NOVEMBER 23, 2018 AJN SHABBAT SHALOM KISLEV 15, 5779 21 A BINDING CONTRACT Rules are rules ISITING Israel is always a special, RABBI larger-than-(Diaspo- CHAIM INGRAMM ra)-life experience. Invariably something spicy happens a lit- tleV bit out of the ordinary, often on Israeli roads with Israeli driv- providing the springboard for a ers. However, having been per- salutary lesson! suaded to go for a short spin in my This time our visit coincided son-in-law’s car (overseen by my with the local municipal elections. son-in-law naturally!), confidence In Ramat Bet Shemesh. Already suddenly surged through her veins; two weeks before the election, and so, for the first time ever in you would hardly have thought Israel, away we sped in a rental car there was anything else going on (with me and Google navigating) in the world worth talking about. to Holon to the “Dialogue with Everybody seemed consumed by Darkness” museum. (As its name election fever and an Erev Shabbat suggests, it is a literally hands-on midday rally in the “merkaz” 90-minute experience of what it is Rent a car booths at Ben Gurion airport. (town centre) became a family car- like to be minus the sense of sight; nival with boys as young as eight and the daily blessing of “pokeach a phenomenon as a half-day car ready to enter into a binding and insert the words “appear to my handing out leaflets to all and ivrim – who opens the eyes of the hire. And indeed the company eternal contract with Heaven. limited understanding to ...” In sundry! (Whether it is right that blind”, takes on new intensity of invoked the halachic principle of Some principal clauses were read the appropriate places. kids are caught up in what is often meaning.) “miktsat hayom ke-kulo”, part of out, but no details were spelt The rules of the Israeli car-rental an aggressive and even bitter polit- We decided we wanted the car a day (even a few minutes, as with out and certainly the small print firm are man-made and can readily ical campaign is of course another for a second day. But when I went regard to the seventh day of shiv’a) wasn’t examined. But the peo- be altered. Yet that loyal clerk was issue. In my grandson’s school, I to the car-rental place they told counts as a full day. So if you took ple trusted the contract’s Author not embarrassed to defend her am glad to say, special prizes were me we had to have the car back by the car at 11am and returned it at so implicitly that they declared company policies regardless of her offered to children who did not 5pm that day because they would 11.05am the next day (and you bet “Na’aseh ve-nishma!” – We will personal views or mine, and say: speak about the election at home!) then be closed until Wednesday they took photographic evidence!) commit, even though we don’t yet “Rules are rules!” Election day itself was declared morning! That gave us precisely you paid for two days’ car hire. know the details – we intend to And we Jews who have carried that rarest of rare phenomena in five hours – for which we had to It may not appear nice or just. It learn them all but still we commit the flaming torch ever since Sinai, Israel – a national public holiday! pay a full day’s rental! certainly isn’t compassionate. But unconditionally! should we suddenly in our gener- Most Israelis of course work a As the centuries have passed, ation douse the flame and aban- gruelling six- (or at least five-and- We Jews who have carried the flaming torch ever as the details were expounded and don what has been sacred forever a-half)-day week and for the obser- ‘ as even the microscopic print has because to our puny minds this or vant sector at least Shabbat is, well, since Sinai, should we suddenly douse the flame been digested, many have, like me that aspect of the Torah doesn’t Shabbat – so the opportunity for with the rental-car lady, sought seem fair or just or nice or com- family days out usually surfaces just and abandon what has been sacred forever? to remonstrate with those seen passionate? twice a year – on chol hamoed. So as ’ as God’s earthly representatives, Humble pie was never more election Tuesday approached every- I politely but assertively remon- they are the stated rules of the namely the rabbinic leaders of the needed on the communal menu one was excitedly talking about strated with the car-hire clerk, company. You enter into a contract generations. In our generation than today! Chewing matters over their upcoming “yom shabbaton” explaining that it was not our fault by signing for a car rental, you the remonstration has reached an with the mature reflection that while Judith and I were reluctantly Tuesday was a “yom shabbaton” thereby agree to abide by the rules. ear-splitting crescendo with dis- does not come easily in the Twitter contemplating our departure from and pleaded for the clemency and And rules are rules! cordant noises such as “this mitz- agwe, we would echo the senti- Israel that Tuesday night. justice of a half-day booking fee. It wasn’t until later, mulling vah contradicts natural justice”, ments of that rental-car lady: It Two days earlier, on Sunday, However, her devastating response over the hire clerk’s dogged and “that mitzvah totally lacks compas- isn’t a question of what you think we had done the unthinkable. We put me well and truly in my place: loyal determination to defend sion”, “this Torah principle is dis- is just and fair and merciful. The had rented a car to drive in Israel! “It isn’t a matter of justice or clem- company policy, that the lesson hit criminatory”, “that Torah principle Torah is the Torah. And rules are Those who know me well know I ency,” she said. “Rules are rules!” me with all the force of its impact! needs to be reassessed”. Etc, etc. rules! don’t drive and my cautious wife Indeed so! The rules of the Three thousand-plus years ago, Sadly modern man (and has hitherto refused to venture company did not legislate for such the nation of Israel stood at Sinai, woman) lacks the humility to www.rabbi-ingram.com/

THE PARASHA: ÁÏ˘È # Hashtag Vayishlach ACOB’S wrestling with the to the outrages many women and The reaction of Jacob’s family was settled, Simeon and Levi were angel, his reconciliation with JEREMY indeed some men suffer on a daily was to “deceitfully” consent to allocated areas on different sides of his brother Esau and the STOWELINDNERNER basis. This month we saw Google the marriage, on the condition the country so that they could not J bestowing of his new name staff walking out of their offices that all of Shechem’s men were regroup to fight. Israel are the renowned themes of throughout the world in response circumcised. This was immedi- The rabbis have argued as this week’s parasha, Vayishlach. to whether Simeon and Levi’s positioned as an expression of love. to what they deemed to be inad- ately agreed to and “on the third However, the parasha also includes response to the sexual assault of On the other hand, the Torah equate responses to inappropriate day, when they were in pain, two a lesser-known story – the rape of their sister was justified. does not shirk from the fact that and violating sexual misconduct. of Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi Jacob’s daughter, Dinah. Regardless of whether the Dinah was a victim of rape and In Hollywood there is a reckoning (Dinah’s brothers) each took his brothers’ reaction was proportion- The story is complex. Dinah did not consent to the initial act. and in workplaces throughout the sword and they came upon the ate, the lessons for the #metoo was Jacob and Leah’s daughter The verb used to describe what the world there is change in the air. city and killed every male ... all era are clear. Firstly, inappropriate and went to visit the women of JPS chumash describes as “hum- So what was the reaction in their wealth, all their children and behaviour should always be chal- Shechem (where Jacob had earlier bled”, and the Artscroll describes Vayishlach? wives they took captive”. (Bereshit lenged, and it should not just be pitched his tent and bought some as “violated”, is vayaneha. In mod- Well the plot thickens first, 34:25-29). land). Shechem, the local chief- before we see the reaction. Hamor This act of mass murder, pil- challenged in private. ern Hebrew this translates as tor- Secondly, crimes must never be tain’s son, “took her and lay with ture. There is no doubt, especially (Shechem’s father) asked Jacob for lage and enslavement by Simeon her and humbled her”. Dinah’s hand in marriage for his and Levi was quite extreme – but swept under the carpet. Unlike in given the subsequent reaction of biblical times before Matan Torah At first, while this is terrifying son – and indeed for his entire in line with their personalities. her family (her own reaction is sur- (the receiving of the Torah), the and horrific, it does not seem so people to intermarry with Jacob’s. Other sections of the Torah con- prisingly unarticulated), that the vulnerable are now communally complex – but reality has a way of Such was Shechem’s desire for the textualise their inclinations. On act was both awful and non-con- protected within a legal frame- complicating things. On the one marriage (and either his love for his deathbed, for example, Jacob sensual. work and the sanction is similarly hand, straight after this, Shechem Dinah, or his fear of the alterna- cursed Simeon and Levi’s anger. The story is particularly apt legislated and (one hopes) propor- “became deeply attached to Dinah, tive) that he offered “whatever Many generations later, after the when we consider the contem- tionate. daughter of Jacob; he loved her porary #metoo movement that is you tell me – I will give. Inflate incident of the Golden Calf, it was and appealed to her emotions”. challenging abuses of power in this exceedingly upon me the marriage the tribe of Levi who killed the Jeremy Stowe-Lindner is principal of So what began as an act of vio- and other ways. And how apt, also, settlement and gifts and I will give idolaters. Finally, under Joshua’s Bialik College and a teacher of lent sexual assault is immediately is the reaction, locally and globally, whatever you tell me.” leadership when the land of Israel history and philosophy.