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The Rape of Dinah: Sexual Violence and the Victim’s Silence

Rabbi Arie Hasit
| 12/12/2024

Dinah is silent, too silent. We the community need to give power to the voices of those who are not heard. 

This week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, tells a story that is not about Dinah.

Dinah, Jacob’s only named daughter, goes out. And it says (Genesis, 34:1):

וַתֵּצֵ֤א דִינָה֙ בַּת־לֵאָ֔ה

“Dinah, the daughter of Leah went out.”

After that, she does nothing.

After that in this horrible story that we read this week in which Shechem takes her and forces himself upon her and then tries to marry her. She does nothing.

Dinah does not have a voice.

She is violated.

She is raped.

Her dad does nothing. Her brothers believe that they need to enact vengeance on the entire town.

And we never hear from Dinah.

The People of Israel will be reading about Dinah and the people in Israel will be talking about Dinah, talking for Dinah. This week across Israel, we mark the Week of Dinah, the Shabbat of Dinah.

To ask ourselves, how can it be that this character, our aunt of our Jewish People, has no voice. What do we say?

This week as we read about what happens to Dinah, we don’t read about Dinah. We read about what happens to her. We are challenged to ask ourselves: What would she say? What can we say?

We have a challenge this week to ask ourselves who doesn’t have a voice and who has violence perpetrated against them. We will be talking to say to all of the Dinahs in our community: We want to hear your voices.

We will be saying that we must create communities where Dinah stories won’t happen. But if they do, we must listen deeply and learn and make sure that we act to protect the people.

This week in Israel, one hundred of our brothers and sisters are in captivity and don’t have voices. We must all fight to hear their voices to hear those stories.

Shabbat shalom

 

image: printmaker, Harmen Jansz Muller, Holland 1585, now in Rijksmuseum, (wikicommons)

Rabbi Arie Hasit, Associate Dean, Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, was ordained by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in 2016 and was in the second cohort of the Mishlei program. Prior, he served six years as the founding rabbi and CEO of 70 Faces — Mazkeret Batya, a unique community that promotes the values of Masorti Judaism and religious pluralism in the public sphere.

Rabbi Hasit volunteers as co-chair of the Masorti Movement’s Youth Committee and as a member of the Law Committee for the Israeli Rabbinical Assembly.

He lives in Mazkeret Batya with his wife, Sara Tova Brody and their two children.

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