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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>From: Yitzhak Grossman <A
href="mailto:celejar@gmail.com">celejar@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>RYG: >>[We are discussing the question of the tenability of
the suggestion<BR>that Dinah was seduced, rather than, as conventionally
assumed, raped.]<BR><BR>RnTK brought to my attention the comment of Rashi to the
verse<BR>(Bereishis 34:7) "ve'chen lo ye'aseh":<BR><BR>"le'anos [lamed ayin nun
vav tav] es he'besulos, she'ha'umos gadru<BR>azman min ha'arayos al yedei
ha'mabul"<BR><BR><BR>....She argued that this implies that Rashi interprets the
episode as<BR>rape. <<</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>RYG: >>I promised to check the super-commentaries, and I have
done so.<BR>Although there certainly are those who understand Rashi this way,
most<BR>notably Rav Eliyahu Mizrahi, I also found the super-commentary
Nahalas<BR>Ya'akov, who says *exactly* what I've been saying all along:
<<</FONT></DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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)</DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR>RYG: [quoting Nachlas Yakov]: >> "And even though the
Rav [i.e. Rashi] wrote "le'anos es ha'besulos",<BR>which implies, that
everything depended on that which he [Shechem]<BR>oppressed her against her
will, which is theft, we can say, that it is<BR>not so [lav davka], first, for
it is not evident from the text that he<BR>raped her, but on the contrary
"va'ye'daber al lev ha'na'ra", <<</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>RYG: [still quoting NY]: >> "...and also,<BR>if we assume that
he raped her, how did the Rav know to interpret<BR>"va'ye'a'ne'ha" - "shelo
ke'darka", perhaps "va'ye'a'ne'ha" means,<BR>"ke'darka" but rape, against her
will,..." <<</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>RYG [still quoting NY]: >> "...and certainly according to
what<BR>the Shas says (Yoma 77b) "she'inah mi'bios aheros", implying that
she<BR>became desirous of him and he withheld further intercourse from
her,<BR>and it is implausible ["dohek"] that first he had intercourse with
her<BR>against her will and afterward she became desirous of him...."
<<</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.<BR><BR>RYG: >> He
[Nachlas Yakov] leans toward seduction based on a close reading of the
text, and<BR>inclines toward interpreting Rashi's comment accordingly, although
he<BR>does admit the possibility that Rashi assumes rape. Baruch<BR>she'kivanti.
<<</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.)<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby Katz<BR>=============<BR></B>"If you don't read the
newspaper you are uninformed; <BR>if you do read the newspaper you are
misinformed."<BR>--Mark Twain<BR><BR><B>Read *Jewish World Review* at <A
href="http://jewishworldreview.com/">http://jewishworldreview.com/</A></B></B><BR><BR></FONT><FONT
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