Dinah goes out to see some girlfriends. Shechem, a local prince, coerces her into sex. He falls in love with her and speaks to her heart. Then, he asks his father Hamor to arrange their marriage.

Hamor pays a formal visit to Dinah’s father Jacob. “Let our families become intertwined,” he says. But Jacob’s sons say, “First your men must become circumcised.” So, Hamor and Shechem return to their city where they easily gain the men’s consent.

As the men are healing from their circumcision, Jacob’s sons Simon and Levi kill them all. Then they bring Dinah home. Jacob confronts them, calling their action shameful and dangerous. They reply, “Do they dare treat our sister like a whore?”

Protection

Commentator Ohr Hachayyim (Morocco, 1700s) tries to articulate the great divide between the perspectives of Jacob and his sons. In Jacob’s mind, if good people ask appropriately for your daughter’s hand in marriage, you say “yes.” Of course it would be better if sex didn’t happen first, but Shechem broke no laws by sleeping with a single woman. So, what’s done is done. 

But in the minds of Simon and Levi, Shechem abused their sister. Given that there is no law against unmarried sex, they use their own methods to make sure people are afraid to abuse their sister.

Destruction

Ramban (Spain, 1200s) says, even if Simon and Levi meant to protect the family, their actions were still motivated by violent hatred. Legal punishment aside, acting on an impulse to destroy is a terrible sin.

In many places in our world today, laws do not adequately protect women. As Ohr Hachayyim notes, families attempt to protect their daughters with early marriage or with violent responses to violation. As Ramban recognizes, these cycles of exchange become ends in themselves, and the needs of women are forgotten.

For more reflections on Parshat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43), click here.