From Tikkun:
Weekly Torah Commentary: Vayishlach- On Not Blaming the Victim
by: Mark Kirschbaum on December 6th, 2011
1 Comment »
This week’s perasha gives us the first picture of the newly settled Yaakov homestead. He buys a plot of land, the text tells us, all rather matter of factly, and then builds an altar. There is nothing to prepare us for the horror episode that follows, and I suspect that the text means to shock us with its rather abrupt narration, which begins innocently enough with Dinah going out to see what the local girls are doing. We will see how some of the commonly cited readings of this text may shock us even more, and present alternatives from within the tradition that will be more palatable and sensible.
It might be easiest to break this analysis into two parts. First, there is the depiction of the crime against Dinah, and then upon the commentators’ response to the action taken in response by Shimon and Levi and their father Jacob’s response (I refrain from the term revenge or retribution, since that too is already a position).
A word on methodology. I am not trying to recreate a literal historical event, to present some kind of naïve version of “what actually happened” in the biblical story, I’m not sure that is desirable if it is even possible. My concern in the following analysis is what Benveniste would label the “place of enunciation” of the commentators; a recognition that reading any text involves not merely some kind of empirical textual explication but a worldview which underlies them (Gadamer’s “pre-understanding”). We can’t read and understand without involving who we are, we are always reading through a lens made up of our own viewpoint. Thus, in a sense, we want to attempt a meta-parshanut, if you will, by looking at the views of the commentators on this episode and examining what this reading might reveal about the minds of the commentators themselves with regards to women and crimes against women.
The text begins by telling us that Dinah, the daughter that Leah bore to Yaakov, “went out” to check out the local girls (sometimes colloquialisms bear more of the possible meanings than more formal speech). On this passage Rashi quotes the Midrash Rabba which links this ‘going out’ as a behavior learned from her mother Leah, who was also described as a “goer”, a yatzanit sort of the equivalent of being a “slut”. There is no doubt that this statement attributes the blame for the rape upon poor Dinah. If she had stayed at home, and only been more “modest” and less social, this never would have happened to her. Blaming the victim of a sex crime will not be acceptable to us (I would also add that in this particular instance Rabbenu Bachye calculates her age as eight years old, which should add to our anguish at a blame-the-victim reading); we will return to this Midrash, but first let us read on. The text continues with a series of verbs, which to my mind is meant to convey the horror of these acts, but let us read on along with Rashi- She was seen by Shechem, the local prince, who took her, slept with her, and tormented her (vaya’aneha). I don’t usually look at the English translations of classical texts, especially the recent ones, but someone had the Metzudah translation of Rashi when I was first teaching this text in Jerusalem. The translator attempts to soften the story, perhaps to make it all sound more palatable to the religious ear; this last passage they translate as “he took her, he was with her, and mistreated her”, which isn’t really the words one would use in the depiction of a crime (and, I would add, makes the brother’ response less understandable). They then translated Rashi in the following way: He was with her- in the ‘usual manner’; and mistreated her- in the ‘unusual manner’ (the implication being anal rape). At any rate, what Rashi is trying to do is explain the extra verb of va’yaaneha by interpolating an extra lurid crime, as though rape itself was not traumatic enough to warrant the term “trauma” or “torment”. The Ibn Ezra is a bit more sensitive; instead of adding to the trauma by detailing a further humiliation he tries to explain that the inui, the torment, was that of losing her virginity as well by this act, which perhaps might allow us to feel more sympathy towards Dinah by allowing us to imagine further psychological reverberations a victim might confront.
The Ramban is closest to a contemporary approach towards viewing such crimes- he removes all of Rashi’s readings and explains the attribution “daughter of Leah, etc” as meaning that the two most zealous brothers were her full brothers (that is, closest to her), and “borne to Yaakov” to state that all the brothers (including her half-brothers) were zealous on her behalf. In his commentary on the next verse, he again strongly rejects Rashi and Ibn Ezra’s readings and states, again in accordance with the contemporary professional view, that “any act in a rape is itself considered a trauma (inui)”.
Ramban chooses to ignore the Midrash cited by Rashi about Leah being a yatzanit, as does the Malbim, who states categorically that this verse, “And Dinah went out” is
“to inform us that Dinah was not guilty in this crime, and don’t say she violated the laws of modesty”.
The Malbim also reads “vayeaneha” as demonstrating her total lack of acquiescence, and accentuating that the crime against Dinah was entirely violent and traumatic and without intimating any fault on her part, nor adding any salacious details.
Still, one who is sensitive to these matters cannot help feeling that simply ignoring the most prominently accepted commentator does not heal the added injustice done to Dinah and Leah (injustice one: the actual crime, injustice two: a tradition blaming the victims for the crime). The tradition of using these texts as a proof for the value of modesty is a long one, and it becomes to some degree a third trauma, to all the women who read this, who thus internalize a subtext of personal responsibility for crimes of this sort against themselves in potentia or in reality.
Thus, although one usually wants to maintain an air of academic objectivity about textual interpretation, here I am glad to say that I was glad to stumble upon the following two Hassidic readings of this episode, which with an evident heartfelt rage refuse to accept imputation of blame to Dina or Leah. The Beer Mayim Hayim has the more traditional approach. He starts by questioning how anyone could conceive of labeling Leah and Dina with the term “yatzanit” as is commonly used- the Midrash elsewhere points out that the Torah goes out of its way to refer to impure animals as animals that are “not holy” (so as not to use the word “impure”), how could it refer to the Matriarchs in such a demeaning fashion? Thus he explains away the word “yatzanit” in a different fashion. The Torah tells us that the matriarchs “went out” and brought local women to an understanding of Gd :
…And for this reason the text tells us that Dina daughter of Leah went out because in this going out she was literally the daughter of Leah in emulating her actions, to go out for the sake of Heaven . Thus she went out to “peer into the daughters of the land”, that is, to see what is in their hearts, to see who might be open to hear her message, for among the nations there are souls ready to accept holiness and cleave onto Israel, like Ruth and other converts, who prior to their actual conversion accompanied and even chased after the people of Israel because of the holy sparks within them…. (my translation)
He notes two textual suggestions to support this reading. One, is that the text uses the term “lir’ot“, to see, rather than “l’har’ot“, to show herself, the latter which would have been more appropriate if the text wanted to opine blame. Secondly, the odd phrase “b’vnot haaretz” is used, which literally means “into the local girls” rather than the more grammatical “et bnot haaretz”.
The Or Penei Moshe, one of the wilder early Hassidic commentators, is also concerned with rereading the “yatzanit” clause in Rashi, though here is reading is more direct. Leah’s “going out” in its proper context was done in order to produce another child, and as such was a positive, rather than a negative act. So, too, the OPM explains, was Dinah’s “going out”, not a sinful act, but rather is the term used to imply a positive action. In other words, he inverts Rashi’s apparent imputation of blame into an imputation of virtue by rereading the initial midrashic source (Leah’s “going out”) in light of the text it is derived from rather than from a place of immediate condemnation of women.
In reading the Kedushat Levi (R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev)’s teaching on this episode, one can almost hear him screaming in outrage. He states that the term “yatzanit” is actually a reference to another Midrash. The Midrash tells us that Dinah was originally supposed to be a male, but due to Leah’s sensitivity to Rachel’s anguish (if Dinah had been a boy, and it was fated that there be twelve tribes, then Rachel could only contribute one son, which would make her less equal than the “servant” wives), she prayed that the child would “come out” a female. This is what “yatzanit” means, that Leah was one who could influence the “out-come” (the root yatza means to exit, or come out) of her pregnancies, and that the only “fault” that brought this terrible crime upon Dinah was her being born a female.
I suggest that with a reading based more sympathetically towards the sufferings of the victim, we can reevaluate the action taken by her brothers, Shimon and Levi. It is interesting that the Jewish apologists, deeply entrenched among hostile cultures, perhaps more worried about how primitive or barbaric the ancestors of the Jews might be viewed, primarily choose to condemn the undue violence- not of the crime, but of the response of her brothers, Shimon and Levi! (Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Netziv are the most obvious of these).
Can we read the brother’s response more sympathetically? In her article “Gendering Nationhood” (in Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality ed. By Nancy Duncan; Routledge 1996) Joanne P. Sharp discusses the different ways men and women are scripted into the national imaginary:
Men are incorporated into the nation metonymically. As the Unknown Soldier could potentially be any man who has laid down his life for his nation, the nation is embodied within each man and each man comes to embody the nation. …. women are not equal to the nation but symbolic of it….In the national imaginary, women are mothers of the nation or vulnerable citizens to be protected….prevention of foreign penetration of the motherland- and women’s bodies as symbols of it- is at the heart of national-state security….
She continues that it is a problematic gendering that only masculine agency is responsible then for national security, it would be more even handed and less gendering if women too were equally part of the national defense imagery and not simply those in need of protection. I would be surprised if anyone today would suggest that sexual crimes should go unpunished; it is as if when operating in the apologetic mode we haven’t even reached this level, of defending the wives, mothers, and daughters of the national imaginary.
Thus it is fitting to reevaluate those commentators who defend Shimon and Levi. The earliest of these is the Targum Pseudo-Yonatan, who paraphrases the rather strong language of verse 34:31 to “it is not fitting that it is said of Israel that any foreigner can violate their women, it is better that it is said that men are killed over their women, and they should not be like prostitutes who have no defenders”. The Abravanel says that the brothers were mandated to risk their lives in her defense, because “death with honor is better than the life of humiliation”.
The Or Hachayim introduces an element of timely expediency- here they are at the beginning of the foundation of the “national imaginary” and if strong action were not taken, the ultimate national survival would be endangered, if the word was out that this new tribe is loose with its women. The Malbim (who we read above as sympathetic to the plight of Dinah) provides a socio-political defense of the brothers’ action that is worthy of consideration. He points out that the text suggests that Dinah was still being held captive by Shechem and his kin, even as these negotiations were ongoing. Thus, the brothers were not planning only revenge, but rather plotting how to rescue her and return alive. When we read that they wiped out the city, in our imagination those words suggest a scenario in which entirely innocent people were sitting around watching TV or having family dinners when suddenly these invading barbarian brothers came in and slaughtered them. However, in a sensible possible re-enactment of the scenario according to the Malbim, the “town” of the ancient near east was in essence a clan, who were all in the scheme together, and any attempt to rescue Dinah would have awakened all the family to rally in Shechem’s defense. At any rate, adds the Or Penei Moshe, the brothers argument was that if they didn’t act, it would have been clear to everyone that Dinah was just another Canaanite harlot; the extremity of their response made it clear to all the neighboring peoples that she was not a “zonah“, a harlot, but “achoteinu“, our sister, whose bonds of honor will be defended, no matter what the risk or cost.
Our text has the sensibility to leave judgement open to the ambiguity of violence in either direction, which perhaps is why the episode ends with a condemnation of the brothers by Yaakov, yet, ultimately, the brothers Shimon and Levi are given the last word in the narrative.
Mark H Kirschbaum, MD
Weekly Torah Commentary: Vayishlach- On Not Blaming the Victim
by: Mark Kirschbaum on December 6th, 2011
1 Comment »
This week’s perasha gives us the first picture of the newly settled Yaakov homestead. He buys a plot of land, the text tells us, all rather matter of factly, and then builds an altar. There is nothing to prepare us for the horror episode that follows, and I suspect that the text means to shock us with its rather abrupt narration, which begins innocently enough with Dinah going out to see what the local girls are doing. We will see how some of the commonly cited readings of this text may shock us even more, and present alternatives from within the tradition that will be more palatable and sensible.
It might be easiest to break this analysis into two parts. First, there is the depiction of the crime against Dinah, and then upon the commentators’ response to the action taken in response by Shimon and Levi and their father Jacob’s response (I refrain from the term revenge or retribution, since that too is already a position).
A word on methodology. I am not trying to recreate a literal historical event, to present some kind of naïve version of “what actually happened” in the biblical story, I’m not sure that is desirable if it is even possible. My concern in the following analysis is what Benveniste would label the “place of enunciation” of the commentators; a recognition that reading any text involves not merely some kind of empirical textual explication but a worldview which underlies them (Gadamer’s “pre-understanding”). We can’t read and understand without involving who we are, we are always reading through a lens made up of our own viewpoint. Thus, in a sense, we want to attempt a meta-parshanut, if you will, by looking at the views of the commentators on this episode and examining what this reading might reveal about the minds of the commentators themselves with regards to women and crimes against women.
The text begins by telling us that Dinah, the daughter that Leah bore to Yaakov, “went out” to check out the local girls (sometimes colloquialisms bear more of the possible meanings than more formal speech). On this passage Rashi quotes the Midrash Rabba which links this ‘going out’ as a behavior learned from her mother Leah, who was also described as a “goer”, a yatzanit sort of the equivalent of being a “slut”. There is no doubt that this statement attributes the blame for the rape upon poor Dinah. If she had stayed at home, and only been more “modest” and less social, this never would have happened to her. Blaming the victim of a sex crime will not be acceptable to us (I would also add that in this particular instance Rabbenu Bachye calculates her age as eight years old, which should add to our anguish at a blame-the-victim reading); we will return to this Midrash, but first let us read on. The text continues with a series of verbs, which to my mind is meant to convey the horror of these acts, but let us read on along with Rashi- She was seen by Shechem, the local prince, who took her, slept with her, and tormented her (vaya’aneha). I don’t usually look at the English translations of classical texts, especially the recent ones, but someone had the Metzudah translation of Rashi when I was first teaching this text in Jerusalem. The translator attempts to soften the story, perhaps to make it all sound more palatable to the religious ear; this last passage they translate as “he took her, he was with her, and mistreated her”, which isn’t really the words one would use in the depiction of a crime (and, I would add, makes the brother’ response less understandable). They then translated Rashi in the following way: He was with her- in the ‘usual manner’; and mistreated her- in the ‘unusual manner’ (the implication being anal rape). At any rate, what Rashi is trying to do is explain the extra verb of va’yaaneha by interpolating an extra lurid crime, as though rape itself was not traumatic enough to warrant the term “trauma” or “torment”. The Ibn Ezra is a bit more sensitive; instead of adding to the trauma by detailing a further humiliation he tries to explain that the inui, the torment, was that of losing her virginity as well by this act, which perhaps might allow us to feel more sympathy towards Dinah by allowing us to imagine further psychological reverberations a victim might confront.
The Ramban is closest to a contemporary approach towards viewing such crimes- he removes all of Rashi’s readings and explains the attribution “daughter of Leah, etc” as meaning that the two most zealous brothers were her full brothers (that is, closest to her), and “borne to Yaakov” to state that all the brothers (including her half-brothers) were zealous on her behalf. In his commentary on the next verse, he again strongly rejects Rashi and Ibn Ezra’s readings and states, again in accordance with the contemporary professional view, that “any act in a rape is itself considered a trauma (inui)”.
Ramban chooses to ignore the Midrash cited by Rashi about Leah being a yatzanit, as does the Malbim, who states categorically that this verse, “And Dinah went out” is
“to inform us that Dinah was not guilty in this crime, and don’t say she violated the laws of modesty”.
The Malbim also reads “vayeaneha” as demonstrating her total lack of acquiescence, and accentuating that the crime against Dinah was entirely violent and traumatic and without intimating any fault on her part, nor adding any salacious details.
Still, one who is sensitive to these matters cannot help feeling that simply ignoring the most prominently accepted commentator does not heal the added injustice done to Dinah and Leah (injustice one: the actual crime, injustice two: a tradition blaming the victims for the crime). The tradition of using these texts as a proof for the value of modesty is a long one, and it becomes to some degree a third trauma, to all the women who read this, who thus internalize a subtext of personal responsibility for crimes of this sort against themselves in potentia or in reality.
Thus, although one usually wants to maintain an air of academic objectivity about textual interpretation, here I am glad to say that I was glad to stumble upon the following two Hassidic readings of this episode, which with an evident heartfelt rage refuse to accept imputation of blame to Dina or Leah. The Beer Mayim Hayim has the more traditional approach. He starts by questioning how anyone could conceive of labeling Leah and Dina with the term “yatzanit” as is commonly used- the Midrash elsewhere points out that the Torah goes out of its way to refer to impure animals as animals that are “not holy” (so as not to use the word “impure”), how could it refer to the Matriarchs in such a demeaning fashion? Thus he explains away the word “yatzanit” in a different fashion. The Torah tells us that the matriarchs “went out” and brought local women to an understanding of Gd :
…And for this reason the text tells us that Dina daughter of Leah went out because in this going out she was literally the daughter of Leah in emulating her actions, to go out for the sake of Heaven . Thus she went out to “peer into the daughters of the land”, that is, to see what is in their hearts, to see who might be open to hear her message, for among the nations there are souls ready to accept holiness and cleave onto Israel, like Ruth and other converts, who prior to their actual conversion accompanied and even chased after the people of Israel because of the holy sparks within them…. (my translation)
He notes two textual suggestions to support this reading. One, is that the text uses the term “lir’ot“, to see, rather than “l’har’ot“, to show herself, the latter which would have been more appropriate if the text wanted to opine blame. Secondly, the odd phrase “b’vnot haaretz” is used, which literally means “into the local girls” rather than the more grammatical “et bnot haaretz”.
The Or Penei Moshe, one of the wilder early Hassidic commentators, is also concerned with rereading the “yatzanit” clause in Rashi, though here is reading is more direct. Leah’s “going out” in its proper context was done in order to produce another child, and as such was a positive, rather than a negative act. So, too, the OPM explains, was Dinah’s “going out”, not a sinful act, but rather is the term used to imply a positive action. In other words, he inverts Rashi’s apparent imputation of blame into an imputation of virtue by rereading the initial midrashic source (Leah’s “going out”) in light of the text it is derived from rather than from a place of immediate condemnation of women.
In reading the Kedushat Levi (R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev)’s teaching on this episode, one can almost hear him screaming in outrage. He states that the term “yatzanit” is actually a reference to another Midrash. The Midrash tells us that Dinah was originally supposed to be a male, but due to Leah’s sensitivity to Rachel’s anguish (if Dinah had been a boy, and it was fated that there be twelve tribes, then Rachel could only contribute one son, which would make her less equal than the “servant” wives), she prayed that the child would “come out” a female. This is what “yatzanit” means, that Leah was one who could influence the “out-come” (the root yatza means to exit, or come out) of her pregnancies, and that the only “fault” that brought this terrible crime upon Dinah was her being born a female.
I suggest that with a reading based more sympathetically towards the sufferings of the victim, we can reevaluate the action taken by her brothers, Shimon and Levi. It is interesting that the Jewish apologists, deeply entrenched among hostile cultures, perhaps more worried about how primitive or barbaric the ancestors of the Jews might be viewed, primarily choose to condemn the undue violence- not of the crime, but of the response of her brothers, Shimon and Levi! (Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Netziv are the most obvious of these).
Can we read the brother’s response more sympathetically? In her article “Gendering Nationhood” (in Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality ed. By Nancy Duncan; Routledge 1996) Joanne P. Sharp discusses the different ways men and women are scripted into the national imaginary:
Men are incorporated into the nation metonymically. As the Unknown Soldier could potentially be any man who has laid down his life for his nation, the nation is embodied within each man and each man comes to embody the nation. …. women are not equal to the nation but symbolic of it….In the national imaginary, women are mothers of the nation or vulnerable citizens to be protected….prevention of foreign penetration of the motherland- and women’s bodies as symbols of it- is at the heart of national-state security….
She continues that it is a problematic gendering that only masculine agency is responsible then for national security, it would be more even handed and less gendering if women too were equally part of the national defense imagery and not simply those in need of protection. I would be surprised if anyone today would suggest that sexual crimes should go unpunished; it is as if when operating in the apologetic mode we haven’t even reached this level, of defending the wives, mothers, and daughters of the national imaginary.
Thus it is fitting to reevaluate those commentators who defend Shimon and Levi. The earliest of these is the Targum Pseudo-Yonatan, who paraphrases the rather strong language of verse 34:31 to “it is not fitting that it is said of Israel that any foreigner can violate their women, it is better that it is said that men are killed over their women, and they should not be like prostitutes who have no defenders”. The Abravanel says that the brothers were mandated to risk their lives in her defense, because “death with honor is better than the life of humiliation”.
The Or Hachayim introduces an element of timely expediency- here they are at the beginning of the foundation of the “national imaginary” and if strong action were not taken, the ultimate national survival would be endangered, if the word was out that this new tribe is loose with its women. The Malbim (who we read above as sympathetic to the plight of Dinah) provides a socio-political defense of the brothers’ action that is worthy of consideration. He points out that the text suggests that Dinah was still being held captive by Shechem and his kin, even as these negotiations were ongoing. Thus, the brothers were not planning only revenge, but rather plotting how to rescue her and return alive. When we read that they wiped out the city, in our imagination those words suggest a scenario in which entirely innocent people were sitting around watching TV or having family dinners when suddenly these invading barbarian brothers came in and slaughtered them. However, in a sensible possible re-enactment of the scenario according to the Malbim, the “town” of the ancient near east was in essence a clan, who were all in the scheme together, and any attempt to rescue Dinah would have awakened all the family to rally in Shechem’s defense. At any rate, adds the Or Penei Moshe, the brothers argument was that if they didn’t act, it would have been clear to everyone that Dinah was just another Canaanite harlot; the extremity of their response made it clear to all the neighboring peoples that she was not a “zonah“, a harlot, but “achoteinu“, our sister, whose bonds of honor will be defended, no matter what the risk or cost.
Our text has the sensibility to leave judgement open to the ambiguity of violence in either direction, which perhaps is why the episode ends with a condemnation of the brothers by Yaakov, yet, ultimately, the brothers Shimon and Levi are given the last word in the narrative.
Mark H Kirschbaum, MD
