Now it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain,

 that Jacob's two sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers,

each took his sword, and they came upon the city with confidence,

and they slew every male. And Hamor and his son Shechem they slew with the edge of the sword, and they took Dinah out of Shechem's house and left.

(Bereishit 34:25-26)

 

Simeon and Levi are brothers; stolen instruments are their weapons.

Let my soul not enter their counsel; my honor, you shall not join their assembly,

for in their wrath they killed a man, and with their will they hamstrung a bull.

(Bereishit 49:5-6)

 

 

Jacob's daughter was a dweller in tents; she did not go out. What did Shechem son of Hamor do? He brought girls beating drums outside [her tent]. Dinah went out to see the girls play and he took her captive. He impregnated her and she gave birth to Osnat, and the sons of Israel said she should be killed. What did Jacob do? He brought a miter, wrote the Holy Name on it, hung it on her neck, and sent her off. The Angel Michael came down and took her down to Egypt to Potiphar's house. Potiphar's wife was barren, so she raised her as her daughter.

(Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 38)

 

Between Ben Oni and Benjamin

Nahem Ilan

Parashat Vayetze tells us about the eleven sons and one daughter born to Jacob, his two wives, and their two maidservants. Leah and Rachel named the children. According to the plain meaning of Scripture, Jacob had no part in choosing the names, and in any event he accepted them as they were. Then, when his twelfth son was born, the Torah tells us as if parenthetically that And it came to pass, when her soul departed for she died that she named him Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benjamin (Bereishit 35:18). The key to this verse is the word oni. It is unclear, since it may derive either from aven or from on. We cannot know what Rachel meant when she chose to call her second son Ben-Oni, or what led Jacob to take the initiative and act so unusually by changing the name to Benjamin. The Torah does not even indicate whether the change was made before Rachel's death and whether she knew about it. It seems that these questions were unimportant for the biblical narrator in comparison to the actual change of name itself, which he found worth recording.

The word aven has two meanings in Scripture and both of them are negative: 1) sin, crime, injustice, evil, lie, wickedness 2) evil, catastrophe (Menahem Tzvi Kadari, Milon HaIvrit HaMika'it, Ramat Gan 5766, pp. 17-18). The word on also has two meanings, one positive and the other negative: 1) Strength, wealth 2) mourning (op cit pg. 18). In a footnote (pg. 18), Kadari suggests that the name derives from on in the sense of "mourning."

And so, what is the derivation of the name Ben-Oni? What meaning was Rachel referring to? The lack of relevant information in the verse leaves open a wide range of possibilities for exegetes and darshanim.

Onkelos and the Aramaic targum attributed to Yonatan seem to contend that the name derives from aven, and so they translated Ben-Oni as Bar Devu'yiy [son of my sorrow]. The anonymous darshan in Bereishit Rabbah 82 followed suit by explaining that the name means ben tza'ari [son of my sorrow]; Saadia Gaon and Rashi adopted this interpretation.

Other exegetes thought that the name derived from on in the sense of "mourning." R. Moshe HaDarshan wrote in the eleventh century:

The sons of Benjamin, by their families (Bamidbar 26:38) - Benjamin had ten sons when he went down to Egypt, for it is said, the sons of Benjamin, Bela and Bechor, etc. (Bereishit 46:21). Why are half of them missing? Because you see that when his mother had difficulty giving birth to him and thought he would die, that he would not be a viable child, she called him Ben-Oni, that is to say that he continually mitonen [complains]. But his father called him Benjamin [Binyamin] - Ben Meyuman - a skilled son. (Midrash Aggada, Buber edition, Vienna 5654).

R. Avraham Ibn Ezra similarly explained: "Ben-Oni - the son of my mourning, and similarly, as bread of my mourning (Hosea 9:4); and I did not eat of it in my mourning (Devarim 26:14)." In his commentary on Devarim he wrote: "I did not eat of it in oni - as in Ben-Oni (Bereishit 35:18) and the bread of onim (Hosea 9:4)... and the meaning of oni is 'my mourning,' for if I had been in mourning, I would not have eaten the tithe earlier [or in other editions: eaten the sacred tithe]." In his commentary on the Torah, RaMBaN follows Ibn Ezra while arguing against approach taken by Bereishit Rabbah and Rashi. It is interesting that in his treatise HaEmunah VeHaBitahon [Faith and Trust], RaMBaN explains that the name is derived from the first sense of on: "Benjamin was born after Joseph. She called him Ben-Oni, that is to say: 'Son of my strength'" (chapter 24).

R. Yitzhak Abarbanel combined sorrow with mourning:

And Scripture tells why he was named Ben-Oni, saying it was because the midwife told her do not fear, for this is also a son for you; thus Rachel knew it was a male child. And as she died she called him Ben-Oni, that is to say, the son of my troubles and mourning. But Jacob did not want them to call him by a bad name, for he alone was born to him in the Holy Land, and he interpreted Ben-Oni as referring to strength, as in the first of my strength [oni] (Bereishit 49:3), [and the verse] and to those without strength [onim] He will increase power (Isaiah 40:29). And therefore he called him Benjamin [Binyamin], for the right [yamin] side is the stronger, and as RaMBaN wrote.

Abarbanel was not philologically careful; he conflated aven with on. Nonetheless he does seem to offer a reading which is sensitive and penetrating in both literary and psychological terms. A straightforward and superficial reading suggests that Jacob changed both the form (a different word) and content (a different meaning) of the name. Abarbanel tells us that the change was even more sophisticated. There is indeed a double change, and it is thought-out and intentional. Jacob exploited the double meaning of on and switched the negative meaning (the "bad name") with a positive one. According to Abarbanel's reading, Jacob's move signals respect for Rachel while deeply disagreeing with her.

Why didn't the Torah offer an explanation why Rachel called her second son Ben-Oni, as it had for the naming of all his eleven older brothers? It could hardly be assumed that the name was thought to be self-explanatory - quite the opposite. It must be that the ambiguity is intentional. Put more precisely: it was meant to challenge the reader. Furthermore: up to this point, all of the names given to Jacob's sons spoke of hope, gratitude, or joy - even if they were also used to express pain, frustration, or difficulty. Did Rachel follow suit, or did she stray from it on her death-bed, giving a name that only expressed her frustration or worries?

The curious reader must try to enter Rachel's inner world in order to decipher the name "Ben-Oni." This must be done through careful examination of the verse's language and a comparison of Jacob's behavior in this case with the way he acted when his older children were named. Such a reading teaches us that by changing the name Jacob protested against Rachel's choice. Did that protest reflect a correct understanding of Rachel's intention, or was there a failure of communication between them? In other words: was the protest justified, or does it say something about Jacob's lack of understanding or sensitivity towards Rachel?

While I have not discussed the various explanations of the name "Benjamin," context makes it clear that its meaning must be positive. The various interpretations surveyed in the present article do not bring the reader any closer to Rachel and Jacob's mindsets, but they do allow us to consider the possible considerations that led them to choose the names "Ben-Oni" and "Benjamin." They also teach us once again how dense the biblical text is and what riches await the reader who takes notice of the narrative's minor details and who investigates the problems arising from them.

Prof. Nahem Ilan teaches in the MA in Jewish Studies program at the Lander Institute in Jerusalem.

 

Simon and Levi are brothers

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 Shechem had incurred the death-penalty because Shechem 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, our 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?

...Moreover, why does the Rabbi [RaMBaM] have to seek to establish their guilt? Were not the people of Shechem and all seven nations idol worshippers, perpetrators of unclean acts, and practitioners of all things that are abominable to God? In many places Scripture loudly proclaims concerning them: Upon the high mountains, and upon their hills, and under every leafy tree, etc. (Devarim 12:2). You shall not learn to do after their abominations, etc. (Devarim 18:9). For all these abominations have the men of the land done, etc. (Vayikra 18:27). However, it was not the responsibility of Jacob and his sons to bring them to justice.

But the matter of Shechem was that the people of Shechem were wicked [by virtue of their violation of the seven Noachide laws] and had thereby forfeited their lives. Therefore Jacob's sons wanted to take vengeance of them with a vengeful sword, and so they killed the king and all the men of the city who were his subjects, obeying his commands. The covenant represented by the circumcision of the inhabitants of Shechem had no validity in the eyes of Jacob's sons for it was done to curry favor with their master [and did not represent a genuine conversion]. But Jacob told them that they had placed him in danger, as it is said, You have troubled me, to make me odious (Bereishit 34:30), and there, [i.e., at the time he blessed the other children], he cursed the wrath of Simeon and Levi for they had done violence to the men of the city whom they had told in his presence, And we will dwell with you, and we will become one people (34:16). They would have chosen to believe in God and trust their word, and perhaps they might have indeed returned to God and thus Simeon and Levi killed them without cause for the people had done no evil at all. It is of this which Jacob said, Weapons of violence are their kinship (Bereishit 49:5).

(RaMBaN on Bereishit 34:13, based on Chavel translation)

 

...and I have already explained previously that Jacob was furious at Simon and Levi for slaughtering the people of Shechem, for they did so in violence, for they (the Shechemites) had not sinned towards them at all, and they had entered the covenant and circumcised themselves, and perhaps they might have returned to God and have become members of Abraham's community - And the souls which they gathered in Harran - and he was further disturbed lest people say that the deed was done by his counsel, and this would be a desecration of the Name, that a prophet should perpetrate violence and plunder. This is the reason for In their council let my soul not enter - [this was] an explanation that he was not in their counsel when they answered deceitfully, and he did not participate in their assembly when they came upon the city and killed them, and therefore he cursed their violence and plunder.

(RaMBaN, Bereishit 49:5)

 

Jacob's two sons, Simeon and Levi: The word two is superfluous. Concerning Nadab and Abihu it is written: And Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu took. 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 [personal] interest or desire. This is the flame of the Lord. However, one must 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. (And the prophet Isaiah said Why do You lead us astray O Lord, from Your ways, You harden our heart from Your fear? Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage. For [but] a short time Your holy people inherited; our adversaries trampled Your sanctuary. And in [Bereishit] Rabbah below in chapter 84 [we find]: "R. Yehoshua ben Bitus said in the name of R. Yehudah bar Simon: It is written, Why do You lead us astray, etc. When You wished, you placed love in their hearts, and when You wished, You placed hate in their hearts." Love refers to the story of Dinah, for they demonstrated exceptional love for Dinah. Hate refers to the story of Joseph. Thus they stated that in both these unusual cases - the story of Shechem and the story of Joseph - even though they were considered as sins and they were punished for them, in any event as God's servants they did not deserve it. Those events were essentially providential and it was the will of blessed God that they unfold as they did. And that [divine will] awakened exceptional love and hate in their hearts at that time.

(Ha-Amek Davar, Bereishit 34:25)

 

...Even the Holy One, Blessed Be He seems to present a problem, for one might come and claim: The Torah itself justifies their behavior, for what is written following the incident? The fear of the Lord was upon the surrounding town, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. Does not that miracle constitute proof that God approved of their action?

The Torah teaches and reiterates that miracles and omens are not proofs of truth. Pharaoh's magicians also succeeded in their magic and the false prophet (Devarim 14) may perform signs and wonders in heaven and earth and the sign or wonder may occur. Daily and throughout all of human history we are witness to the victorious arm of falsehood - but none of this proves anything and we can learn nothing of the act's justice from the fear of the sword which fell upon the peoples who live by the sword and sometimes understand only its language. For - as a contemporary sage said - among the many and varied terms employed in description of God's attributes, we do not find the word "success."

(Prof. Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in the Book of Bereishit, 267-268)

 

Midrashei Tzafon

From the pen of our member, Ronen Ahituv

It is written: and angels of God met him... and he named the place Mahanaim (32:2-3).

And it is written: And Jacob named the place Peniel, for [he said,] "I saw an angel face to face, and my soul was saved" (32:31).

And it is written: And Jacob traveled to Succoth and built himself a house, and for his cattle he made booths; therefore he named the place Succoth (33:17).

Mahanaim ["two camps"] is Rosh HaShanah, for on it the Holy One, blessed be He, counts the camp of good deeds and the camp of transgressions, and forgives Israel.

Peniel is Yom Kippur, for on it the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies and sees the Divine Presence, and saves the lives of Israel.

Succoth is the holiday of Succoth, for on it the Israelites leave their homes and live in booths, and Israel is called the cattle [mikneh]of the Holy One, blessed be He, for it said, I acquired [kaniti] this people (Shemot 15:16).

And for whom are all these festivals, and who proclaims them? Israel, for it is said: Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel (32:29).

 

 

 

If you wish to subscribe to the email English editions of Shabbat Shalom, to print copies of it for distribution in your synagogue, to inquire regarding the dedication of an edition in someone’s honor or memory, to find out how to make tax-exempt donations, or to suggest additional helpful ideas, please call +972-52-3920206 or at ozshalom@netvision.net.il

If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom, please consider contributing towards its publication and distribution.

• Hebrew edition distributed in Israel $700
• English edition distributed via email $ 100

Issues may be dedicated in honor of an event, person, simcha, etc. Requests must be made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in advance to appear in the English email.

 

About us

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of a civil society in Israel. It is committed to promoting the ideals of tolerance, pluralism, and justice, concepts that have always been central to Jewish tradition and law.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep attachment to the land of Israel and it no less views peace as a central religious value. It believes that Jews have both the religious and the national obligation to support the pursuit of peace. It maintains that Jewish law clearly requires us to create a fair and just society, and that co-existence between Jews and Arabs is not an option but an imperative.

4,500 copies of a 4-page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah reading are written and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are distributed to over 350 synagogues in Israel and are sent overseas via email. Our web site is www.netivot-shalom.org.il.

Shabbat Shalom is available on our website: www.netivot-shalom.org.il