Hi everyone, shabbat shalom! Thanks for coming to my bat mitzvah. My portion is Vayishlach, the story of the two brothers Jacob, Esau, and Jacob's daughter Dinah.
In today's reading Jacob's forgotten child, Dinah is described as a very outgoing person, who wears a lot of fun jewelry, makeup, and clothes. One night Dinah goes out into town where she meets Shechem,son of Hamor. He is the Prince of the City of Shechem in Canaan. Later that night Dinah is raped by Shechem. The next day Shechem claims he's in love with her and then asks to marry her. While Dinah's brothers are in the field, Jacob (her father) is told his daughter was raped. When his sons get back, Hamor goes to Dinah's father to propose an alliance, where Shechem gets to marry Dinah and Jacob's sons get to marry Hamor's daughters. Jacob’s sons overhear this conversation and are outraged. Jacob does not answer this proposal but his sons take it upon themselves to answer. Jacob's sons agree with Hamor’s proposal, but on the condition that all Hamor’s men get circumcised, because their sisters and daughters can not marry uncircumcised men. Hamor agrees and his men get circumsized. Even after this, (with no opinion of Dinah’s) the brothers still don't think this is enough and kill all the men. Throughout this ordeal, we never hear what Dinah thinks.
This made me wonder, could it be possible that the Torah and the commentators don't know or care about Dinah's telling of the story? We never hear what Dinah has to say about the rape, or marrying Shechem. Maybe she was in love with him as well? I think this shows how women's voices aren't necessarily shown in the Torah, and even today. This also raises the fact that some women are even blamed for situations like rape , because their voices are pushed down and we can not hear their side of the story.
Rabbi Penzner shared commentary with me from the Midrash. These interpretations blame Dinah, not Shechem. “They point that, had she stayed at home rather than wearing fancy jewelry, dressing in clothing that attracted attention, and running about to parties, she would not have fallen into trouble.” In this way, they are blaming a woman because of dressing in what she is comfortable in and doing what she is having fun doing, rather than blaming the man who is acting inappropriately, and maybe violently.
Rabbi Laura Geller states in her commentary “What about Dinah, his daughter? What happened to her?” Rashi, quoting Midrash explains: “he puts her in a chest and locks her in.” Here, Rashi is referring to earlier in today’s portion, when Jacob is meeting Esau for the first time in many years and Jacob locks Dinah in a box before going to meet Esau. While many commentaries understand that by locking Dinah in a box Jacob intends to protect Dinah from marrying his brother, Esau, we know the truth of the story. Rabbi Geller says that hiding Dinah- locking her up - is a powerful image about silencing a woman. And that silence echoes loudly through the rest of the Torah.`` Jacob puts Dinah in a box, he silences her, he doesn't want her to have power towards her life and her decisions.
Another question from Rabbi Laura Geller is “ is Dinah’s rape Jacob’s punishment?” What about Dinah? What has she done? How does she feel? Our text is silent. We only know what her brothers and fathers think: that she has been defiled.” Showing how when people take action about what other people need without knowing what really happened or what the person really feels about it disimpowers the person and their voice.
A couple of months ago my friends and I went to a rally against the Texas abortion ban. Some of the stories the speakers were telling relate to this idea of silencing women's voices. With the ban, women from Texas would need to risk their lives to get an abortion. They travel across states to protect themselves from pregnancies that put their lives at risk, or from pregnancies caused by rape. This right was banned for them and they had no say. Looking at the news, I noticed that most of the people voting on this ban were men. Men who would never have to make a personal decision about how a pregnancy could impact their health or livelihood. Men who can't get pregnant, men who are also probably financially stable and medically stable enough to raise a child carried by a woman.
For my mitzvah project, I worked with an organization called On the Rise. This organization helps homeless women. On The Rise creates a community for women to find safety and resources to use their own initiative to move out of homelessness. I made meals for these women and brought them to a drop in center where they can go during the day for showers, hot meals, and support, regardless of their housing status. I learned that a lot of these women came to the organization and the shelters because they have faced problems with drug abuse or domestic violence and didn’t fit into an easy category to get help. Often these womens’ stories are untold, and even the women themselves don’t know how or want to tell them for fear that no one will hear them, or that they will get in trouble for telling their stories. On the Rise’s program is designed to listen to the whole story, to help women find a way out of homelessness but creating something unique to their stories. Only by really listening can the organization help people make real change.
Throughout my process of learning Dinah’s story, I learned that from times in the Torah very long ago to now, a bajillion years later, women’s voices are silenced and their stories are untold. This causes only half the story to be told, and that half may not even be true. This means a woman will then have to live in fear and discomfort for her whole life. This is a problem we all can try to correct in the future. I hope to continue to take action to protect women’s rights and also to make sure to listen to everyone’s unique story.
It took a lot of work to come up here and I couldn't have done it all by myself. I would like to thank Rabbi Penzner and my tutor Missie Polasky for helping me prepare for this big day. Thank you to my whole family for all of your love and support. Thank you to my friends for helping me through a lot of big transitions this year and always being willing to hangout. I am thinking especially today about my Grandma and my Safta, and wishing they could be here with us. I would like to be Heron for being a great sister, I love you. Finally thank you to my parents for always being there for me and always helping me through hard times. Shabbat shalom!