Vayishlach — The Tragedy of Dinah

Today — or rather this evening — we come to the chapter of Dinah, the daughter of Leah. It comes right after Yaakov’s open struggle with Esav, because until now everything had taken place be-mirmah, by cunning. From birth, there is in Yaakov a will to stay on Esav’s heels, because Esav is engaged in the world of reality, of daily life, and the point is to draw on those energies, on those forces, in order to face the problems of life. Not everything is resolved within the walls — within the four walls of the yeshivah, of the study hall; everything takes concrete shape in public life. But this will is threatened by Esav, who wants complete mastery of the situation, who wants to subject Yaakov to his authority and to take the birthright away from him. So Yaakov, to defend his birthright, must obtain from Esav by cunning the bekhorah — the birthright — and the blessing. And then he is running away from Esav: he cannot face him, he feels very small, powerless to stand up to him. So he takes refuge with Lavan. But at Lavan’s too the same problem arises: Lavan wants to take charge of things, to direct them, to steer them, and not to let Yaakov impose his own spiritual path.

So there too, Yaakov fights with cunning, just as Lavan does — each trying to outdo the other. And in the end Yaakov is forced to flee from Lavan; they threatened each other. Then this flight comes to an end. Yaakov has decided to face Esav head-on, to be recognized, to be accepted for who he is, by confronting Esav […]. And this is what happens now: he will truly state his name when he is asked — “Yaakov.” It is true that he is Yaakov: he uses cunning, he gets around situations, he is not straightforward, he is not clear. But from now on he will have his title, his recognition, under the name Israel — yashar El, upright with G-d.

At last he obtains what he wanted, what he had always desired: this recognition from Esav, and through this recognition, the use of Esav’s potential as well. He has integrated it, he has mastered it, he no longer runs from it. Now Esav is even interested in going part of the way with him, and Yaakov tells him: “No, this is not the time. I will go on slowly; I still have a way to go” — ani etnahalah le-itti… ad asher avo el adoni Se’irah, “I will lead on at my own slow pace… until I come to my lord at Se’ir.” That is at the end of time, when there will be a final judgment of Esav and the kingship of G-d will be affirmed on earth. So the way now lies open. But when does this happen? It happens when Yaakov has had his eleventh child, Yosef. It is through Yosef — keivan she-nolad satano shel Esav, “once Esav’s adversary was born,” says Jewish tradition — Esav’s adversary was born with Yosef. In other words, the power to confront Esav takes shape with Yosef’s coming into the world.

What does Yosef add? This is interesting, because last week we spoke of Rachel and Leah, who were to divide between them the children of Yitzchak and Rivkah — namely Esav for Leah and Yaakov for Rachel. But Leah was not content with this division, and she wanted to have Yaakov for herself. She did everything; she too was complicit. Here too there is mirmah, here too there is cunning — cunning on Lavan’s side, cunning on Leah’s side — to win Yaakov. And so Yaakov, through his union with Leah and Rachel, integrated the potential of Esav, which had originally been Leah’s share, as well as that of Rachel — and that is perfect balance. Now we can build; now we can conceive of Beit Yisrael, or Beit Yaakov: the house of Yaakov with its twelve edges, which allow no foreign element to enter. But the center of gravity of this house with twelve edges, twelve pillars, firmly closed on every side — its center of gravity is the feminine. And that feminine is Rachel and Leah, asher banu shteihem et beit Yisrael, “who both built the house of Israel.”

Understand by Rachel and Leah, “who both built the house of Israel,” the potential of Esav and that of Yaakov, the potential of Leah and that of Rachel. And Yaakov does indeed triumph; a new journey can begin. But it is precisely here that things will not go as one would have wished. Sad events line his path, beginning with the tragedy of Leah’s daughter, and the struggle, the battle, waged by the brothers to avenge the outrage done to their sister. Then we have a problem with Yaakov’s love toward Leah. Leah does all she can to give Yaakov descendants, for each time the text says va-teled le-Yaakov, “she bore to Yaakov.” One would think that all the children she has are only meant to please Yaakov, to win him over, to hold on to him. But when she brings Dinah into the world, nothing is said.

No mention of conception, no reason given for the name. After the six sons came the birth of a daughter: va-tikra et shemah Dinah — “she called her name Dinah,” from the word din, justice. She rendered justice to herself. She said: well, I have done everything I had to do to impose myself on my husband — and after all, I too was imposed on Yaakov. Yes, there was a form of coercion at the outset. And so Dinah’s case is of the same nature, except that here force is used, whereas there cunning was used. We will come back to this. But one asks: for what reason does the Torah lay these sad events before us? To what end? Why sully the house of Yaakov?

Dirty linen is washed within the family — better not to display it! Other verses tell us va-yishkav Reuven et Bilhah pilegesh aviv — “Reuven lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine.” He meddled in the intimacy of his father’s bed; it is an abuse. Then the death of Rachel, and these children of Leah who bear names meant to seduce the husband. Fortunately they do not ask their mother what their names mean, because then they would feel frustrated on every level — both in their father’s love and in the fact that they are only a stopgap until the child who is to come: Yosef. Yosef is the object of Yaakov’s love after Rachel is gone. It is a jealousy that is justified, and one has to enter a little into the psychology of Yaakov’s children to understand that it is not easy to accept that Yosef should be the chosen son of the whole family, when he comes only eleventh in line.

And afterward, when Yosef disappears, the love is once again transferred onto Rachel’s side. One can understand that. Now, the Midrash tells us something curious. Yosef was in fact conceived by Leah and borne by Rachel, while Dinah was conceived by Rachel and borne by Leah. There is a kind of surrogate-mother story here, so that, just as there was a transfer of energy between Rachel and Leah, there was likewise, paradoxically, an exchange at the level of the children, Yosef and Dinah — quite simply because Leah could not bear the thought that she would give seven children while her sister’s contribution would be only one, compared with that of the pilagshim, the concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, who had each had two children. So she said: no, I do not want a seventh son; I would like a daughter, and I leave the privilege of this child I am carrying to my sister Rachel.

And so Yosef — Yosef, whose name means to add, to add more — is the joint fruit of the two mothers, Leah and Rachel; and Dinah likewise. That is to say, the conception of a child is not without significance; it leaves its mark in every way. And Yosef carries within him these two attributes, these two qualities […]: he has the strengths of Rachel and of Leah, which are the very being of Rachel and of Leah. But on the other side there is Dinah. Yosef inherited his mother’s attributes: he has that beauty, physical and material as well as spiritual. With Dinah it is the same thing, only the text does not mention it: she is beautiful, she makes an impression. But her beauty was at the root of her sad misadventure.

At the root of her sad misadventure — why are we told this? Because Dinah had also inherited something from her mother. The text says bat Leah: “Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Yaakov.” And in the text that follows, here she is bat Leah; later she is bat Yaakov, the daughter of Yaakov; and she is achot, sister. Why here “daughter of Leah”? Because Leah had a way of acting that was not altogether discreet. […] Dinah keeps her mouth sewn shut: she does not speak, she does not make herself known, she is all but ignored within this structure of all the children, of the whole household.

She has a single act to her name: she went out. She does not go to see the young men of the city of Shekhem; she looks a little at how the girls dress, at their way of life. But there is no covetous gaze: it is a matter of appreciating and drawing inspiration. […] A moment ago I spoke of Leah. You see, when Leah goes out to meet her husband as he returns from the field […], she goes out to meet her husband before he reaches his house: “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” And that is how she seduces, or persuades, Yaakov to come to her.

We do not look kindly on such initiatives […]: a woman should not be pursuing her husband, should not be commanding his love. So what counts against the mother counts also against the daughter. She went out — she too went out. But be careful: our Sages did not settle the matter that way. In reality, as I said earlier, she was extremely beautiful, and Shekhem was seduced by her beauty. She was carefully sheltered, well protected. Yaakov feared for her and sheltered her so much that, when he met his brother Esav, he put her in a chest, in an enclosure such that Esav could not see her, because he was afraid Esav would take her. Except that the Torah disapproves, namely: had you not withheld her from Esav, you might perhaps have won him over to the cause of the house of Yaakov, and she would not have fallen victim to these outrages at the hands of Shekhem. Yes, a daughter certainly needs protection, shemirah, but one must not lock her away. She must be allowed to assert herself, to defend herself by her own means; she must be helped to hold her own. Otherwise the opposite reaction is that she will want to leave home at any cost.

It is a pity. She then finds herself trapped by others who seize the opportunity, give free rein to their vigor, their strength, their animal desire, and take possession of the precious stone that had been hidden with such care. So Yaakov is not beyond all criticism in what Dinah goes through. We do not hear her — we do not hear her at all. We do not know what she thinks of Shekhem, we do not know what she thinks of her brothers, we do not know what she thinks of Yaakov. She is “the daughter of Yaakov,” “the daughter of Yaakov” — why? Quite simply because she would so dearly have wished to assert herself as herself, and to be that center of gravity of the family; but for the moment she was not allowed to — she was not allowed to.

That, by the way, is why — ve-Yaakov shama, “and Yaakov heard” — when she is raped by Shekhem, and Yaakov learns of it and keeps silent, it is the moment to review the whole education he gave his daughter, to review all the events, and to ask himself: have I not myself sinned? Yes, because sometimes we are so righteous that we think no misfortune can befall us. […] Yaakov said to Lavan: ve-anetah bi tzidkati — “I am a righteous man, and my deeds can bear witness to my integrity.” One does not glory in what one does; what one does must be le-shem shamayim, for the sake of Heaven. That is the first point. Next, one must know that when one makes a vow, one must fulfill it; otherwise the children will suffer for it.

[…] Yaakov promised that if he returned safe and sound to the Land of Israel, to his father, he would build an altar to offer sacrifice to his Creator. He did not do so, and that is why, between his return — the moment of his return — and his arrival at his father’s, a whole series of sad events takes place. That was the second point. The third is that Yaakov did not manage to balance his relationship between Rachel’s children and Leah’s children. These are three negative points that our Sages have linked to the tragedy of Dinah. And as for her, when she is mentioned in the second verse, the text says otah, “her” — not by her name. […] As I was telling you, he — Shekhem son of Hamor — is the prince of the land.

He is a personage, and therefore this is a promotion. […] Being married to a young woman from outside, which gave full citizenship in the country — that was a promotion. The text here says: pay attention. This chapter also brings to the fore the phenomenon of the assimilation of the Jewish people — the fact that it is a minority, and above all when it is not settled and recognized in its own land, and that it would like, in one way or another, to take advantage of […] among the nations in order to gain recognition, to emancipate itself, to dissolve itself. These attempts at assimilation we have seen with Sarah, with Rivkah, in Egypt […], where there was a real wish to seize hold of the very matrix of the people. At Lavan’s, nothing of that kind took place.

But there was a will on Lavan’s part to take possession of his children and grandchildren, saying: the daughters are mine, the sons are mine, and all the material goods you have — I can deprive you of them, I can take them. One can also understand Yaakov’s silence from another angle: what has happened has happened, has it not? And is it not better to try to round off the corners, to find a way of living in harmony with the surrounding peoples? It is the children who take over from their father. And know that the father’s authority, from the moment he finally prevailed […] and is henceforth firmly established […].

Why do they go? Because the authority of these children somewhat supplants his own — to a certain extent because it is driven by the frustrations they have lived through. And indeed, in the negotiation with Shekhem’s father, Hamor — who would like to enter intimately into the ways of Yaakov’s family and, in the name of this understanding, to practice milah, circumcision, for himself and for all his subjects, which at bottom is an act that commits him to nothing more — he opens the floodgates of the hermetic separation that Yaakov’s family would like to maintain. There is a phenomenon here: a will to live together universally, one people with another, without religious values being an impassable barrier. Yaakov, paradoxically, says nothing; it is his children who […] do the speaking.

Be-mirmah — by cunning. Always this element of cunning that surfaces: they say, we are willing to agree to this state of affairs if you practice circumcision. Circumcision means nothing [to them], it is true. And indeed, on the third day, the text says, Shekhem’s subjects are in pain — not from the surgical operation: they suffer from having yielded to this temptation, and they showed their disavowal in one way or another. And that is why Leah’s children, who are Dinah’s true brothers, [strike] the whole city of Shekhem — an action that is also contested […], in the sense of the savagery of the others. For Yaakov says nothing at the time; he expresses no disavowal. He will do so at the end of his days; he will disavow Shimon and Levi. But for now, when he raises his voice, it is to say: listen, you have exposed me to the danger of annihilation, because we are very few in number and they are a multitude. We shall see what they will do to me in the end — exterminate me. You did not reflect, you did not think […]. Yes, it is true, it is true that such a thing is not done — that a child, a daughter, was subjected to the will of another.

It is true that Dinah did not say whether she found any satisfaction in the relationship Shekhem had with her, since va-yedabber al lev ha-na’arah — “he spoke to the heart of the maiden”: he sought to win her afterward. He did not win her before, but afterward he tried to win her so that she would consent. In reality, our Sages said that Dinah left that house only with difficulty, because during […] she was in Shekhem’s house. And when they came to free her, they had to force her. She no longer wanted to leave; she said: I submit to my fate — once I come out of here, no one will want me, and I will never be able to […]. So Shimon, her brother, had to promise [to marry her] for her to follow him, and a child is said to have been born of it: Shaul ben ha-Kena’anit — yes, Shaul, the son of the Canaanite woman, she who ended up adopting Canaanite ways. And according to the Midrash, Shimon buried her in the land of Canaan; and another midrash as well […].

No — she is said to have given birth to a daughter, and this daughter ended up in Egypt as the adopted daughter of Potiphar’s wife […] — which brings things full circle, a closed loop. Whether Dinah remained within the family or died prematurely following this tragic event, we do not know. The text is silent. And even Yaakov — what troubles him is that his own life has been put in danger? But how is the event to be justified? […] You wanted, in a way, to come to terms with them, to find a way out — but from the outset he treated her as a harlot: is that the honor of the house of Yaakov? […] Among the points counted against Yaakov, it has been pointed out and emphasized that it was quite simply because there was a certain […] at the outset.

It was only the life of an unrecognized minority. It was only the life of the ghetto. So we will keep silent, we will accept it — and there the chapter of Dinah ends. It will be brought up again only in connection with the disavowal that Yaakov pronounces at the end of his days, because of [the remorse over] a plundered city, where men and women paid with their lives, let us say, for the outrage done to their sister. Should one not have taken action only against Hamor and Shekhem? But they feared that if they killed only the chief, the population would take up his defense and wage a merciless battle against them.

So they preferred to reduce the entire population to silence. That is one way of doing things. There is […] — kelei chamas mekheroteihem, “instruments of violence are their tools.” “Let my honor not be joined to their council.” “I will divide them in Yaakov and scatter them in Israel” […]: no parcel of land, no territory like the other tribes. It is true: they are scattered among the Jewish people, and Shimon’s territory is an enclave within Yehudah’s, so that Shimon’s territory is undefined, somewhat swallowed up by Yehudah. But what later gave this father’s condemnation of Shimon and Levi its sharpest meaning is that Shimon — who had avenged the outrage to his sister Dinah because she had supposedly been defiled by Shekhem — himself yielded to the advances of the daughters of Moav. He even wished to set the example for all the tribes, displaying himself, displaying his passion openly […]. So it is a total disavowal: why did you avenge that outrage so fiercely, if you then fall into the trap of the daughters of Moav and become the model of the conduct to follow? Whereas Pinchas, a descendant of the family of Levi, remains faithful to his line of conduct: he does not tolerate the conduct of that chief […].

[…] His name was Zimri ben Salu. As for Levi, the absence of nachalah, the absence of property, is what made him nachalat Hashem — he later became the portion of Hashem, and it is he who is destined to be the educator of the Jewish people. There — I will end my reflection on this chapter here. If you have any questions… — Yes, kevod ha-Rav. Good evening, kevod ha-Rav. Yes, I have three small questions. You speak of the outrage of Dinah and Shekhem, and say that Yaakov had overprotected Dinah from Esav beforehand. But is it not a parent’s role to protect his child according to the immediate danger? What can he know about what will happen later?

He is supposed to see a situation as it is at the moment it arises. That is the first question. The second question concerns the children of Leah and of Rachel. In a way, he sent Yosef to his death. And I have not heard that Yaakov did anything special for Binyamin. Apart from his love for Yosef, which is mentioned several times, in what way did he so disadvantage Leah’s children? We do not hear that he spent that much time with Binyamin, in fact — I do not recall it being mentioned. And the last small question is a general one. It is said titen emet le-Yaakov, “grant truth to Yaakov,” and yet you have spoken of him as someone who lives by cunning, whose whole life is spent in cunning.

That is somewhat contradictory, after all. — So, which question shall I begin with, with what elements, with what word? I will begin with the second. When Yaakov felt that he had lost Yosef, his soul transferred its love onto Rachel’s second child, Binyamin. It is Yehudah who, before Yosef, speaks in praise of this child in place of the father, and who says: “his soul is bound up with his soul” — Yaakov’s life is bound up with Binyamin, as though he were Yaakov’s only means of survival. Really! He has other children — there are ten other children. […]

[…] Even when he gathers his children at his bedside, we never see him offer a single word of encouragement or affection toward them. The first question was about the mistake. Yes, it is right: a daughter needs a particular shemirah, more than a son. But we spoke of the excesses of a shemirah that lets her grow up in a sterile environment, without her personality being able to assert itself, […] deciding everything for her. Because in any case she will go out into the street, she will see what is going on, and if she has no grasp of reality, yes, she will fall into the first trap. The third point is truth: emet. The first letter — the matrix — together with the last letter and the middle letter.

Which means that truth is not one line that stands apart, holding a special status to the exclusion of all other lines, of all other paths. Truth lies at the crossroads of all things; it is the meeting point of all these lines, of all these paths that make up our life. Quite simply, try to remain in that crossing of the arms that Yaakov performed over Yosef’s children, saying: “Yes, I know that this one is the elder, and I know that this one is the younger — but younger and elder, Menashe and Efrayim, form a single entity in the crossing of the arms, at the point where the arms cross.” And that is truth: emet me-eretz titzmach, “truth springs forth from the earth.”

The Torah is truth in the sense that it is revealed from above to below, but it is also the truth that we are called upon to discover. It is the truth that makes the sheaves of all the children bear fruit, bear substance — and yet they know how to recognize one another and to recognize the central sheaf, Yosef’s. That, that is truth. […] Yishmael and Esav? The elements of life that come together within us come from others as well. One must avoid this notion of waste, because the husk — the kelipah — insofar as it protects the fruit, has a meaning; it has a virtue.

The profound optimism of Judaism. — Wonderful. Todah rabbah. Thank you. Good evening. Shavua tov. — Thank you. Shavua tov. — Thank you very much. Shavua tov. Todah rabbah. […]