Dvar Torah – Vayishlach

This week’s Torah portion contains the story of an early honor killing: the son of a tribal chief in Shechem has sex with Dina (Jacob’s only daughter) causing two of Jacob’s sons to kill the son, the chief, and apparently all the men in the tribe.

Conventional translations say that the son (named Shechem, incidentally) raped Dina. But Shechem seems quite eager to marry her, which is not what one would expect of a rapist.. Philo sees the difficulty, saying that Shechem “broke down the maiden’s sense of prudence”*- that even if he did not overpower her without consent, he overpowered her emotionally. Shechem’s conduct might have been exploitative even if it was consensual- especially if Dina was just barely over the age of puberty. Perhaps Jacob’s sons saw it that way. (And how would they know, without talking to Dina, whether it was rape or not? Did they really care?)

This illustrates a broader issue in the Torah: in the modern world, there is a pretty sharp line between rape and consensual premartial sex. But I’m not really sure that the Torah sees it that way. To use another example, the Torah states that if a man seizes a non-betrothed virgin and lies with her, he should pay the father off and marry her, implying that the girl would normally be willing to marry her rapist. (Deut. 22:28-29). One commentary suggests that the virgin in this situation would be stigmatized and unable to find a husband, and thus would be willing to marry her rapist- not an impossible scenario but one which might seem hard to believe for modern readers. But if you take Philo’s interpretation of the Dina situation and apply it here, the possible marriage makes more sense, at least to me.

Similarly, in the modern world there is usually a pretty sharp line between slavery and service for wages. But I’m not sure that the Torah’s early readers see it that way. For example, the term “servant” is thrown around quite a bit in the Torah; Jacob has children by “maidservants” as well as his wives. But in a low-density nomadic society, did these women have any other options besides being Jacob’s maidservants? And if they didn’t, was this a problem for them or were they glad to get away from their own parents? We have no way of knowing?

*This is a paraphrase by R. Samuel, not a quote.