One of the stumbling blocks that often makes it difficult for contemporary Jews to embrace Jewish tradition fully is the perception that women are treated as second-class citizens, as somehow less than equal within Judaism. Indeed, that perception is not limited to a few uneducated Jews, but is shared by many leading scholars as well: the founders of the Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements within Judaism all saw a part of their task to be to elevate the role and status of the Jewish women, seeing her place within contemporary Orthodoxy as a denigration of her true worth and a denial of her true potential. Even the spokesmen of contemporary Orthodoxy speak about the woman's elevated status today, and it is no longer uncommon to see women studying and teaching biblical and rabbinic literature within each of the denominations.
Somehow coming to terms with the perception of women as "less than" men, as the voice that was silenced or repressed within our traditions is an essential task if we hope to be able to invite and include today's Jews. So the story of the rape of Dinah, troubling even in past ages, is particularly perplexing today.
The plot is quite simple - Dinah, Jacob's daughter, goes out and meets Shechem, a prince of a guy and a Canaanite to boot. He rapes her, and then falls in love with her, so he asks his father, Hamor, to arrange for their wedding. When Dinah's brothers hear of their sister's rape, they are "distressed and very angry" because he had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter - a thing not to be done." Apparently, what most concerned the brothers was the affront to their honor (after all, their sister was raped!) and that a Canaanite man had slept with a Jewish woman, violating the mandate to marry only another Jew.
In a ruse, the brothers "agree" to the marriage, provided that Hamor, Shechem, and their men all become circumcised. Then, while they were still healing, Shimon and Levi killed all the men of the village. Additionally, "they put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword, took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went away."
When Jacob challenged his sons for their behavior, their response was "Should our sister be treated like a whore?" Again, it sounds like their primary concern was that she should be treated a certain way because she is their sister, not simply because no one should be treated that way. Her connection to them meant that they were affronted by her mistreatment. For them was an issue of their reputation, not of her pain.
Strikingly, Jewish tradition denounces the brothers. After all, the Torah itself condemns their macho display, as the Patriarch Jacob upbraids them "You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land." Similarly, the Rabbis of Midrash Bereshit Rabbah put the following words into Jacob's mouth: "The vat was clear, and you have muddied it." Jacob reminds his sons that in a contest of male power and dominance, his small band would lose. There has to be another way, a way that transcends male displays and possessiveness.
Important strands within Judaism, from the time of the Torah on, disdained the way the brothers treated their sister, as simply an extension of their own reputation and as their possession to be kept from other men; would that the rest of the world had a similar attitude. Many are United States court cases in which a husband comes home to find his wife making love to another man. He attacks the two with a weapon, and is brought to court on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. In many instances the judge gives the husband a token penalty, commenting that any man in his possession would have felt the need to inflict a corporeal revenge.
For such a benighted judge, the rash actions of Shimon and Levi make perfect sense. How we treat a woman reflects badly on the men who she belongs to: if unmarried, then her father and brothers; if married, then her husband. These men have the right to defend their proprietary interest and to beat the woman into submission for the sake of their own pride and honor. Women, in that view, are little more than pets that can talk, clean, and cook.
How refreshing then, in the light of this persistent chauvinism, that our ancestor Jacob, over three thousand five hundred years ago condemned that mentality. Jacob stood in the traditions of his ancestors, a tradition that loudly proclaims that all human beings are made in God's image. When we act as though we own another person, or that we have some proprietary interest over that person, we deny the divine image within. When we strike another person, we are committing an assault against God.
Outside of immediate self-defense, no human being has the right to beat another. Other than in a defensive war, or to protect against immediate attack, no human being has the right to shoot another. Jacob knew that in antiquity, and Jewish tradition established that as a matter of law between nations.
It remains our task to apply that law to our closest relationships, to cherish the divine image in each other through acts of love and kindness and justice.
Shabbat Shalom.