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TORAH PORTION: VAYISHLACH

Parashat Vayishlach

December 2, 2023 | 19 Kislev 5784

Torah: Genesis 32:4-36:43 Triennial: Genesis 34:1-35:15

Haftarah: Obadiah 1:1-21

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In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the Torah portion by Bex Stern-Rosenblatt called "When Dinah Comes Home", Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein asks shares insights from Hassidut in a video titled "The Space Between our Sufferings", and Ilana Kurshan reflects on the parashah through poetry in a piece called "Heel and Hairy".

D'VAR TORAH

When Dinah Comes Home

Bex Stern-Rosenblatt

Parashah

Dinah gets to leave the spotlight. She gets to go home and live her life. Midrash will imagine some possibilities for her. According to Bereshit Rabbah 80:10, perhaps she lives with her brother Shimon, as part of his family. According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 38, Dinah will give birth to Asenath, future wife of Joseph. We read in the Talmud, Bava Batra 15b, that Dinah would go on to marry Job. In the Tanakh itself, we only hear of Dinah once more after our parashah. She is mentioned specifically in the list of children of Jacob and Leah who went to Egypt in Genesis 46:15. She has returned to her home, to her family. The Tanakh pictures her as once again in the embrace of her father and her mother, surrounded by all of her brothers and all of her nieces and nephews. She who had been alone, who had been taken away, is now embedded deeply with those who love her best of all. 

It’s a beautiful ending to a horrible story. It’s a hopeful conclusion. Often, we complain of Dinah’s disappearance from the narrative. After she “goes out to see the daughters of the land” in the very first verse of Genesis 34, Dinah loses all agency. She is acted upon, by her rapist and captor, and by her brothers. We never hear Dinah speak, not once in the whole story. We see her brothers wreak vengeance on those who have abused her, making sure that never again will such a disgrace befall Israel. We hear her father worry over the geopolitical considerations of the actions her brothers have taken. We hear her brothers talk back to her father. But we never hear them talk to her. We don’t get to see the warm family reunion. 

Dinah has been through something terrible. She had been taken from her home, raped, and held against her will. Her captor, her rapist, will go to her family and claim he wants to marry her. All the while, Dinah is still being held with her rapist’s family. It is not until many days later that Dinah is freed. We read that Dinah’s brothers “took Dinah from the house of Shechem and they went out.” They kill her rapist and his father and his whole city and take her home. The whole time, Dinah had been a captive. Dinah has seen too much, has lived through too much. Her brothers have had to do whatever it takes to bring her home and it has been horrible. They have become the sort of people who cannot offer words of comfort to their sister. 

So it is with gratitude that I read Dinah disappearing from the narrative. Dinah gets to go home. She gets to recover. She gets to live with her beloved family. There is no more story to tell of her because she gets to live a remarkably normal life. 

The aftershocks of Genesis 34 will echo in the stories of the brothers Levi and Shimeon, in the blessings they get from their father and, in tribe form, from Moses. In post-biblical texts, the story of Judith will restore a voice to Dinah, telling the story of a woman taking vengeance for the wrong done to Dinah. But Dinah herself gets the blessed anonymity offered by falling out of the story, falling back into her family, into her home.

HASSIDUT

The Space Between Our Sufferings

Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein

Insights from Hassidut

Rabbi Daniel Silverstein teaches Hassidut at the CY and directs Applied Jewish Spirituality (www.appliedjewishspirituality.org). In these weekly videos, he shares Hassidic insights on the parashah or calendar.

WHITE FIRE: POETRY ON THE PARASHAH

Ladder of Angels

llana Kurshan

I never got there first, although I tried.

I’m always playing catch up, wait for me. 

Kid brother. Butt of inside jokes. Inside,

Is where I always am. While he roams free.

They called him Hairy. I was just called Heel,

They named me that because I came out last.

Of course. Achilles’ heel. End piece of bread.

No wonder, when I could, I ran so fast.

Once far from home, I made a life instead,

Where no one knew from Hairy. I was strong!

I lifted stones off wells, I got the girl,

 I managed flocks, got rich, and stayed for long.

I’ve left that joint. I’m on the road again,

They say that Hairy’s coming. Am I scared?

The past is never past. I can’t let go. 

My brother has no clue ‘bout how I fared. 

And then: A river crossing. Dead of night.

A skirmish with an angel. Now my thigh.

“Just let me go,” he gasped through gritted teeth. 

He couldn’t break away. I watched him try.

“So what’s your name?” he asked. I told him, “Heel.”

He shook his head. “No way,” he laughed. “Get real.”

*

The Talmud teaches that the Torah was given in black fire on white fire (Y. Shekalim 6:1). The black fire is the letters of the Torah scroll, and the white fire is the parchment background. In this column, consisting of a poem on each parashah, I will try to illuminate the white fire of Torah – the midrashim, stories, and interpretations that carve out the negative space of the letters and give them shape.

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