Shabbat December 14, 2019 Vayishlach Torah Reading, Genesis 32:4 – 36:43

Shabbat December 14, 2019 Vayishlach Torah Reading, Genesis 32:4 – 36:43 Vayishlach begins with Jacob preparing to meet his brother Esau for the first time since having cheated him out of his birthright many years before. Jacob is understandably frightened of his brother and sends ahead lavish gifts to propitiate him. While waiting for the gifts to be delivered, Jacob has the second of his famous dreams. Or was it a dream? The text tells us that a man wrestles with him until dawn and Jacob is then given the new name “Israel” because he wrestled with a divine being and prevailed. Jacob is wounded in the struggle, though, his thigh having been dislocated. The Torah then says that because of his injury the children of Israel are forbidden from eating the thigh muscle of animals. Jewish tradition identifies the forbidden part of the animal as the sciatic nerve. When Jacob and Esau finally do meet, the tension is high. Jacob prostrates himself, trying to show his sincere attempts at reconciliation in the face of what he fears will be continuing anger. But as he gets closer it is clear that Esau is thrilled to be reunited with his brother. Their meeting is lovely and poignant, as they embrace and kiss and both cry, presumably for all the lost years of brotherly companionship. Jacob says, memorably, “When I see your face it’s like seeing the face of G-d.” The parasha moves on to the story of Dinah, the only one of Jacob’s daughters who is given a name in the Torah. The text tells us that she goes out to visit the daughters of the land. Shechem, the prince of the land they’re living in, sees her and has sex with her. The text says vayikah otah vayishkav otah vay’aneha – and he took her and he lay with her and he shamed (or humbled) her. It then says that Shechem loves Dinah and that he spoke “to her heart.” He tells his father that he wants to marry her, and his father goes to negotiate with Jacob. The father suggests that not only should these two marry but there should be intermarriage and commerce generally between the two peoples. Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, are outraged and concoct a scheme to revenge the family’s honor. They say that the marriage will go forward but only if Shechem and all the men of the land are circumcised. Shechem agrees and while they are recovering from the surgery Simeon and Levi kill all the men and plunder the land. Jacob is very angry with them for their violent action and castigates them, but they respond asking indignantly whether their father thinks it’s okay to treat their sister k’zonah – like a prostitute. The traditional interpretation is that Shechem raped Dinah and her brothers are avenging her. And, in fact, the same word for “shamed” or “humbled” is used in Deuteronomy to describe what happens to a maiden who is raped. But the “remedy” in Deuteronomy is for the rapist to marry the woman and never be allowed to divorce her, which suggests a very different view of rape and of women than a modern one. The woman’s feelings do not seem to be at issue at all. Some have argued that it’s not a story of rape but of consensual sex, and Dinah’s shame is in having chosen to have sex with Shechem rather than following the expected script of having a husband chosen for her and only having sex after the husband pays her father for her. Lyn Bechtel, in “What If Dinah is Not Raped?” argues that rape does not fit her brothers’ outrage. A zonah – prostitute – is not a woman who is raped, argues Bechtel, but rather a woman who lives outside of the boundaries of sexual behavior and gets to choose her sexual partners and makes arrangements directly with them as opposed to being in effect sold by her father. In Bechtel’s view the story is not about rape but about the tension between a desire to intermingle with other peoples (as represented by Dinah and Jacob) and a desire towards isolationism (as represented by the brothers). Anita Diamant also depicts a Dinah who wishes to marry the prince in her novel The Red Tent. As the last chapter of the parasha begins, Jacob and his family are moving on from Bethel towards Ephrath. Rachel dies in childbirth, bearing the son she calls Ben-Oni - Son of my Sorrow. His father calls him Benyamin – Son of the Right Hand. As Robert Alter points out, this is the only case in the bible where the father and mother give competing names to the child. From here on, the boy is called by the more positive name his father gave him. Rachel is buried where they are when she dies and Jacob puts up a monument to her. She is the only one of the seven matriarchs/patriarchs who is not said to have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which Abraham purchases initially to bury Sarah. Why does Rachel die giving birth? Before modern medicine death in childbirth was extraordinarily common. Still, coming after the episode where she stole her father’s teraphim and Jacob said whoever took them would die, the suggestion is that her husband unknowingly cursed his favorite wife with this premature death during their travels. The family moves on and we are told that Reuven has sex with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and that Jacob heard of it. Jacob says nothing at the time but castigates Reuven for this violation in his dying speech to him, which we will read in a few weeks. The sages of the Talmud – who had worked hard to draw the worst conclusions about Esau’s behavior when Jacob buys his brother’s birthright and steals his blessing – tried valiantly to come up with an innocent construction of Reuven’s behavior here. For example, Rabbi Simeon Ben Eleazar said that Reuven didn’t actually have sex with Bilhah. He just moved her bed out of Jacob’s tent, so Jacob would pay more attention to Reuven’s mother, Leah. Assuming the text means what it says, why did he do it? In the Ancient Near East, public copulation with the consort of a ruler was a gesture of usurpation of the throne. This is why, later on in the book of Kings, David’s son Absalom will have sex publicly with his father’s concubine. Absalom is trying to become king through that act. Is Reuven trying to become chief of the Israelite tribe? He is the first born, so he should be the head of the clan after his father’s death, but he knows from recent family history that the first born does not always prevail. Maybe he is looking to take matters into his own hands. The parasha ends with the last of the genealogies that serve as transitional points in the Genesis narrative. In this case it is the list of descendants of Esau, also called Edom, and then a list of the Kings of the nation of Edom. Haftarah Obadiah 1:1-1:21 The haftarah is the entire book of Obadiah, twenty-one verses. It is the shortest book in the Tanakh. The prophet says that the days of rule of the Edomites are numbered, that G-d will judge them and bring them low. Edom was considered to be the tribe consisting of descendants of Esau, while the Jewish people are B’nai Yisrael, the children of Israel, formerly Jacob. Although related, there was enmity between the two tribes. The connection with the Torah reading is that the parasha concerns Jacob and Esau, providing the conclusion to strife between the brothers. Obadiah is a theophoric name, meaning “servant of G-d.” There are a number of people named Obadiah in the Hebrew Bible. This one is, in rabbinic tradition, thought to have been an Edomite who converted to Judaism, and to have been a descendant of one of Job’s friends. In Christian tradition, Obadiah is viewed as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. .

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