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Dinah’s Very Disney Tragedy: Commentary on Parashat Vayyishlach 5785
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
Note: This week’s Torah commentary refers to sexual violence.
In her Polynesian village, Moana knew that there was more beyond the reef surrounding her island. Princess Arielle of Atlantica longed to escape her underwater kingdom. In Agrabah, Princess Jasmine had to sneak her way out of the palace. Princess Anna of Arendelle ordered her servants to tell the guards to open up the gates of her family’s castle. Fictional Disney princesses, like real live humans, do not care to be boxed into isolation.
Which is why Ya’akov (יעקב, “Jacob”) should never have put Dinah into a box. But how could our ancestors who never saw Disney films have known that?
Moral atrocities permeate the most widespread story about Dinah, how everything went terribly amiss when Prince Shechem son of Chamor the Chivvite pursued a relationship with her. The tale in Genesis 34 seems to be written by men who sought to protect the dignity of Dinah’s Israelite family. (Her father had been renamed Yisra’el [ישראל, “Israel”] just a few verses earlier in Genesis 32:29.) We therefore read the narrator’s paraphrase of Ya’akov’s sons’ thoughts about Shechem in Genesis 32:7:
כִּֽי־נְבָלָ֞ה עָשָׂ֣ה בְיִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל לִשְׁכַּב֙ אֶת־בַּֽת־יַעֲקֹ֔ב וְכֵ֖ן לֹ֥א יֵעָשֶֽׂה׃
He had done a disgusting thing amidst Israel—lying with a daughter of Ya’akov. Such a thing should not be done!
After Ya’akov reprimanded Dinah’s brothers Shim’on (שמעון, “Simeon”) and Levi (לוי) for their plundering and massacring Shechem and all of the men of Chamor’s village (Genesis 32:25–30), Shim’on and Levi asked rhetorically, “הַכְזוֹנָ֕ה יַעֲשֶׂ֖ה אֶת־אֲחוֹתֵֽנוּ” (hakhzonah ya’aseh et achotenu, “Should we let anyone render our sister sexually deviant?”) (Genesis 32:31). This snippy reply to the patriarch may have demonstrated, however, Shim’on and Levi’s lack of nuanced understanding of whatever it was that Dinah, whom they returned home (Genesis 34:26), actually underwent.
The most widespread reading of Genesis 34 suggests that Shechem cruelly raped Dinah—and for such an act there is never any justification. But this reading may be entirely based on several key misunderstandings of the Hebrew text. In the entry, “Dinah: Bible,” in The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women (hosted online by the Jewish Women’s Archive), Rabbi Dr. Rachel Andelman has noted that the word “וַיְעַנֶּֽהָ” (vay’anneha) in Genesis 34:2, often translated as “her raped her,” means more precisely “he debased her.” The notion that Shechem ‘debased’ Dinah (but did not necessarily rape Dinah) matches the attitude from the ancient Near Eastern, where sex outside of a marital context was considered immoral. Further illustrating her point, Rabbi Andelman has contrasted Dinah’s story with how the Hebrew Bible shares the story of Amnon having unquestionably raped his sister Tamar. There, the reader grows fully aware of the lack of consent because we read Tamar’s own words of protest (II Samuel 13:12–13) and Amnon’s forceful actions (II Samuel 13:11 and 13:14). Meanwhile, as far as Genesis is concerned, Dinah has nothing to say (or at least the Torah reports nothing in her voice), and Shechem never is recorded as acting in an explicitly rough way; rather “וַיִּקַּ֥ח אֹתָ֛הּ וַיִּשְׁכַּ֥ב אֹתָ֖הּ” (vayyikkach otah vayyishkav otah) appears to mean “he took her [as a partner], and he lied with her.” (The Hebrew term אֹתָ֖הּ [otah, literally meaning “her”], at the end of the verse, appears to be an error for אִתָּ֖הּ [ittah, “with her”].)
Genesis 34:3 seems to portray Shechem as a real romantic: “וַתִּדְבַּ֣ק נַפְשׁ֔וֹ בְּדִינָ֖ה בַּֽת־יַעֲקֹ֑ב וַיֶּֽאֱהַב֙ אֶת־הַֽנַּעֲרָ֔ וַיְדַבֵּ֖ר עַל־לֵ֥ב הַֽנַּעֲרָֽ׃” (“His soul clung to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman. He spoke unto the heart of the young woman.”) So, after some back-and-forth negotiations with Chamor, Dinah’s brothers eventually verbally declared that, if the men among Chamor’s people would undergo circumcisions, marriage between his people and Ya’akov’s people would become kosher (Genesis 34:8–17). The Torah highlights for us, however, that Ya’akov’s sons were known to veer out of their lane; why else would they call their sister “בִּתֵּ֖נוּ” (bittenu, “our daughter”) (Genesis 34:17), as if it was their role to be a parent to their sibling? Although Shechem and his local male neighbors consented to a mass circumcision (Genesis 34:18–24), Shim’on and Levi masterminded the brutal reneging on this agreement (Genesis 34:25–29). Dinah, whose inner thoughts are never detailed in the Torah, found herself surrounded by cruelty, one way or another.
By a rabbinic reckoning, Dinah appeared on the scene magically—and disappeared tragically. A rabbinic tale with several variations asserts that Dinah, in an embryonic form, had been conceived as male but, through an act of her mother’s prayer, turned female. We read therefore in one (repetitive) version in the Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 9:3:
ר׳ בשם דבית ינאי עיקור עיבור של דינה זכר היה. מאחר שנתפללה רחל נעשית נקבה. הדא היא ואחר ילדה בת ותקרא את שמה דינה. מאחר שנתפללה רחל נעשית נקבה.
Rabbi, in the name of the House of Yannai [taught]: At first, the fetus of Dinah was male. Me’achar (מאחר, “after”) Rachel prayed, that [fetus of Dinah] became female. This is [the reason why Genesis 30:21 reads,] “Ve’achar (ואחר, ‘and after’), she gave birth to a daughter. She called her name Dinah.” Me’achar Rachel prayed, that [fetus of Dinah] became female.
Because of how infrequently the Torah mentions Dinah compared to any of the other children of Ya’akov, Dinah usually either blended into the mix of Ya’akov’s sons or simply faded into the background. In Parashat Vayyishlach, before introducing us to Dinah’s entanglement with Shechem, as Ya’akov’s attention is turned to every member of his family, we readers might note Dinah’s absence. Genesis 32:23 presents Ya’akov with his family on the move:
וַיָּ֣קׇם ׀ בַּלַּ֣יְלָה ה֗וּא וַיִּקַּ֞ח אֶת־שְׁתֵּ֤י נָשָׁיו֙ וְאֶת־שְׁתֵּ֣י שִׁפְחֹתָ֔יו וְאֶת־אַחַ֥ד עָשָׂ֖ר יְלָדָ֑יו וַֽיַּעֲבֹ֔ר אֵ֖ת מַעֲבַ֥ר יַבֹּֽק׃
He got up that night. He took his two wives and his two maidservants and his eleven children and crossed the Yabbok passageway.
Binyamin (בנימן, “Benjamin”), not yet born, could not have yet counted among the twelve sons of Israel, and Dinah—though not a son—was one of “ילדיו” (yeladav, “his children”). But 11 is too small a number to account for Dina’s presence amidst 11 sons plus her or any other daughters. The Austrian-Italian Jewish scholar Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865) wrote in his commentary on our verse, “נ״ל שהבנות היו הולכות עם אִמָן” (“it appears to me that the daughters were walking with their mother[s and are therefore not mentioned]”). Far more creatively, in the ancient rabbinic collection of midrashim (מדרשים, “interpretations,” often in the form of stories), Bereshit Rabbah, our spiritual forebears asked (and offered answers to) the question in Bereshit Rabbah 76:9:
וְדִינָה הֵיכָן הִיא, נְתָנָהּ בְּתֵבָה וְנָעַל בְּפָנֶיהָ, אָמַר הָרָשָׁע הַזֶּה עֵינוֹ רָמָה הִיא, שֶׁלֹא יִתְלֶה עֵינָיו וְיִרְאֶה אוֹתָהּ וְיִקַּח אוֹתָהּ מִמֶּנִּי.
Where is Dinah? That [man, Ya’akov] put her in a container and sealed [it] in front of her. He said, “This evil person[, i.e., my brother Esav {עשו, ‘Esau’},] has an eye that goes too high; may that [evil person] not keep his eyes in suspension and gaze at her and take her from me!”
Although Ya’akov thought that he was doing Dinah a favor in protecting her from his (apparently) lascivious brother by placing her in some storage unit, the sages of Bereshit Rabbah 76:9 verified that Ya’akov messed up here:
רַב הוּנָא בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי אַבָּא הַכֹּהֵן בַּרְדְּלָא אָמַר, אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא (איוב ו, יד): לַמָּס מֵרֵעֵהוּ חָסֶד, מָנַעְתָּ מֵרֵעֲךָ חָסֶד, מָנַעְתָּ חַסְדְּךָ מִן אֲחוּךְ, דְּאִלּוּ אִתְנְסֵיבַת לְגַבְרָא לָא זִנְּתָה… לֹא בִקַּשְׁתָּ לְהַשִּׂיאָהּ לְמָהוּל הֲרֵי הִיא נִשֵּׂאת לְעָרֵל, לֹא בִקַּשְׁתָּ לְהַשִּׂיאָהּ דֶּרֶךְ הֶתֵּר הֲרֵי נִשֵּׂאת דֶּרֶךְ אִסּוּר, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב (בראשית לד, א): וַתֵּצֵא דִינָה בַּת לֵאָה.
Rav Huna, in the name of Rabbi Abba HaKohen Bardela, said: “The Holy Blessed One had said [in Job 6:14]: ‘The one who owes to one’s peer is a lovingkindness.’ Have you[, Ya’akov,] withheld lovingkindness from your friend? Have you withheld lovingkindness from your brother? For, had she gotten married to the man[, i.e., Esav,] she would not have been performed something sexually inappropriate… You did not seek to marry her to a circumcised man. Behold, she is marrying an uncircumcised man! You did not seek to marry her in a permitted way. Behold, she is getting married in a forbidden way. This is why it is written [in Genesis 34:1], “Dinah, the daughter of Le’ah went out!”
Ya’akov’s plan backfired. Maybe he had intended to save Dinah from a demoralizing encounter with her uncle, but the severity of his restraining his daughter egged on her desire to get out and explore the world. It turns out Dinah became so adventurous that she stumbled her way into a relationship that so deeply infuriated her family that the family ended up looking (and acting) far worse to the entire neighborhood. Although science today has demonstrated that marriage between relatives can yield genetic disorders, Avraham’s brother Nachor had married his niece Milkah (Genesis 11:29), and such relationships were not taboo in Ya’akov’s time. In weighing the pros and cons of the two prospective relationships, Rabbi Natan Tzevi Finkel (1849–1927) of Słobódka (now Vilijampolė, Lithuania) argued in his Torah commentary Or Tzafun:
רואה התורה ביעקב מניעת חסד מאחיו. למרות כל החששות והסכנות, לא עשה יעקב כהוגן בזה שסגר את דינה בתיבה והעלימה מעינו של עשו. החסד הוא ממדותיו של הקב”ה שבהן ברא את העולם וכל אדם חייב להידמות למדותיו אשר זוהי תכליתו בחיים. ויעקב צריך היה להיות מוכן לגמול חסד עם אחיו… ואולי היתה גם מחזירתו למוטב ומביאה אותו לחיי העוה”ב
The Torah sees Ya’akov as withholding lovingkindness from his brother. Despite all of the [justifiable reasons to be] cautious and [to presume] danger, Ya’akov did not act appropriately here by closing up Dinah into a box and keeping her out of the eye of Esav. Lovingkindness is among those attributes of the Holy Blessed One with which God created the world. Every human is obligated to imitate those attributes—for this is the purpose of life. Ya’akov should have been prepared to offer lovingkindness to his brother… perhaps she could have even influenced that [brother, Esav,] to become better and to bring him to a life [worthy of] the World to Come.
Ya’akov’s great moral failure to Dinah was, in fearing that she was not strong enough to hold her own against the world around herself, he removed her agency entirely. At a certain point though, she got out of the box that trapped her, and “Dinah the daughter of Le’ah went out” (Genesis 34:1)—ready to take on whatever challenge the world would deliver to her. Whether Dinah’s relationship with Shechem was as morally repugnant as the brothers believed or as amorous as Shechem felt, Ya’akov had never prepared Dinah for the real world. She did not know the powers of her neighbors or her brothers. In the rabbinic imagination, Ya’akov held her captive until she broke free, before violence broke out.
We should never allow life’s boundaries to intimidate us to the point of stifling us, nor should we become reckless when we discover that some border is more porous than we once thought. We must instead be prepared to approach the world with lovingkindness and have the audacity to believe that others too will deal kindly with us.
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