The only daughter of Jacob who is recorded in bible is Dina, the daughter of Leah. Born after her mother has given birth to six sons, she is named by her mother as her brothers were, but unlike their naming no meaning is ascribed to the name so given. (Gen 30:21)

We know nothing of her until her father Jacob had taken his family and wealth and left Haran, had had his name changed to Israel at the ford of Jabok,  had encountered and made his peace with Esau his brother, and then settled down, first in Succot and then in the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, buying land in which to spread his tent and erecting an altar he called “El-elohei-yisrael” (Gen 33:17-20)

And then her presence is made known to us, with a narrative that seems quite separate from all that has happened before.  The story is a difficult one. It begins with the sentence that Dina, daughter of Leah whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.

וַתֵּצֵ֤א דִינָה֙ בַּת־לֵאָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָֽלְדָ֖ה לְיַֽעֲקֹ֑ב לִרְא֖וֹת בִּבְנ֥וֹת הָאָֽרֶץ:

And it ends with the voices of her brothers Shimon and Levi asking “should one treat our sister as a prostitute?”    הַֽכְזוֹנָ֕ה יַֽעֲשֶׂ֖ה אֶת־אֲחוֹתֵֽנוּ:

But what happens between these two sentences?  And is this a story about Dina, or is it really a story about the men in the family?

Dina goes out to meet the local women.  We can only guess why she does this and what is in her mind, for she does not ever speak to us in the text nor does the narrative give us an explanation or any insight into her thinking. Her father has settled in the land, he has done business with the local chieftain Hamor, father of Shechem.  They are at peace. So why would a girl with twelve brothers and no sisters that we know of not want to go out to meet the local girls, and why should anyone think she should not have done so, or that she  should even have been prevented from doing so?  Yet after that moment, the story is all about the status of the men.

Shechem, the pampered prince of the area sees her and so the story really begins. For instead of her “seeing” the local girls she herself is seen. He takes her and he lies with her and “va’y’anei’ha”. And his soul cleaves to Dina daughter of Jacob and he loves the girl and he speaks to her heart.

וַיַּ֨רְא אֹתָ֜הּ שְׁכֶ֧ם בֶּן־חֲמ֛וֹר הַֽחִוִּ֖י נְשִׂ֣יא הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּקַּ֥ח אֹתָ֛הּ וַיִּשְׁכַּ֥ב אֹתָ֖הּ וַיְעַנֶּֽהָ:  וַתִּדְבַּ֣ק נַפְשׁ֔וֹ בְּדִינָ֖ה בַּת־יַֽעֲקֹ֑ב וַֽיֶּֽאֱהַב֙ אֶת־הַֽנַּֽעֲרָ֔ וַיְדַבֵּ֖ר עַל־לֵ֥ב הַֽנַּֽעֲרָֽ:

Dina is now not described as Leah’s daughter but as Jacob’s. The verbs are to do with sexual intercourse, but there is nothing in the text to say that this is not consensual sex. The problem is really in the process or rather the lack of process. The young prince’s soul cleaves to her, he loves her, he speaks to her heart – but he has had sex with her without first dealing with her family, and this is the meaning of the verb “va’y’anei’ha” here. Ayin Nun Hei  is a root with a number of meanings – to answer, to afflict, to humble, to test, to answer. In this sentence we are clear that by his act he has lowered her status in the eyes of those who prize virginity.  Her bride price will be affected; she is worth less on the marriage market than she was earlier that morning.

It is worth looking at who else is the object of this verb in biblical narrative. Hagar is treated by Sarah in this way, treated in a way that made her feel worthless, and she runs away. (Genesis 16:6)

God treats Israel with this verb (Deut 8:2) keeping them forty years in the wilderness in order to test them, to ensure that they would follow God’s commandments.

In Leviticus we are told to do this to our souls on Yom Kippur – often described as afflicting our souls from which the rabbinic tradition infers that we should fast on that day – it is a day of self-humbling, of recognising that our power and our status are fleeting and that we are dependent on God’s will for our lives.

Tamar uses the word before her brother Ammon rapes her (2Sam 13) but a close reading shows that she is referring  to the shame she will endure, and not to the act which is denoted with the verb h.z.k ‘to seize or overpower’ and which is not used in the narrative around Dina.

The fact that Shechem loves her, speaks kindly to her, wants to marry her – all of this militates against their encounter being a forcible rape. But we don’t know what Dina really thinks – her voice is not recorded nor any action either – she is the object of a story that speaks not about her and her wishes but about the status of the family of Jacob.

The response of her brothers and the anger they show do not bespeak either love or concern for their sister. They are concerned only that she has been made lesser in some way, presumably in terms of her social status and her financial worth. And this will reflect upon them. We only have to think about the wrongly named ‘honour killings’ reported too frequently in our newspapers, which are never about the honour of the woman and only ever about the perceived status of the family to which the woman belonged.

Jacob is silent in the face of all of this, but his sons are not. When the family of Shechem come to organise a marriage they first come to Jacob while the sons are in the fields. He speaks of no anger, he simply waits for the boys to come home. But they are furious – the sexual act between Shechem and Dina is unacceptable to them  “v’chein lo ya’a’seh” This should not be done.

Hamor doesn’t seem to realise how angry the men are, how transgressive the act has been in their eyes. Instead he speaks again of Shechem’s feelings for Dina, asks for her hand in marriage, suggests that the two groups become allies and intermarry their children.  He offers a peaceful future, trading possibilities, living together in the land.  Then Shechem himself speaks – was he there all along? – and he proclaims that whatever they ask as a bride price he is willing to pay. He wants to build a good relationship with them, he wants to marry Dina.

The sons of Jacob answer Hamor and Shechem with slyness – in their eyes their sister has been defiled (t’mei), and the defiler is Shechem. They tell Hamor and Shechem that they cannot marry their sister to an uncircumcised man, so the condition is that every man should be circumcised, and if that is not acceptable they will go away from the land, and take Dina with them. But should they agree, then indeed they will intermarry  and become one people with the family of Shechem.

Shechem and Hamor go back and relay the information to their people. They speak of the peaceable nature of the children of Israel; they say the land is large enough for both groups to be there, they speak of the trade that will ensue between them, and of the marriages that will take place between the two groups.

There is only one jarring note in the text, when Hamor says “Shall not their cattle and their substance and all their beasts be ours?  ”This does not fit with the rest of the narrative which speaks of co-existence and of peacefulness.  There doesn’t seem to be a need for Hamor to increase his wealth by taking on that of the Israelites so what is the sentence doing in the text? It points up that marriage between tribes is always about property and money, they are alliances rather than being about romantic love. And it reads almost as an attempt to justify the actions that will happen shortly – that on the third day after the mass circumcision when the men were in pain, that Shimon and Levi came and slaughtered all of them, including Hamor and Shechem, and took Dina out of their house and, rather poignantly, the text says “va’yetzei’u”, echoing Dina’s original action of ‘tetzei’

They despoiled the city, took captives and all the wealth and the animals belonging to the people, and their father’s only response is to tell them that their actions have made Jacob’s continued position in the land dangerous. Their response ends the story – “should one treat our sister like a prostitute?”

This is a story not about a woman but about male power and identity expressed through their genitalia and the act of sex. It begins just after Jacob has been injured in the groin area by the angel, then comes the sexual act by Shechem who ‘takes’ Dina, then comes the mass circumcision ordered by Jacob’s sons, when the power of the people of Hamor and Shechem is at its lowest, this is followed by the death of Rachel in childbirth, and ends with the story of Reuven sleeping with his father’s concubine Bilha.

The story is sandwiched between the two accounts of Jacob changing his name to Israel – there seems to be some transitional process in which the maleness of the protagonists is both used and also tamed.  The centrality of the male organ can’t be ignored. Milah, the act of circumcision is used both for the male organ, for fruit bearing trees, and for the heart/mind. In bible the act of milah is often followed by increased fertility or life – Abraham only has Isaac after his circumcision for example – an uncircumcised heart does not cleave to God;  and it also curtails unbridled power.

The story of Dina seems to be a pretext on which to hang an ancient and powerful belief that has nothing to do with a young woman and everything to do with establishing and embedding a patriarchy.  Sadly this direction has been continued in midrashic rabbinic teachings – which say everything from blaming her for leaving the house at all, to suggesting she liked to be looked at, had dressed provocatively, had brought the whole thing upon herself. From this quickly comes a whole raft of halachic responsa curtailing the activities and the physicality of women. It seems to be one of the biggest ironies that a sidra dealing with both the fear of male power as symbolised in the male organ and the need to tame and curtail such power has in the midrash and general understanding of the story become one in which the woman is blamed and victimised. Poor Dina. We never find out what happened to her after this, though Midrash marries her to Job, and also suggests that a child born of her encounter with Shechem later marries Joseph in Egypt. The concern once again of the different stories in midrashic imaginings is to rehabilitate her of her ‘sin’ and to bring her descendants back into the chain of tradition. Poor Dina, judged and punished and brought back into the family without ever once having her own voice heard.

image Gerard Hoet Shimon and Levy slaying the men of Shechem