[Avodah] Did RSRH Write LH about Shimon and Levi

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "Liron Kopinsky" <liron.kopinsky at gmail.com>
I heard a  drash at Sueda Shlishit today which said that there are differing
opinions  about why Shimon and Levi did what they did.
1) By not setting up and  enforcing a court system that punished violators of
the 7 mitzvot, they were  equally culpable (Rambam I think).....

Kol  Tuv,
~Liron




>>>>>>
AFTER Shimon and Levi killed the inhabitants of  Shechem, they took Dinah and 
left -- IOW she was being held hostage the whole  time!  All those 
negotiations about how Shechem loved her and wanted to  marry her and all the rest of it 
-- were all being carried out in a hostage  situation, with Dinah already 
having been violated in a horrible way (see Rashi)  and still being held captive. 
 It certainly seems that the whole city was  in cahoots in allowing their 
prince to treat her this way and not demanding that  she be immediately released. 
 Certainly Shechem's father seems to have had  no compunctions about what his 
son did -- he didn't say to his son, "You  horrible beastly boy, what have 
you done?!  Let her go this instant!"   Instead he was an enabler of a horrible 
crime and said, "You want to keep her my  boy?  Fine, I'll go talk to her 
father and make sure there that you get to  keep her with no repercussions."  That 
Shechem was the ultimate spoiled  brat -- gets to kidnap and rape a young 
girl and his father aids and abets the  crime!
 
All the negotiations that followed were basically phony -- compare how  
Chamor and Shechem speak to Yakov and his sons, with phony respect, with how  they 
speak to their own townspeople.  Yakov's sons said, "We will give our  
daughters to you and we will take your daughters for ourselves"  -- with  Yakov and 
his sons being the agents who decide, who give and take according to  their 
will -- and Shechem and his father agreed (seemingly).  But when they  went back 
to their townspeople to persuade them to go along with the  condition set -- 
circumcision -- they didn't say, "Yakov will give us his  daughters and take 
our daughters"  -- instead they said, "WE WILL  TAKE their daughters for wives 
and WE WILL GIVE them our  daughters" -- making the Shechemites, not the 
Yakobites, the boss -- and even  more significant was what they added: "Their cattle 
and their property and their  animals will be ours."  It seems they were 
plotting against Yakov and his  sons all along, trying to string them along with 
promises that they would  circumcise themselves and agree to whatever the 
Yakovites would demand, while  really planning to take control and seize everything 
from the Yakov and his  sons, their women and their property.  The whole town 
in cahoots,  remember.
 
What upset Yakov wasn't "How could you do so something so violent and  
disgusting and immoral as to kill innocent people?" but "You've made me look bad  in 
the eyes of the locals, you acted hastily and impetuously without considering 
 the long-term consequences -- all the surrounding cities are likely to gang 
up  against me now, now that they see what my sons did to Shechem -- and I am 
too  weak and small to go to war with an entire nation, it isn't time yet, we 
can't  go to war with the people of Canaan until a couple more centuries have 
passed  and our population has multiplied."  In the event Hashem evidently  
protected B'Y, and Yakov's fears did not materialize -- the people of the land  
did not retaliate for the destruction of Shechem but left Yakov and his sons 
in  peace.
 
A possible counter argument is that on his deathbed, Yakov was highly  
critical of Shimon and Levi and apparently accused them of murder -- "be'apam  hargu 
ish."  It seems that Yakov thought they should have behaved  differently and 
should have found a way to save their sister without resorting  to violence.  
 
BTW R' Yitzchok Levine started this thread by asking whether RSRH "spoke  
loshon hora about Shimon and Levi" when he wrote that they adopted the methods  
of Esav, but if you look at Rashi on Ber. 49:5 you will see that Hirsch was  
closely following Rashi, who says there about Shimon and Levi, "Umanus zo shel  
retzicha chamas hu veyedeihem, mibirkas Esav hi zo, umanus shelo hi."  --  
"This business of killing people is stolen from Esav, that is Esav's type  of 
business."  You could say Rashi was speaking L'H about Shimon and Levi  but then 
you would have to say that Chazal were speaking L'H about them and  maybe the 
Torah itself was speaking L'H in recording Yakov's deathbed  words!


--Toby Katz
=============
Read *Jewish  World Review* at _http://jewishworldreview.com/_ 
(http://jewishworldreview.com/) 



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