When There is No Justice
A Community's Failure
A young girl, about the age of 10, wanders through the fields and into an open air market in a nearby town. She is new to the region and curious about its people.
As she passes through the stalls, wide eyed and excited by the sounds and the smells of this new place she is taken. No more and no less. A young man approaches her, carries her off and rapes her. She is helpless and no one comes to her aid.
After his crime, the man becomes attached to the girl and will not let her go. He approaches his father and together they go to the girl's family to bargain for her so that he may marry her.
This is the story of the rape of Dina by Shechem, whose tale we read last week in Parshat Va’Yishlach (Genesis 1:31).
Hamor, King and father of Shechem, offers money and the right to take the daughters of the town as wives and to give Ya’akov the right to give his daughters to the people of Shechem, if he chooses.
Dina’s brothers accept the offer but only on condition that all the men of Shechem circumcise themselves. Shechem and his father accept and go on to convince their subjects to do the same. They rephrase the deal, showing their true intentions, and convince the men to follow them. We will take their daughters as wives and give them our daughters (if we so choose) and they will dwell amongst us and their flocks and all that they have will be ours.
On the 3rd day, Shimon and Levy, called the brothers of Dina, enter the town and kill all the men, find Hamor and Shechem and kill them as well. How can it be that the entirety of the male population is killed for the act of Shechem? Should there not have been retribution against the perpetrator alone?
To answer this question we must go back to the act. Dina is taken and there is no one who calls out or tries to save her. There is no recourse for the family. There is no system of justice and enforcement to turn to. Why is that? Because the law is that the ruler takes what he wants. Everyone knows it, accepts it and if the average peasant had the ability to do so they would do the same.
When Hamor and Shechem went to Ya’akov, who watched over Dina so she could not escape? Were they not accomplices to the crime? When the men heard they could take the daughters as wives and Ya’akov’s property would become theirs, they were willing to undergo even circumcision.
Chizkuni (Hezekiah ben Manoah), a commentator in France in the 1200’s, writes on the passage: ‘they killed every male (34:25).’ “This was because all the children of Noah were commanded to establish courts in every town or county and they saw Shechem steal Dina and did not bring him to justice.” This was not an individual crime but communal failure.
Ya’akov and his sons had no recourse to justice. They were outnumbered and had no way of taking Dina by force of arms. Their options were to leave her or to change the odds in their favor and impose justice where there was none.
Shimon and Levy are called “the brothers of Dina” because they were willing to risk their lives to save her, restore her honor and that of the family. It is their answer that ends the story, in response to their father’s complaint: “Shall our sister be made a whore (34:31)?”
In some way, the Israeli soldiers who have sacrificed their lives and those who continue to put their lives on the line are “the brothers of Dina” and brothers to all our sisters who suffered on October 7th. In a place without justice, the Children of Yisrael (Ya’akov) shall bring justice.