact rape her, in order to keep her good name intact. Everything

that happens to the girl reflects the wishes of the family and of the

community. The good of the girl herself – of the only person involved

who has actually suffered – is not taken into account, and her voice is

unheard. The family and accepted societal norms force the girl to remain alone

with the double trauma and psychological torture she has suffered.

David's

daughter Tamar, sister to Avshalom (II Samuel, chapter 13) is described as a

beautiful young virgin who was raped by her brother Amnon

after he developed an obsessive attraction to her. Amnon

is driven to distraction by the thought of her being a sexually unavailable

virgin: Amnon was so distraught because of

impossible for Amnon to do anything to her (verse 2). Following the advice of Yehonadav, the son of David's brother Shimah,

he asks his father, "Let Tamar my sister come and prepare a couple of

cakes before me, and let her bring them to me" (v. 6). It is reasonable to assume that David understood Amnon's inclinations, but could not imagine how terrible

his goals were. In contrast to Dinah, whose voice is not heard, once the

atmosphere of seduction and sexual extortion

is established, the book of Samuel has Tamar appear as a full human presence

who is quoted directly. On the one hand, she honors the request of her father

and brother, but on the other hand, she stands up magnificently to Amnon, speaking with the voice of reason, asking that he

have mercy on them both and suggesting alternatives. But Amnon

would not listen to her; he overpowered her and laid her by force (v. 14). He related to her as an

object, holding her by force and laying her. She was nothing but a body to

him, not a person enjoying independent will and status. Amnon's

behavior was atrociously violent. Afterwards, he forcibly removed her from his

room, treating her mercilessly despite her pleas. Tamar went screaming. Her

brother Avshalom met her, understood what had

happened, and told her, "For the present, sister, keep quiet about it;

he is your brother. Don't brood over the matter" (v. 20), and Tamar kept her silence. The

incident troubled David greatly, and it is reasonable to assume that he did not

believe his son would do such a thing. Tamar is left alone with her trauma – And

Tamar remained in her brother Avshalom's house, forlorn (v. 20). Tamar's life was erased and

she became a forlorn desert. Avshalom took over

control from Tamar, and by asking her to remain silent, he took away her power

and her ability to see to her own security and welfare. He made her entirely

dependent upon him, largely causing her forlornness. Avshalom

was unable to forgive Amnon or to listen to his

sister. Relations within the family are unhealthy following a traumatic event. Two

years after the rape, Avshalom murdered Amnon.

It is also true today that most

women who suffer sexual assault keep quiet or are kept quiet about it. They are

left alone with their trauma and their voices are usually not heard. The most

important lesson to be learned from the stories of Dinah and Tamar is that we

must not take control out of the hands of assault victims. Return of control

requires that we develop the ability to listen and act only in accordance with

the women's own requests, even if that means that we

must remain quiet and inactive. The victims know what is best for them and how

strong they are. It is therefore important to turn to help centers, and refer

victims to them, in order to benefit from the counseling and help which they offer

both to victims as well as to those close to them. In that way, it will be

possible to restore control to them and create a situation of basic security

and the ability not to remain alone with the trauma.

Tamar Gingashvili

is in charge of the religious sector in the Help Center for Victims of Sexual

Assault in Tel Aviv.

The Center offers assistance to

women 24 hours a day over the telephone at 1202. Those interested in

educational volunteering in the religious sector may call Tamar at 0524-311894.

And Jacob was

Much Afraid, and it Troubled Him: There is no

Victory through War

And Jacob was

much afraid, and it troubled him (Bereishit 32:8) – Rabbi Yehudah

said in the name of Rabbi Ilayi: It does not say yirah (feared) or tzara

(trouble), rather vayiyrah – that he

should not kill, vayeitzer

lo – that he not be killed. He said, "If he overcomes me, he shall

kill me, and if I overcome him, I shall kill him". This is [the meaning of

the doubled phrase] vayiyrah – that he not

kill, vayeitzer lo – that he not kill.

(Bereishit Rabbah 76)

And a Man Wrestled

with Him Until Daybreak

And a man wrestled with him: Jacob was not the attacker, rather

his opponent was… – Jacob only fights defensive wars.

(R. S. R.

Hirsch on Bereishit 32:25)

The Dinah Affair:

an Ethical Approach

Akhartem

oti [You have brought trouble on me]: By shedding blood needlessly. He

uses the term akhirah, as is used in reference

to someone who sullies [okher] wine with its

yeast, so you have sullied me for those who dwell in the land, defaming me in

that they will say, "They did evil to those who

were at peace with them."

(Rabbeinu Behayeiy on Bereishit 34:30).

Now many people may

ask: "But how did the righteous sons of Jacob commit this deed, spilling

innocent blood?" The Rabbi [RaMBaM] answered in

his Book of Judges (Hilkhot

Melakhim 9:14), saying that "sons of Noah"

are commanded concerning certain laws, and thus they are required to appoint

judges in each and every district to give judgment concerning the six

commandments which are obligatory upon all mankind. "And a Noahide who transgresses one of them is subject to the

death penalty by the sword. If he sees a person transgressing one of these

seven laws and does not bring him to trial for a capital crime, he who saw him

is subject to the same death-penalty. It was on account of this that the people

of Shekhem had incurred the death-penalty because Shekhem committed an act of robbery and they saw and knew

of it, but they did not bring him to trial."

But these words do not

appear to me to be correct for if so, or father Jacob should have been the

first to obtain the merit of causing their death, and if he was afraid of them,

why was he angry at his sons and why did he curse their wrath a long time after

that and punish them by dividing them and scattering them in Israel? Were they

not meritorious, fulfilling a commandment and trusting in God Who saved them?

In my opinion, the

meaning of the laws which the Rabbis have counted among their seven Noahide commandments is not just that they are to appoint

judges in each and every district, but He commanded them concerning the laws of

theft, overcharge, wronging, and a hired man's wages; the laws of guardians of

property, forceful violation of a woman, seduction, principles of damage and

wounding a fellowman… And it is also included in this commandment that they

appoint judges for each and every city, just as Israel was commanded to do, but

if they failed to do so they are free of the death-penalty since this is a

positive precept of theirs [and failing to fulfill a positive precept does not

incur the death-penalty]… Moreover, why does the Rabbi [RaMBaM]

have to seek to establish their guilt? Were not the people of Shekhem and all seven nations idol worshippers,

perpetrators of unclean acts, and practitioners of all things that are

abominable to God?… However, it was not the

responsibility of Jacob and his sons to bring them to justice.

(RaMBaN on Bereishit 39:13, Chavel

translation)

Jacob's two sons, Shimon and Levi: The word two is

superfluous… it comes to teach us that although they united in great wrath to

destroy a city and its inhabitants, and also united to enter themselves into

great danger, in any case they were two,

that is to say that they bore different motivations

that ignited this conflagration. One of them was driven by human motivations of

jealousy for the honor of their father's house, which brings about a fire like

this which is, as is known, a strange

fire. The other acted out of zealousness for God, free of any

be very cautious of this fire as well, in ascertaining its appropriate time and

place. Without this [caution] it causes much damage. Our father Jacob mentioned

both motivations in his rebuke, and rejected the superior fire as well, as will

become clear in parashat Vayehi.

(Ha-Amek Davar, Bereishit 34:25)