A talk with Jacob

I was reading the Torah portion last week and was intrigued by the story of Dinah (Genesis 34). What puzzled me most was Jacob's silence through most of the story, only to be broken when he berates his sons for what they've done.

So I called the soul of Jacob to get some insight. I do this by reading words that Jacob said in the Torah. A few years ago, I discovered that when I read a text, I feel the presence of the soul of the author. The more spiritually powerful the author, the clearer their soul feels to me. One of the amazing things about the Tanach is that if I read the words spoken by characters in the Tanach, I feel their presence. The Torah itself, at least at this point, is transparent, that is to say, I feel the people being written about, not the author. The Talmud, on the other hand, I find very difficult to reach souls because it feels like there are too many authors, too many redactors. So I called the soul of Jacob.

He told me to understand that Dinah was still a child when she was raped. She was raped, held captive, and then the rapist thought he fell in love with her and had the gaul to ask her father to let him marry her. Jacob asked me, as a father of two young girls, to imagine what I would feel like if anything like that happened to my daughter, even in a culture where they were married much younger than today. He was silent because he was paralyzed by his rage. He knew that shechem held the power, but his rage prevented him from knowing how to respond in such a way as to avoid a war and get his daughter back. He knew that his sons were better liars than he, and they did not shy away from violence.

When they came home, they were able to find the still, cold place in their anger and lure Shechem and his father Hamor into weakening themselves so they could be overcome and Dinah could be freed. But Jacob didn't realize they would take it so far as to kill the entire city. He just wanted to kill Shechem and Hamor and get Dinah back . That was why he chastised them.