Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Jewish
Reacting to Evil

Reacting to Evil

Last updated on: December 19, 2018 at 4:11 pm by Hebrew College

Reacting to Evil 2018-12-19T16:11:21-04:00 Hebrew College

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28–50:26)

By Rabbi Salem Pearce

Parashat Vayechi offers a conclusion to one of the most disturbing accounts in Torah, the rape of Dinah in Parashat Vayishlach. Dinah’s story spans one chapter, plunked into the middle of Jacob’s travels from Padan-Aram back to his birthplace in Canaan, and it ends as abruptly as it begins.

Genesis 33 concludes with Jacob and his family encamped near the city of Shechem. In Genesis 34, we’re told that the local prince, also called Shechem, assaults Jacob’s only daughter. While she is in captivity, Shechem falls in love with Dinah and sends his father to ask Jacob for her as wife. However, two of Dinah’s brothers are furious about the rape and decide to trick the city’s men, including Shechem and his father, into mass circumcision, both as a condition for the marriage and under the guise of promoting intermarriage between the tribes. But Simeon and Levi slaughter the newly circumcised men and pillage their city. Jacob later denounces his sons’ actions because the violence will threaten the safety of the family. Uncomprehending, Simeon and Levi ask, “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” (Gen. 34:31). And . . . scene.

Gen. 35 picks up with Jacob and his family’s arrival at Beth-el…

It is only in this week’s parshah, Vayechi, that we get an answer to the anguished and blood-soaked question posed by Dinah’s brothers. On his deathbed, Jacob excoriates Simeon and Levi in no uncertain terms:

Simeon and Levi are a pair
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.
Let not my person be included in their council,
Let not my being be counted in their assembly.
For when angry they slay men,
And when pleased they maim oxen.
Cursed be their anger so fierce,
And their wrath so relentless.
I will divide them in Jacob,
Scatter them in Israel. (Gen. 49:5-7, JPS translation)

This condemnation is quite different from Jacob’s earlier reaction. Upon first hearing of the rape of his daughter, Jacob is silent (וְהֶחֱרִש, Gen. 34:5), his passivity a strong contrast to the outrage and violence of his two sons. But here in Vayechi, Jacob has the last word. Simeon and Levi’s vigilante justice and collective punishment were indeed outrageous, and their descendants will suffer the consequences.

Jacob’s curse of Simon and Levi in chapter 49 goes a long way in correcting both his own underreaction and their overreaction in chapter 34. In condemning Simon and Levi’s brutality, Jacob both breaks his disturbing silence and conveys the consequences of their destructive behavior.

The question of how we respond to brutal violence – both individually and collectively – does not lend itself to easy answers. For Jews living in the United States, it is a question that we are reckoning with in new, and newly personal and poignant ways, just two months after the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in this country. 11 people were killed on Shabbat morning in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and as a community, we are still grappling with our responses.

As with any horrifying event, the shooting affected us in different ways. Some of us were, like Jacob, unable to form words. Some of us were, like Simon and Levi, grieved and very angry (וַיִּתְעַצְּבוּ וַיִּחַר מְאֹד, Gen. 34:7).

For some Jews, the murders were a shocking wake-up call to the real and present danger of antisemitism in this country. For others, it was a reminder that standing with the vulnerable – such as immigrants and refugees – can, in fact, make us vulnerable ourselves. For still others, the shootings in Pittsburgh were part of a terrible and growing trend of white supremacy, which took the lives of two African Americans just three days earlier, when they were murdered while shopping at a Kroger in Jeffersontown, KY.

For Jews of color, there has been a particularly acute and heightened sense of vulnerability, as they live with the reality of being members of more than one threatened minority community in this country.

In the wake of the events in Pittsburgh, many synagogues and other Jewish communities and institutions have begun or have renewed conversations about safety. This is perhaps inevitable, and certainly understandable.

But, in addition to grieving the deaths in Pittsburgh and speaking out against antisemitism and white supremacy, we should evaluate whether what we are doing in response to feeling under attack is actually making us more or less safe. In particular, we must carefully scrutinize suggestions to increase police presence in our communal spaces.

Historically, statistically, and anecdotally, people of color, which includes Jews of color, are often threatened, not protected, by police.

I know that it is hard for much of the white Jewish community to comprehend the widespread mistrust of police that people of color have. The presence of police to protect us and our institutions usually feels friendly and normal, unremarkable. When we perceive a threat, our first response is often to call for more security, without an understanding that a police presence makes many — both in our community and in others — feel unsafe.

In its community pledge released shortly after the shooting in Pittsburgh, the organization Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) cautions against ramping up security without carefully considering the potential negative consequences: “Investing in increased police presence and security will militarize our community spaces. It will make synagogues and Jewish communal spaces less safe for Jews of color, trans Jews, Jews with disabilities, and other beloved members of our communities. . . . Our community spaces should be places of refuge for us all.”

Ironically, we risk losing what is most precious to us about such communal gathering spaces if we sacrifice the sacred on the altar of security.

We will have to find our way together, as we navigate the range of responses within our communities to the threats of violence that Jews face in America today. Our communities will need to take seriously the legitimate fears that different members feel – and take care that in protecting the safety of some, we do not make others feel less secure.

The choices we face today – as we consider our response to the violence in Pittsburgh and threats of violence elsewhere – are very different from those condemned by Jacob in this week’s parsha. But there is an underlying note of caution we do well to heed. As Rabbi Shai Held argues in The Heart of Torah, the Torah – through Jacob’s words in Parashat Vayechi — teaches us something important about how to respond to violence: “Dinah’s brothers are right to respond to evil with sadness and outrage. But in slaughtering an entire population they reproduce and even amplify the very evil to which they respond. In combating evil, the Torah warns us, we must remain ever vigilant lest we become more and more like the enemies we legitimately fight.”

Rabbi Salem Pearce is director of organizing at T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, where she mobilizes its network of 2,000 rabbis and cantors to take action on human rights issues in the U.S. and in Israel. She was ordained in 2018 by the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College.

Interested in a possible career in the rabbinate? Read Rabbi Dan Judson’s article “Jewish Lessons on Meaningful Work.“ Rabbi Judson is Dean of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. He has a Ph.D. in Jewish history from Brandeis University.

Seventy Faces of Torah

shabbat

Previous Post

December 12, 2018

Mirroring political struggles and victories at home

Next Post

January 2, 2019 Shekhina: Earth Mother: Parashat Va’eira (Exodus 6:2-9:35)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2026 March 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz