What a week. A week of deep connections. On Shabbat we read the perhaps the most challenging parshas, portions in the Torah, the rape of Dinah and her brothers’ revengeful response. This was also the week that The Red Tent was broadcast on Lifetime, based on Anita Diamant’s book about Dinah. What do we really know about Dinah? There are only four verses that tell the story. The Red Tent is 352 pages. It is a modern midrash and it teaches us much about what women’s spirituality might have been like—and even more about what we might like today as women for the deep connections between women. That is why the book resonated so much. That is why Lifetime made it into a rather steamy love story.
The rabbis are not kind to Dinah. As Rabbi Jill Hammer pointed out in her AJR D’var Torah this week, Dinah went out, the Bible says, using the same verb to describe Jacob who also went out. When Jacob went out he had a wonderful, mystical experience of the Divine. He put his head on a rock and dreamed of a ladder with angels ascending and descending. He said that G-d was in this place and he did not know it. Dinah was raped.
Some of the rabbis say that when she went out she was looking for something or someone. Maybe she was “coquettish.” Is this a blame the victim moment? Others argue no. It is because she was related to Esau, the hunter, who liked to go out. Neither works for me.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav says that we should “go out” to find G-d in the wilderness. He wrote a beautiful prayer. Debbie Friedman translated it this way: “You are the One, for this I pray, that I may have the strength to be alone. To see the world, to stand among the trees and all the living things. That I may stand alone and offer prayers and talk to You. You are the One to whom I do belong.”
I want that wilderness experience of G-d too. I want to experience G-d one on one in the beauty of nature. Why should I, as a woman be denied? Why should I be afraid?
Rape is wrong. Period. Blaming the victim, or her ancestors is wrong. Period. Violence is wrong. Period.
A question had come up earlier in the week—is revenge ever a spiritual response? Is that a legitimate response to terrorism? To rape? I think I understand the desire for revenge, but I don’t think that it ultimately helps. The Bible teaches “Vengeance is Mine”, says G-d. So Simon and Levi who led the revenge of Dinah, defending her honor by circumcising and killing the men of Shechem, it must have been wrong. It seems to say so, as one congregant pointed out when the tribes of Simon and Levi are blessed differently in the book of Exodus. Perhaps this seeking of revenge Is one of those sins that continues from generation to generation?
As another congregant pointed out, you cannot forgive if you don’t feel safe. That was the conclusion of my rabbinic thesis too.
So after talking about Dinah and her brother’s revenge (just where was Jacob, Dinah’s father? Why is he silent? How can he remain silent in the face of the unspeakable done to his only daughter? I’ll come back to that), I got on a plane to fly to Los Angeles for a Wellstone Training as part of my American Jewish World Service Global Justice Fellowship.
American Jewish World Service is in the middle of a campaign called “We Believe”, http://webelieve.ajws.org about stopping violence against women, girls and the LGBT community. They have discovered through working with their grantees in 19 “Global South” countries that they cannot help the grantees deliver the services to reduce poverty unless they solve this issue first.
The same could be said of the work we do here in the States as well. That is part of why I serve on the 16th Circuit Court Faith Committee on Domestic Violence. That is part of why I wrote my thesis on the 13 Attributes of the Divine and even though G-d forgives most sins, there are some sins that G-d does not forgive to the 3rd and 4th generation.
Violence against women and girls is wrong. Period. Rape is wrong. Period. Hate crimes against the LGBT community is wrong. Period. Child marriage is wrong. Period. Violence is wrong. Period.
American Jewish World Service makes real the values the Torah portion teaches. Not thousands of years ago. Not yesterday. But today. Now.
For two days we learned how to take our Jewish values and use them to organize and mobilize. Our families. Our friends. Our communities. We learned how interconnected we really are. We learned how to listen deeply to people’s stories. We learned about the Wellstone Triangle (grassroots organizing, policy, and decision makers) and how that relates to Al Shlosha Devarim, on three things the world stands, on Torah (values, policy), on service (decision makers) and on gemilut chasadim, acts of lovingkindness (grassroots organizing) and the fact that you need all three. We learned about concentric circles (individual, communal and institutional) of change. We learned AJWS Model of Social Change Hierarchy. We learned about the difference between transactional relationships and deep relationships. It takes building connections between people. We learned about humility.
We talked about when we felt powerless and when we felt powerful. We talked about how we can be more powerful as part of a connected group. We talked about the Talmudic mandate to speak up when we see injustice.
We saw the importance of our hands—reaching out to one another, receiving hugs, working for justice. In my own d’var Torah yesterday, I told Rabbi Larry Kushner’s story from the Book of Miracles about the Hands of G-d. In terms of connectedness, he was Anita Diamant’s rabbi in Sudbury. I talked about Mayyim Hayyim’s commitment to helping victims of violence heal. That was one reason Anita founded Mayyim Hayyim. How one of the seven steps of preparation for going to the mikveh is to look at your own hands and figure out how you will use them for justice, for Tikkun Olam. I cautioned that those very same hands could be like the hands of Simon and Levi and be used for (well-meaning) revenge. At the closing circle, we each took each others’ hands and promised to use our hands to support one another and the work that we do in our own communities.
For me, the connections were powerful and deep. I am excited to return to Elgin and continue the work that I am doing. If you want to help, begin by using your hands to sign AJWS’s petition to pass IVAWA, the International Violence Against Women Act to be reintroduced into the next Congress. Do it for Anita and the Red Tent and Mayyim Hayyim. Do it for Dinah. Do it for all our matriarchs. Do it for all our daughters. Do it for me. Just do it. http://webelieve.ajws.org