Dear friends;

I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah.

” Parsha in a Nutshell ”

Jacob returns to the Holy Land after more than 20 years stay in Charan, and sends messengers to Esau in hope of a reconciliation, but his messengers report that his brother is on his way with 400 armed men. Jacob prepares for war, prays, but decides to go in peace and sends Esau a large gift (consisting of hundreds of sheep and cattle) to appease him.

That night, Jacob ferries his family and possessions across the Yabbok River; he, however, remains behind and encounters the angel, with whom he wrestles until daybreak. Jacob suffers a dislocated hip but triumphs the supernatural creature, who bestows on him the name “Yisrael”, which means “He who prevails over the Divine.”

Jacob and Esau meet, embrace and kiss, but part ways. Jacob purchases a plot of land near Shechem, whose crown prince — also called Shechem — abducts and rapes Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Dinah’s brothers Simon and Levi avenge the deed by killing all male inhabitants of the city after rendering them vulnerable by convincing them to circumcise themselves.

Jacob journeys on. Rachel dies while giving birth to her second son, Benjamin, and is buried in a roadside grave near Bethlehem. Reuben loses the birthright because he interferes with his father’s marital life. Jacob arrives in Chevron, to his father Isaac, who later dies at age 180.

Our parshah concludes with a detailed account of Esau’s wives, children and grandchildren, and the family histories of the people of Se’ir among whom Esau settled.

” Dvar Torah ”

In this week’s Parsha, we learn about a very tragic story. Dina, Jacob’s one and only daughter, leaves the safety of home to go out to “look at the daughters of the land.” She is raped and abducted by a local prince, Shechem, son of the king of the town known as Shechem. The Torah then tells us that Shechem loved Dina and asked his father, Chamor, to take Dina for him as a wife.

Jacob learns of this fact but does nothing until his sons return. Shimon and Levi, Dina’s brothers, immediately realise that they must act to rescue her. It is an almost impossible mission. The hostage-taker is no ordinary individual. As the son of the king, he cannot be confronted directly. The king is unlikely to order his son to release her. The other townspeople, if challenged, will come to the prince’s defence. It is Shimon and Levi against the town: two against many. Even if all of Jacob’s sons came to the rescue, they would still be outnumbered.

Shimon and Levi therefore came up with a plot. They agree to let Dina marry the prince but under one condition. The members of the town must all be circumcised. The Shechemites, seeing long term advantages to an alliance with Jacob’s tribe, agree. The men of the town are weakened by the obligatory surgery, and the pain is most painful on the third day. That day, Shimon and Levi enter the town and kill the entire male population. They rescue Dina and bring her home.

Jacob is horrified. “You have made me look shameful in the eyes of the people of the land,” he says. “What then were we supposed to do”, ask the two brothers? “Should we have left our sister to be treated like a prostitute?” The episode ends and the narrative moves elsewhere. But Jacob’s rage does not end there. Even on his deathbed, he criticises them and curses them: “ Simeon and Levi are brothers— their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger. Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel! “

This is an extraordinary passage. It seems to lack any kind of moral message. No one comes out of it well. Shechem, the prince, would seem to be the chief villain. It was he who abducted and raped Dina in the first place. Chamor, his father, fails to condemn his action or order Dina’s release. Shimon and Levi are guilty of a horrendous act of violence. The other brothers engage in looting the town. Jacob fails to take charge. He neither acts nor instructs his sons on how to act. Even Dina herself seems at best to have been guilty of carelessness in going out into the town in the first place.

The overall effect is a story with no indisputable villains and no obvious heroes. Why then the story is told at all? Stories do not appear in the Torah merely because they happened. The Torah is not a history book. It is silent on some of the most important periods of time. If a story is told, it’s because it has a significant. Torah means “teaching, instruction, guidance.” So, what teaching does the Torah want us to draw from this narrative out of which no one emerges well?

Well, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has an interesting insight on this episode. He says that in situations where there are power and violence involved, unfortunately, all the parties involved are the losers. Because, sadly, power and violence can only be stopped by power and violence! In the case of Dina, if the brothers wouldn’t have reacted, the Shechemites would have exercise their power and would have probably raped more Israelite girls and would have became their masters. And what Shimon and Levi did ended up killing many innocent people who were not involved in the plot in the first place. What the episode of Dina tells us is not that Jacob, or Shimon and Levi, were right, but rather in situations where power and violence are involved, there is no right course of action; where whatever you do is wrong; where every option involves the abandonment of some moral principle!

Yes my friends, it’s so unfortunate that violence can only be stopped by violence! A successful defence method against a violent aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. This is so apparent in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. If Israel sits back and do nothing in her defense when she is attacked, the Palestinians will continue their aggression until they wipe out Israel out of the map.The only way to stop them is to attack back! But that will involve killing innocent people. Israel has no more desire to be engaged in this kind of warfare than did our ancestor Jacob. But what else can they do?! You can only make peace with a nation who desires peace —- not with a nation who provokes violence! In a situation where one side seeks peace and the other power and violence, sadly, violence will eventually prevail.

Violence defiles us all. It did then. It does now!!

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin