A Shabbat to Remind us to Speak out Against Domestic Violence and Rape

A year ago, many congregations across America, noted Shabbat Dinah, the Shabbat attached to parshat Vayishlach which speaks of the rape of Dina. (read chapter 34).

You might have noticed, that nowhere in this story does Dina’s reaction or feelings come into play.  She is seen as the daughter of Jacob and as the sister of her brothers.  Although Shechem longs to marry her, he first rapes her.  She is never a consensual partner in the actions which involve her.

There are a few possible interpretations that one could make while looking at this section.  1)  Dina goes out to visit the daughters of the land.  Some might say, she was partially responsible for what happened to her by being in the wrong place, a place that was not safe.  2)  When Jacob learns of his daughter’s rape, he remains silent.   Why would a father not speak up for his daughter?  Was he treating her as if she were responsible?  3) Dina’s brothers slaughter Shechem and the rest of the males of the community.  Did they think that protecting the honor of their sister would bring her comfort?  Or is their action, although obviously over blown in relationship to the crime committed, a sign that at least a segment of Dina’s family was outraged by the treatment she had received at the hands of Shechem?

If nothing else, this parasha reminds us of the vulnerability of women around the globe.  Even today, worldwide attitudes toward rape are often shameful and shocking. A recent United Nations (U.N.) survey of 10,000 men in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea found that close to one-quarter of the men admitted to having raped a woman, with half committing a rape as a teenager, and the vast majority (72 to 97 percent) facing no legal punishment for their crime. The U.N. noted that perpetrators overwhelmingly expressed a singular rationale for why they raped women: “the most common motivation that men cited for rape was related to sexual entitlement—a belief that men have a right to sex with women regardless of consent.”

(Times of Israel…Shmuly Yanklowitz)

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The stories my own daughter has related about traveling in India, where a gang of men approached her and a friend on a beach in a menacing manner causing the two women to seek safety by outrunning the men, where it was not safe to travel in a cab alone with a driver because of the harm the driver might do if she were not accompanied by a male….have left me feeling very uneasy.  But of course, I am also left feeling uneasy by stories of domestic violence that I have heard from mothers over the years seeking shelter from abusive husbands.  Whether it is physical abuse or mental abuse, the effects are also devastating.

The Rabbis of the Talmud actually took a stand against such abusive relationships within the context of marriage.  They urged that daughters only be married to individuals who were respectful.   In Pesachim 49b “We learn that Rabbi Meir would say: “Anyone who marries his daughter to an am ha’aretz [A non-observant Jew from a lower socioeconomic background, usually a farmer]—it is as if he has bound her and put her before a lion. Just like a lion attacks and eats without shame [in doing so], so too an am ha’aretz hits and rapes [his wife] and has no shame [in doing so]” . (Shmuly Yanklowitz)

The great legal authority, the Rama, Joseph Isserles, ruled that “a man who regularly gets angry and expels his wife, we coerce him to divorce…. it is not the way of Jews to hit their wives, for that is the way of idolaters.” (Laws of Divorce, Even Ha’ezer 154:3). 

Rav another Talmudic scholar said: “A man should always be wary of verbally/emotionally abusing his wife, for when her tears are found, verbal and emotional abuse is near” (Bava Metzia 59a).

Such commentary would not be found in the Talmud and in codes of Jewish law, if the problems of domestic violence and rape had not existed and needed to be confronted.  The story of the rape of Dina was not an aberration of the past, nor of the present. In a UN report published in 2013…85,593 cases of rape were reported in the United States.  It is felt that does not include cases where women were afraid to come forward with their reports.

Let us use this Shabbat as a reminder to be advocates for the end of crimes against women such as rape and domestic violence.  Let us use this Shabbat as an opportunity to learn that the response of silence, such as that demonstrated by Jacob, is not acceptable and that placing blame on women for being in the wrong place at the wrong time is also wrong.  Instead let us instead learn to speak out against this odious condition for millions of women across the globe.

Shabbat Shalom.