[Avodah] Did RSRH Write LH about Shimon and Levi

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Yitzhak Grossman _celejar at gmail.com_ (mailto:celejar at gmail.com) 




RYG:  >>[We are discussing the question of the tenability of  the suggestion
that Dinah was seduced, rather than, as conventionally  assumed, raped.]

RnTK brought to my attention the comment of Rashi to the  verse
(Bereishis 34:7) "ve'chen lo ye'aseh":

"le'anos [lamed ayin nun  vav tav] es he'besulos, she'ha'umos gadru
azman min ha'arayos al yedei  ha'mabul"


....She argued that this implies that Rashi interprets the  episode as
rape.  <<
 
TK:   I still read Rashi this way and find it very hard to read  into Rashi's 
words any suggestion that Dinah was seduced.  But I do  appreciate your 
honesty in attempting to check it out and acknowledging that  many (most?) 
meforshim understand the story as I do.
 
RYG:  >>I promised to check the super-commentaries, and I have  done so.
Although there certainly are those who understand Rashi this way,  most
notably Rav Eliyahu Mizrahi, I also found the super-commentary  Nahalas
Ya'akov, who says *exactly* what I've been saying all along:  <<


 
 
TK:  I believe that Mizrachi is far more commonly read and accepted  than 
Nachlas Ya'akov (and I am going to admit my ignorance and tell you that I  never 
heard of NY before now)


RYG: [quoting Nachlas Yakov]: >>  "And even though the  Rav [i.e. Rashi] 
wrote "le'anos es ha'besulos",
which implies, that  everything depended on that which he [Shechem]
oppressed her against her  will, which is theft, we can say, that it is
not so [lav davka], first, for  it is not evident from the text that he
raped her, but on the contrary  "va'ye'daber al lev ha'na'ra",  <<
 
TK:  The pasuk FIRST says he raped her and only the pasuk AFTER that  says 
"va'ye'daber al lev ha'na'ra."  Normally seduction works by first  courting the 
girl and obtaining her consent.  It would be a  highly unusual form of 
seduction in which you first have relations with the girl  and then have the 
flirtation and seduction afterwards.  
 
Instead, the pasukim clearly imply that after he raped her, Shechem was  
taken by her and belatedly had remorse for what he had done, or even if he  didn't 
have remorse, he fell in love with her and wanted that feeling to be  
reciprocated -- he wanted to make the relationship permanent and romantic.  
 
I don't remember where I saw it but somewhere I saw (maybe somebody quoted  
here on Avodah) that Shechem typically took girls against their will, 
exercising  his right and power as a prince to take any girl he wanted for a night.   
Dinah's case was unusual in that after violating her, he was actually taken 
with  her on an emotional and maybe even spiritual level.  Normally he did not  
care if the girls he violated loved him or wanted to stay with him after the  
rape (which he probably didn't even think of as rape but just as a normal thing 
 for a prince to do) but Dinah was unusual.
 
RYG: [still quoting NY]:  >> "...and also,
if we assume that  he raped her, how did the Rav know to interpret
"va'ye'a'ne'ha" - "shelo  ke'darka", perhaps "va'ye'a'ne'ha" means,
"ke'darka" but rape, against her  will,..."  <<
 
TK:  That's what Ramban says -- that "vayishkav osah vaye'aneha" is  one act 
of forcible intercourse.  But Rashi takes the two words "vayishkav"  and 
"vaye'aneha" as two different actions, and therefore has to explain the  difference 
between the two -- which he takes as "kedarka" and "shelo  kedarka".  However 
it seems clear to me that he does not mean  "kedarka" to mean "with her 
consent."
 
 
 
RYG [still quoting NY]:  >> "...and certainly according to  what
the Shas says (Yoma 77b) "she'inah mi'bios aheros", implying that  she
became desirous of him and he withheld further intercourse from  her,
and it is implausible ["dohek"] that first he had intercourse with  her
against her will and afterward she became desirous of him...."  <<
 
TK:  This Gemara is very difficult to reconcile with the actual  pesukim -- 
which do not at all imply that Dinah went willingly with  Shechem.  However, it 
is -- surprisingly -- not uncommon for a captive to  develop feelings for her 
captor.  It is a psychological defense mechanism,  especially when the 
captive is not released right away but is forced  to  remain with her captor and to 
remain dependant on him for her survival.   This even has a name -- the 
"Stockholm Syndrome."  
 
Some of the older chaverim here may remember the famous Patty Hearst case  
where a lovely young heiress was kidnapped and violated by a gang  of radicals 
and subsequently fell in love with one of her captors and  remained with the 
gang willingly even when she had a chance to escape -- and  even participated in 
a bank holdup with them.  When she was arrested and  tried for that crime, 
her lawyer cited the Stockholm Syndrome in her  defense. (The court didn't 
accept that and she served time, but most people do  accept that she wasn't really 
culpable and shouldn't have gone to jail.)
 
An exceptionally surprising case that I read about was the autobiography of  
a Jewish woman, a dwarf, who was kept alive by Mengele through the war years  
because of his fascination with dwarves.  Despite her cognitive knowledge  
that he was a cruel monster, she found herself drawn to him and -- to her own  
dismay -- cried when she heard that he had died.

RYG: >> He  [Nachlas Yakov] leans toward seduction based on a close reading 
of the  text, and
inclines toward interpreting Rashi's comment accordingly, although  he
does admit the possibility that Rashi assumes rape. Baruch
she'kivanti.  <<
 
TK:  My close reading of the text leads me to exactly the opposite  
conclusion, and I interpret Rashi accordingly.  There was kidnapping and  rape and if 
there was any seduction involved, it was AFTER the crimes had been  committed.  
(And even then the crimes were still ongoing, because she was  still being 
held a captive in his palace and not released back to her father's  home.)





--Toby Katz
=============
"If you don't read the  newspaper you are uninformed; 
if you do read the newspaper you are  misinformed."
--Mark Twain

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




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