A Tale of Two Responses

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Having returned to Canaan with this new family, and made peace with his older brother Esau, Jacob purchases a parcel of land, near the city of Shechem, from the local community, and settles down with his wives, children, and herds of sheep.

Genesis 34

Now Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land.

Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, chief of the country, saw her, and took her and lay with her by force.

Being strongly drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and in love with the maiden, he spoke to the maiden tenderly.

So Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as a wife.”

Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah; but since his sons were in the field with his cattle, Jacob kept silent until they came home.

The text doesn’t clarify how exactly Jacob hears this news, just that he hears it, and it’s hard to imagine Jacob in this moment. He’s not an old man after all, and it seems odd that he’s at home to hear this news, rather than out in the field with his sons, tending to the family flock. Still, he’s at home, presumably, when someone brings him the news of his daughter’s rape, and Jacob’s response was silence.

Before Jacob’s sons can return home, and learn the news themselves, Hamor, the father of Dina’s rapist, and also the person from whom Jacob recently bought his family’s new plot of land in Canaan, arrives to speak with Jacob—patriarch to patriarch.

Then Shechem’s father Hamor came out to Jacob to speak to him.

Meanwhile Jacob’s sons, having heard the news, came in from the field. The men were distressed and very angry, because he had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter—a thing not to be done.

And Hamor spoke with them, saying, “My son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him in marriage.

Intermarry with us: give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves:

You will dwell among us, and the land will be open before you; settle, move about, and acquire holdings in it.”

Then Shechem said to her father and brothers, “Do me this favor, and I will pay whatever you tell me.

Ask of me a bride-price ever so high, as well as gifts, and I will pay what you tell me; only give me the maiden for a wife.”

Jacob’s sons answered Shechem and his father Hamor—speaking with guile because he had defiled their sister Dinah— and said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised, for that is a disgrace among us.

Only on this condition will we agree with you; that you will become like us in that every male among you is circumcised.

Then we will give our daughters to you and take your daughters to ourselves; and we will dwell among you and become as one kindred.

But if you will not listen to us and become circumcised, we will take our daughter and go.”

Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor’s son Shechem.

And the youth lost no time in doing the thing, for he wanted Jacob’s daughter.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this entire story, is how inexplicably absent Dina is from her own story. Despite the story revolving around her rape in the fields outside the city, the Torah doesn’t give voice to even a single word of Dina’s perspective. Instead, the dialogue centers around the deal her father and brothers arrange with Hamor.

After Hamor and Schechem, together with all the men of their city, circumcise themselves as part of this deal, Simeon and Levi, with swords in hand, enter the city and slaughter every man there.

On their heels come the rest of Jacob’s sons, looting and burning the city.

Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my men are few in number, so that if they unite against me and attack me, I and my house will be destroyed.”

But they answered, “Should our sister be treated like a whore?”

Jacob seems unable to look past his own reputation and legacy when confronted both by his daughter’s rape and his sons’ violent reaction against the perpetrators of that rape. It’s a clear example of the destructive effect a single minded focus on reputation can have on one’s own legacy.

But Jacob, despite his lack of action in response to Dina’s rape, isn’t exactly powerless. He’s already built a reputation as a man of G-d, and that reputation is one of the reasons Hamor wants his son to marry Dina. Jacob could leverage his power to stand up for Dina, but he chooses his legacy instead, and ultimately we don’t even know what happens to Dina.

In the United States, particularly, legacy is a hard word. Like Jacob, the United States is powerful, and intently focuses on leaving a lasting legacy for future generations, but often this focus leaves too many of us unable to reckon with, or even recognize, the shortfalls of our own history, and how those failures color our country’s legacy, and the reputation we hold around the world, and right here at home, which like our patriarch Jacob and his grandfather Abraham, hasn’t been our home for all that long.

This week, I randomly caught an interview on the PBS NewsHour with Nick Tilsen, President & CEO of NDN Collective, which describes itself as an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power.

One line, in particular, from Tilsen’s long interview caught my attention. He was discussing a renewed push by Native Americans to reclaim millions of acres in the Black Hills—a region sacred to many tribes, and which was repeatedly promised to native tribes who signed peace agreements with the United States government.

Despite these agreements, Indigenous people were systematically driven off the best land. Tilsen’s organization, NDN Collective, is focused on reclaiming this land, but not necessarily at the expense of those living there today.

In his interview, Tilsen said,

“The work that I have committed my life to, of building indigenous power, it’s an honor to be in this moment.

It’s not just about physical land. It’s about the rebuilding of our societies and our communities.

We’re not trying to burn people out of their houses or tell them remove people or perpetuate and recycle the same injustices that were done to us. That’s not what we’re talking about.”

Tilsen’s words echo the sentiments I’d like to believe Jacob was reaching for as he dealt soberly with the father of his daughter’s rapist, scolded his sons for their own response, that revisiting the pain Dina experienced on those who caused that pain does nothing to alleviate that pain or improve the social norms that led Shechem to rape Dina in the first place.

As an interpretation, it certainly leaves Jacob looking much better, coming off as a caring and wise father rather than a vain man so single-mindedly obsessed with his own reputation that he won’t bring his daughter’s rapists to justice.

Tilsen’s argument does make sense here, nothing the sons of Jacob do to avenge the rape of Dina makes any impact on social norms that led a young man to rape a young girl, behavior he most likely learned from someone, somewhere.

While the Torah is often a guide for the best way to act in the world, in this case Tilsen’s approach makes more sense to me, and it’s a fair comparison to make, between Jacob and Tilsen, because while I don’t want to diminish to the pain and trauma of sexual violence, Tilsen is responding to rape of a different kind, the progressive rape of his people’s ancestral land, parceled out for ranching, mined for gold, and drilled for oil over generations.

Tilsen’s efforts to encouraging non-violent protests while raising philanthropic funds to develop new, state of the art housing on Pine Ridge Reservation, engages a new generation of indigenous and non-indigenous activists in the fight for Native lands.

Despite the hardships his people have endured, what they’ve watched be done to their sacred land, and how those atrocities have affected numerous generations since, Tilsen is committed to his new approach, and it’s paying off, based on the donations his organization is receiving from all across the country, and the attention new coverage of his work is bringing to his cause, attention that’s helping his people leave a new legacy to their children, one of hope and hard work, of pride in themselves and their land, and of standing tall and speaking loudly in the face of injustice. It’s an approach to emulate, certainly, and a better model than the Torah provides us this week, in Jacob.

Shabbat Shalom