This week Jacob gets ready for this inevitable meeting with Esau, and then has an interesting divine wrestling experience. When Jacob finally meets his brother, he finds out that he and Esau actually can be civil to each other. Dinah is raped and then her rapist asks for her hand in marriage. To avenge the rape, Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi slaughter all the males of the rapist's town as they recover from circumcision. Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, and Ruben sleeps with his step mother, Bilhah. Isaac. dies, and is buried by both his sons.
This week, once again it's personal, very personal. Every two years since Shlomo' s Drash started, I explore a particular passage of Torah as my own prayer for healing. This is the year I do again. May it be the will of Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu that these words heal those who are silent about this in reading these words, and may I heal in writing them.
We read in this week's portion:
1. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. [Genesis 34:1-2]
I think there is no part of Torah more problematic than Chapter 34 of Genesis. I take those lines very personally since they happened to me. I am a survivor both of rape and of partner abuse. Since I started writing this column five years ago, I have tried to understand this portion most of all, and have a very hard time accepting the answers that the ancient sages gave. I looked here for healing and guidance to heal, I found misogyny instead. In the Midrash, we read:
AND DINAH THE DAUGHTER OF LEAH WENT OUT. R. Berekiah said in R. Levi's name: This may be compared to one who was holding a pound of meat in his hand, and as soon as he exposed it a bird swooped down and snatched it away. Similarly, AND DINAH THE DAUGHTER OF LEAH WENT OUT, and forthwith, AND SHECHEM THE SON OF HAMOR SAW HER. R. Samuel b. Nahman said: Her arm became exposed.[Genesis R. LXXX:5]
In short she was asking for it for leaving her home in the first place, for not being obedient to the men in her life. The rabbis go further, using the standard defense clams of rapists for millennia, stating that Dinah actually acted like a whore. What's worse this was a "like mother like daughter" situation; Leah acted like a harlot, and thus so was Dinah. [Genesis R. LXXX: I]
The actions of Dinah's brothers are also not very helpful,essentially committing genocide then pillaging the defeated city to avenge the rape of their sister, to the claim "should we let our sister be treated like a whore?" (Genesis 31 :34) If I was writing a Targum I'd add to the end of that, "and not get to be her pimps?"
Even after Sinai, the issue of rape is problematic: the Mitzvot related to it are found in Deuteronomy and Exodus:
28. If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lays hold of her, and lies with her, and they are found; 29. Then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he has humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. [Deut. 22]
15. And if a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall pay the bride's dowry, and make her his wife. 16. If her father refuses absolutely to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. [Ex. 22]
There is fine for rape of an unmarried virgin, and a penalty of marriage with no possibility of divorce. As one female friend of mine put it "who's more punished by that?" Yes, what kind of life is living with your rapist for the rest of your life? The Talmud, however, does deal with situation, and gives the victim the ability to refuse to marry him or to divorce him later. Indeed Tractate Ketubot spends a whole chapter discussing the legal ramifications of seduction, rape and incest. And while the Talmud adds the concept of compensatory damages for pain and distress, in this section that is all it does: it give the penalties, in monetary and legal terms, for such behavior.
Beyond this, there is nothing -- and that is my problem. In the entire Tanach, Dinah is an active character for Genesis 34:1, and no other verse. Torah and virtually all rabbinic texts treat Dinah, and by extension all victims of rape, as an object after this. Often these texts, as I've said, blame the victim for the problem in the first place. While in the case of a betrothed maiden is clear this is rape, when a married woman is raped it is not clear if it is considered rape or considered adultery and her fault. Monetary compensation might help in some ways particularly in child support for an unwanted child; no amount of money can remove the wound to the soul. It is this that I most want to heal. While we have ritual for just about everything else, it is completely absent in our tradition to have a ritual for healing for the victim of sexual assault.
I was reminded of the difficulty of healing this soul-wound last week. Two weeks ago, I was set to write about how much I have healed in the five years since I first wrote about my time with that ex girlfriend. I had come out of my shell, had been able to talk to many people, including women I found attractive, and even try to date halfway decently. As I am so afraid of touch, I was unable to dance without paralyzing fear for years. I've spent most of the last two decades avoiding dance like the plague, indeed I'd rather have the plague than get on a dance floor. Yet this year I danced at a wedding, and had a wonderful time being so free from the demons dwelling in that soul wound.
Then came last week, and I was triggered, and nineteen years of healing disappeared in an instant. It was someone who had an abusive attitude to everyone, very much like my ex-girlfriend's attitude's to me. Not knowing what I was doing I was incredibly defensive and angry; I almost blew up on rage. I spent last Shabbat contemplating what happened, and realized that I had not healed, indeed I have backslid immensely. I fell for the exact abuse I fell for nineteen years ago hook, line and sinker, I was running on an automatic, unable to control actions I should know better than to do.
A total unforeseen event coming from a totally invisible mistake has triggered me once again. For most crises I turn to Torah for guidance and for the last week the hollow echo of monetary compensation and "she asked for it" is all I hear. The Torah is empty, and I am totally alone, with the world too busy enabling and placating the abuser to care about my pain. I feel all I can do is curl up and cry.
We have no halakah or ritual for the victim to heal the scars and wounds that won't heal. No matter how hard we try, there is always something that will open them again, and once again we are descended into a Hell we did not ask for or deserve. There is a rabbinic tradition that such was true of Dinah: she married Job, and she never healed, willing to curse God for the bad things in life (Job 2:9). While the book of Job goes into the question of why bad things happen to good people, there is not even in Job an answer of how to overcome the trauma, except to suffer. King Solomon says it best That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. [Ecc1. 1:15] Therefore, since there is no healing, only suffering, many of us who cannot heal turn to destructive behaviors. For some that is addictive behaviors, for others it is shutting down and isolating themselves from everything, as I had for nearly three decades, and as I might once again following this incident. For others it is transmitting the disease to others, becoming the abusers and thus perpetuating the cycle, often violently. In seeing the anger I released last week, it is this last that I fear and guard against the most.
The chill running through me today has nothing to do with the weather. It is pain that still exists after decades of pain. It is a pain I thought that had healed, but I'm coming to the realization it never will, I will struggle with these events for the rest of my life, and have these soul wounds. In our portion Jacob struggled with the angel once, and was left with one wound, I will struggle with the demon till the day of my death, and be wounded every day. While many ask concerning many tragic events from Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, or The Shoah "Why did God let this happen?" for me, and probably many with post-traumatic stress syndrome from such diasters, from war or from rape and abuse, the question remains "God, How do I heal from this?"
The answering silence is deafening.
I wrote this, as I have for two times before to express what many who cannot speak want to say. I do this as my answer to healing, to tell the story, to know it is there and not let it bottle up inside. My anger was there because there was no other way to express my remembered pain in the situation. It overwhelmed me, and I was not able to handle the situation as I should have rationally. Telling the story releases the anger, the pain, and hopefully for all who tell their stories lessens or removes the destructive behaviors to our selves and to those around us. However such stories are not without risk. There are many who will denigrate people who are brave enough to tell such stories, and I did take that risk here. Far better would to find an answer within our tradition, a ritual and prayer to help lessen the pain and promote the healing of the soul without such risk, and only the healing and comfort of one’s community
That answer is mostly silent, but after writing the first draft of this, I found a quote which did talk of healing from such things, from Reb Nachman of Breslov.
If you believe that you can damage,
Then believe you can fix.
If you believe that you can harm,
Then believe that you can heal. [LM 11:112]
For those of us who understand the pain, our healing is to heal others. From such advice may God bless us and let the healing begin.
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