Rose Coloured Glasses

For the contemporary minded, there’s a deeply troubling introduction to a deeply troubling episode in Parshat Vayishlach. The tragic saga of Dina’s violation by Shechem, followed by the retributive massacre of the city, raises the eyebrow of the critical reader at a rate of something like twice per verse. Resolutions remains a touch out of grasp. What this a case of love or lust (see Bereishit 34:2-3)? Where Shimon and Levi even remotely justified in their vengeance? What was Ya’akov’s opinion on the matter? What outcome would Dina have wanted?

Perhaps most perplexing of all is the introduction to the debacle – “and Dina, the daughter of Leah who had been born to Ya’akov, went out to see the daughters of the land.” Rashi, the foremost commentary on the Torah focuses on the superfluous rendition of her lineage and writes

“due to her outgoingness she is labelled ‘the daughter of Leah’, for her mother too was an out-goer, [evidenced in the episode of the duda’im flowers (see Bereishit 30:16)]. Hence the saying like mother, like daughter.”

A simple reading of this text jars with basic sensitivities – it appears that a wanton insult is being meted out by Rashi (or the Chumash?) against both Dina and Leah. Aren’t we charged to speak kindly about all people? Shouldn’t the Torah and its commentaries emulate such practice? It even, dare I say, smacks of victim-blaming, Dina is about to be violated, it seems poor placement to be raising this characteristic at this point in the story!?

And this brings me to the reasons I am writing these blog posts in the first place. You might be wondering, what a good Jewish boy is doing writing a blog on the weekly parsha based on Lekkutei Sichot each week. The short story is that I committed to do this as part of receiving an honour at North Shore Chabad last Simchat Torah. The long story however, is that this is an opportunity to show gratitude to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for all that he has given me. I never met the Rebbe, but his talks and writings have provided me a perspective with which to navigate a world in which many old-school religionists are in a state of tension and conflict with new-school secularists.

The episode of Dina is a case in point. One would struggle to find a contemporary-minded individual who would tolerate any form of victim-blaming. And, while recognising that every case turns on its own facts, this principle is a noble and true one. The Rebbe, however, reads the introduction to this episode not as a criticism of Dina, but as a complement. Rachel and Leah represent two modes of being: the former is the naïvely righteous (not in a pejorative sense, but simply as a statement of their natural character) – in Hebrew the tzadik, the latter however lives in a state of perpetual struggle with inner challenge, in Hebrew the ba’al teshuva. Rachel’s child Yosef, represented his mothers mode of being – living as nobility in Egypt, a debased society, without falling prey to its corrupt indulgences. Leah’s child Yehudah, represented his mother, leading a life pockmarked with moral challenges, to paraphrase the song, falling often but then getting back up again.

Dina thus, was the daughter of Leah, an out-goer. Rachel’s mode of being did little for the outside world, her and her boys were in a league of their own, they could be marvelled at, but hardly emulated by those who’s naïveté was stolen by dint of nature or nurture. Dina was one of us – she spent time with the “daughters of the land” because, like her mother, she could relate well to them. She knew the reality of moral struggle and was a heroine who dared to chart its turbulent waters.

Dina was an out-goer, the Rebbe says, just her mother was, and just as many of us should strive to be. What happened to her in the city of Shechem was a crime, which raised the retributive ire of her brothers. It’s a murky story with an unclear moral message – Ya’akov even refers to himself as having been ‘murkied’ by it all (see Bereishit 34:30) – but the one thing which remains crystal clear is that Dina was an exemplary leader, a woman who took on the world. Confronting nefarious forces creates susceptibility to being taken advantage of by them, but that fear should never cause us to cower from this task.

I don’t know how you’ve responded to the above (apart from perhaps thinking, ‘this is quite long’) but I read one message out of it. The Rebbe was no apologist. Read any letter of his to anyone on any topic, you will find a brilliant exposition of traditional Judaism without an inch of equivocation. And the Rebbe is not apologising here either, he is simply saying it as it is. You can read Chumash and Rashi and interpret them in sepia or you can don rose-coloured glasses and see positivity in the darkest of corners. You can choose to look down at our ancestors, or you can choose to look up to them. Torah can be read as outdated ethics, or as setting an ideal morality for which we can only strive.

The Rebbe chose his glasses well, and I try to live that way too.

Based on Lekkutei Sichot vol. 35 pp150-155