ר"ע תיתד תונויצל ינויערה גוחה ,םולשו זוע
"And Esau ran to meet him... and kissed him": Do not read 'and he kissed him' (vayishakehu) but 'and he bit him' (vayinshachehu).
(Pirkei Derabbi Eliezer XXXVI).
"And he kissed him" - the word has dots above it. Should one suppose that this was a kiss of love? R. Shimon ben Elazar said: But were not all Esau's acts of hate at the beginning? - Except for this one, which was an act of love.
(Avot Derrabi Natan II)
The word "and they wept" is a sure sign that we have before us pure human emotion. A person may indeed kiss without his heart being in it, but we can rest on the assumption that the tears which burst forth at such moments come from the depths of the heart; this kiss and these tears show us that Esau too was a descendant of Abraham our father, and not just a savage hunter, for how else could he have attained the rank of a ruler in the development of mankind? The sword alone, mere physical force, do not make a person fit for such status.
(From the commentary of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch on the Torah)
"And they wept" - Both of them wept. This teaches us that, at that moment, love for Esau stirred in Jacob too. And so it is down the generations: when the descendants of Esau are inspired by a pure spirit to recognise the descendants of Israel and their qualities, then we too are stimulated to recognise Esau, for he is our brother. Thus Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi truly loved the Emperor Antoninus - and there are many more such examples.
(From the commentary "Haemek Davar" of R. Naphtali Zvi Yehuda Berlin)
We find in "Vayishlah" the story of Dinah the daughter of Jacob, a short, sharp, and highly charged story, which brings with it many unresolved questions.
The figure of Dinah can be assessed in various ways. Was she the innocent victim of a brutal rapist, or a dubious character who brought the mishap on herself? Was she a naive "Bet Yaakov" girl (in both senses) who went down to Shechem "to see the daughters of the land", and to do some shopping there because of the low prices, or was she perhaps a slut who went to hang around with the Hivite guys in the city square?
Rashi is forthright and unambiguous ("she was a whore"), and through her he attaches an uncomplimentary label on Leah her mother too, to the extent of stating that the saying "like mother - like daughter" has its origins in the two of them.
Whoever wants to can see the beginning of the story not in chapter 34 where it is related, but at the end of the previous chapter (33:18): "And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-aram; and pitched his tent before the city." Perhaps the settlement Jacob sets up in the approaches to Shechem, in the midst of a foreign, hostile population, opens the way to the friction, the rape, and the terrible massacre that follow.
Incidentally, Shechem acquired a bad reputation years before. The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin (102a) says of it "They learnt in the name of Rabbi Jose: A place appointed for disaster: in Shechem they raped Dinah, in Shechem Joseph's brothers sold him, in Shechem the kingdom of David was divided."
Dinah's end also remains part of the puzzlement this story arouses. We don't know her fate, and the matter is left open to the imagination or legend. Did she die, commit suicide, become pregnant, or carry on with life's routine? The Torah does not enlighten us. The midrashic legends try to make up for the lack with various versions of events: according to one legend, she was married to Simeon and bore him "Saul the son of the Canaanite"; according to another legend she was married to Job; and according to a third, she became pregnant to Shechem and gave birth to Osnat, wife of Joseph and mother of Ephraim and Mannasseh.
However, it seems that the weight of the story shifts from the rape incident, and, as often happens, another incident comes along and captures the main interest. In our case, the massacre perpetrated by Simeon and Levy, Dinah's brothers, on the inhabitants of Shechem, is what is etched in our historic awareness and gives rise to most of the commentary.
The cruel massacre sets against each other the two opposing approaches that, in different forms, have come down to us through the ages: restraint or retaliation, self-control or an indiscriminate blow? Jacob expresses the moderate, considered, and realistic line: "You have troubled me to make me stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me ; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house." (34:30). Against Jacob's reasoned argument, Simeon and Levy articulate a characteristic response of the opposing line, a short, sloganizing response that fails to answer Jacob's arguments, formulated as a rhetorical question; "Should we deal with our sister as with a whore?" (34:31)
The crucial question is whether there was any justification for slaughtering an entire city, men, women, and children? Is the massacre justified simply because it came as a reprisal for the crime committed against Jacob's daughter?
The questions apply both to Simeon and Levy and to Jacob's behaviour and response. If Jacob did not see the deed as justified, why did he agree to it? Why are no objections on his part mentioned at the time of the negotiations with Shechem and the planning of the stratagem? The question arises even though it could be argued that Shechem and Hamor did not restore Dinah to her father's home at that time, and she was still their captive (since at the end of the chapter it says "and they took Dinah out of Shechem's house.")
Some Bible commentators, such as Abarbanel, author of "Or Hahaim",and R. Yitzhak Arama, author of "Haakeda", justify Simeon and Levy's act, while others comment on it from various points of view. Maimonides, for example, in Laws of Kings 9:14 justifies the slaughter not only of Shechem the person, but of the inhabitants of the whole city, on the grounds that "they saw and knew, and did not judge him."
Nachmanides says: "This was the counsel of all the brothers, and with their father's permission - but Simeon and Levy wanted to take revenge upon them... with an avenging sword, and they killed the king and all the people of his city, because they were his servants and obeyed him, and when they were circumcised they saw it as valueless because it was done to curry favor with their masters. And Jacob told them here (in "Vayishlah") and there (in "Vayehi") that they brought him into danger, and there (in "Vayehi") he cursed their wrath, because they did violence to the people of the city... and killed them for no reason, for they had done them no wrong."
In his opinion, Jacob only became angry after the fact, over the desecration of God's name and over the wrong of slaying the inhabitants of an entire city, and because he did not know his sons were planning to perpetrate the massacre. His view is that there is no need to explain the reason why the inhabitants of Shechem were killed - they were liable to the death penalty because they were idolaters and wallowed in abhorrent acts.
Other commentators hold that Jacob became angry over the fact that they not only killed those who did the abominable deed, but carried out an indiscriminate collective punishment. Or as Nehama Leibovitz puts it: "If so, it never occurred to Jacob or his sons - apart from Simeon and Levy - to massacre the entire city and take revenge on them. Rather, their whole aim was to rescue Dinah from those who afflicted her and held her captive. What was done after that was done on Simeon and Levy's initiative only."
Both the author of "Akedat Yitzhak" and R. Samson Raphael Hirsch comment on this issue, each in his own way. The former believes that a large build-up of zealotry in people's hearts is liable to cause a great deal of damage, but a small measure of zealotry in a sacred flame is good for both the individual and the community. Against this, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch sees in zealotry a negative factor when the nation is strong, free, and living in its own land, but as representing a positive factor when the nation is scattered in exile and subject to the stranger's yoke, because then it gives the nation strength and daring.
For our purposes, the main question concerning Jacob's response is whether he was moved to criticize by moral opposition to the massacre itself, or only by fear of a reaction liable to bring disaster on him and his camp.
It turns out that the answer apparently lies in another weekly reading, "Vayehi". Jacob reserved his fiercest response until his last days. He not only scattered Simeon and Levy among the tribes, but also refused to forgive them for the bloodbath until his dying day. Decades after the deed, when he lives in Egypt under the protection of the viceroy, when no threat from a foreign nation comes near him, he takes the extreme step of cursing his two sons, the perpetrators of the massacre, with a most harsh curse: "Cursed be their anger for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel," (Genesis 49:7) - and this comes even though he knew for certain that his past fears of counter-acts of vengeance had not been realized. It follows that the element of morality was not at all remote from Jacob's outlook.
The painful subject can also be looked at from a somewhat wry perspective in the words of R. Jonathan Eibeshitz, as quoted in B. Yoshson's book "From Our Antique Treasure": "Why did Jacob's sons have to avenge themselves on the inhabitants of Shechem by stratagem and suggest to them that they should be circumcised? Were Jacob's mighty sons not powerful enough to overcome them even without them being circumcised? The answer is: had they killed the men of Shechem uncircumcised, there would have been a universal uproar, a storm of protest. Not so when the men of Shechem were circumcised and known as Jews; then Jacob's sons were sure that nothing bad would befall them: the world will not respond in any way whatsoever to the murder of Jews."
David Melamed has published books of prose and a book about the beginnings of Hebrew journalism.
"Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed": R. Yehuda said in the name of R. Ilai: There was no fear and no distress, but 'And he was afraid' in case he should kill 'and he was distressed' in case he should be killed. He said, if he overcomes me, he kills me, and if I overcome him, I kill him. (This is the meaning of the double expression) 'And he was afraid' that he might kill, 'and distressed that he might be killed.
(Midrash Rabba Genesis 76).
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