I love sweet inspirational texts, but I find my imagination is always
more engaged by the darker, complex stories of the Torah. The stories that my
elementary school Torah teacher tried to act as if they didn’t exist (“we won’t
be studying chapter 34 because we don’t have time”),which of course made us
students actually want to read them… This week’s parsha includes one of the
darkest:
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A family of newcomers to the land of Canaan, Dina, the daughter of
Yaakov, is raped by Shekhem, the entitled son of local nobility. When he
offers his hand in marriage to Dina’s family, the brothers trick Shekehm’s townspeople
into circumcising themselves as part of a covenant. And then:
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But on the third day it was, when the
[townpeople] were still hurting, that two of Yaakov’s sons, Shimon and Levi,
Dina’s brothers, took each man his sword, they came upon the city secure, and
killed all the males… they took Dina from Shekhem’s house and went off… for
they had defiled their sister.
Yaakov said to Simon and Levi: You have
stirred-up-trouble for me, making me reek among the settled-folk of the land!
They will band together against me… and I will be destroyed!
But they said: Should our sister then be
treated like a whore!?
(Genesis
34:25-26, 30-31)
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וַיְהִי בַיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁי בִּהְיוֹתָם כֹּאֲבִים, וַיִּקְחוּ שְׁנֵי-בְנֵי-יַעֲקֹב שִׁמְעוֹן וְלֵוִי אֲחֵי דִינָה אִישׁ חַרְבּוֹ, וַיָּבֹאוּ עַל-הָעִיר, בֶּטַח; וַיַּהַרְגוּ, כָּל-זָכָר... וַיִּקְחוּ אֶת-דִּינָה מִבֵּית שְׁכֶם, וַיֹּאמֶר יַעֲקֹב אֶל-שִׁמְעוֹן וְאֶל-לֵוִי: עֲכַרְתֶּם אֹתִי, לְהַבְאִישֵׁנִי בְּיֹשֵׁב הָאָרֶץ, בַּכְּנַעֲנִי וּבַפְּרִזִּי; וַאֲנִי, מְתֵי מִסְפָּר, וְנֶאֶסְפוּ עָלַי
וְהִכּוּנִי, וְנִשְׁמַדְתִּי אֲנִי וּבֵיתִי. וַיֹּאמְרוּ: הַכְזוֹנָה, יַעֲשֶׂה אֶת-אֲחוֹתֵנוּ?!
בראשית לד:כה-לא)
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It is a
story of vengeance and retribution, of hot headedness and betrayal. By the
end of the story you too might want to bury yourself with shame, as Yaakov
did.
But I am a
Levite, and I can’t help but also sensing a moment of pride in all
this. Shimon and Levi’s cry for simple retributive justice, unanswered by
Yaakov, rings true: “Should our sister then be treated like a whore?” Simultaneously
repulsed and drawn to the power of vengeance, I seek to navigate these dark
waters.
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Some might be so repulsed they want
to erase the story from the canon. Any other year, we could get away with taking
the moral high ground on our tribal ancestors. But this year we can’t just
shove this story back into the recesses of Mesopotamian life.
In a year when crowds cheered outside
the White House, excitedly waving American flags, upon Osama bin Laden
assassination, and extrajudicial executions, even against American citizens (like cobelligernt Al Awlaki) , are a prize
presidential war-time tactic, we must ask when are we happy for justice to be
meted out without due process, and when do we require a higher standard, even
at the price of endangering our nation.
To take a much more extreme example: When
the body of Libya’s horrific dictator is mutilated and dragged across our TV
screens, it might be simple to dismiss this as a barbaric act, but it awakens
us to ask where is the line drawn between just retribution and unethical vengeance.
I am not trying
to make an analogy between the story of Dina and modern occurrences which
themselves are complex and distinct. Rather, I am demarcating a dark territory
- call it “Shimon and Levi Land,” and it demands of us to define a limiting factor for retribution that
would help us make the distinction between retribution and vengeance. As I
was asking myself this question, I returned to the late philosopher Jean
Hampton’s “A New Theory of Retribution”, quoted here as presented in Martha Minow’s “Between Vengeance and
Forgiveness”:
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Retribution at
its core expresses an ideal that can afford proper limitation, and thereby
differ in theory from vengeance. This ideal is equal dignity of all persons. Through
retribution, the community corrects the wrongdoer’s false message that the
victim was less worthy or valuable than the wrongdoer; through retribution,
the community reasserts the truth of the victim’s value by inflicting a
publicly visible defeat on the wrongdoer. The very reason for engaging in
retributive punishment constrains the punishment from degrading or denying
the dignity even of the defeated wrongdoer. Thus, “it is no more right when
the victim tries to degrade or falsely diminish the wrongdoer than when the
wrongdoer originally degraded or falsely diminished the victim.”
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According to this definition,
Shimon and Levi were acting out unjust vengeance, for their desire was to
degrade and diminish the rapist (and his entire town!) just as the rapist had
done to their sister. Qaddafi’s mutilation is another example of acting out
of the (human) desire to shame and degrade a person that had shamed and
degraded so many others. Not showing the body of Bin Laden might have been an
attempt to maintain the sense of dignity of even our arch nemesis, inflicting
a publicly visible defeat without unnecessary degradation (Israel made a
similar choice when executing Adolf Eichman, never releasing pictures of the
act – counter to popular demand – and appointing wardens and executioners
only from countries where the Holocaust did not occur, to avoid the semblance
of direct revenge).
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At the end
of the day, my own momentary pride in Shimon and Levi standing up for their
sister is surpassed by the deep injustice of their actions. No one sees this
more clearly than their father, Yaakov. True, in this week’s parasha he falls
short: at first he is silent about the rape, then about the deceit, finally he
rebukes them for the murders but on a political pragmatic level, not a moral
one.
Only at the end of his days, while giving out
blessings to his sons, Levi and Shimon are bludgeoned by him, in one of the
most scathing poems I’ve ever read:
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Shimon and Levi
Such brothers,
Wronging weapons are
their ties-of-kinship!
To their council may
my being never come,
In their assembly may
my person never unite!
For in their anger
they kill men,
In their self-will
they maim bulls.
Damned be their anger,
that it is so fierce!
Their fury, that it is
so harsh!
I will split them up
in Yaakov,
I will scatter them in
Yisrael.
Genesis 49:5-7
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שִׁמְעוֹן
וְלֵוִי, אַחִים—
בְּסֹדָם
אַל-תָּבֹא נַפְשִׁי,
בִּקְהָלָם
אַל-תֵּחַד כְּבֹדִי:
כִּי
בְאַפָּם הָרְגוּ אִישׁ,
אָרוּר
אַפָּם כִּי עָז,
וְעֶבְרָתָם
כִּי קָשָׁתָה;
אֲחַלְּקֵם
בְּיַעֲקֹב,
וַאֲפִיצֵם
בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל.
(בראשית מט:ה-ז)
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Shimon and Levi are punished for
their acts by becoming wanderers, never receiving a proper portion of the
land. May we merit a better fate as we navigate these tough decisions in our
countries and in our personal actions.
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“When the Holy Blessed One gave the Torah to Israel, He gave it to them like grain from which to make finely sifted flour; and as flax from which to make fine linen” (Seder Eliyahu Zuta, p171). Blogging one grain of Torah and unraveling the many garments made of it, "in those days and in our times". With a cultural eye and the assumption that "The Torah is a commentary on our lives, and our lives are a commentary on the Torah."
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Shimon and Levi: Navigating the Dark Side of Biblical (and Modern) Justice
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