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You are hearing incorrectly then.
You are confusing jewish women with radical feminists.
Levite, this is really outrageous. You've reduced the issue to one of an errant interpretation on the part of one person. If you have information suggesting that the quote from the Woman's Commentary was simply some idiosyncratic nonsense from Frymer-Kensky, please present it. What I see is a Torah Commentary, endorsed by the WRJ, and representing the best collaborative efforts of:To simply dismiss the analysis and the likely research and scholarship underpinning the analysis as Frymer-Kensky mishigas is startling, especially coming from you.
Sadly, you do not even see what you're doing here. On what grounds to you reduce it to a "particular interpretation of Frymer-Kensky's?"I am disagreeing with this particular interpretation of Frymer-Kensky's.
Sadly, you do not even see what you're doing here. On what grounds to you reduce it to a "particular interpretation of Frymer-Kensky's?"
*Post Removed*
My beef is that the Torah and what is in it is based on the intentions of the author.
I find it offensive when people try to change it to fit their agenda.
Fair enough. Let's look ...Because she's the one who's putting it forth in the source you cited.Sadly, you do not even see what you're doing here. On what grounds to you reduce it to a "particular interpretation of Frymer-Kensky's?"
The story is set during the ancestral period in the city of Shechem, the geographical center of a movement in which people of diverse backgrounds, customs, and religious beliefs merged to become the community of Israel. Dinah goes out “to visit the women of the region” (the indigenous people, 34:1). The phrase implies an openness to and acceptance of outsiders. Dinah’s subsequent sexual intercourse with Shechem, the Hivite prince of the region, is the ultimate symbol of acceptance. And Hamor speaks to Jacob about “giving” his daughter in marriage to Shechem, in the same way that the Jacobites and Shechemites will "give and take” wives, live and trade in the same region, and hold property together peacefully.
But separatist tendencies within Jacob’s community (represented by Simeon, Levi, and the other sons of Jacob) are threatened by this possibility and by Shechem’s intercourse with Dinah. They want to resist intermarriage. Their idea of “give and take” is “taking” the sword, killing all the Shechemite males, plundering the city, and taking their wives and children. The story passes “judgment” (the meaning of Dinah’s name) on their friendly attitude.
The story invites two opposing interpretations. The traditional understanding is that Dinah has been raped by Shechem. Her brothers Simeon and Levi retaliate by violently slaying and plundering Shechem, Hamor, and the Shechemite community. But the retaliation puts Jacob’s group in jeopardy by making subsequent social intercourse and peaceful coexistence impossible. Jacob thus reprimands his sons for their behavior. But concerning the question of whether Dinah has been raped, the final clue comes in the last sentence of the story. Simeon and Levi say, “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” (34:31). Prostitutes engage in sexual intercourse for financial gain, and their sexual actions involve mutual consent. Rape therefore does not characterize either prostitution or what has happened to Dinah. Furthermore, one of the purposes of sexual intercourse in the ancient world was to create permanent bonding and obligation; but in prostitution, there is no bonding or obligation. By saying that Dinah has become like a prostitute, Simeon and Levi might be suggesting that, from their perspective, Dinah and Shechem’s intercourse could never lead to bonding and obligation. They are not suggesting that she was raped.
Upon hearing the news about his daughter, Jacob is at first silent; then he negotiates Dinah’s marriage to Shechem. If Dinah has been raped, Jacob ignores his obligation to protect the women of his household and ignores Dinah’s suffering. This seems peculiar—does it suggest that Dinah was not raped? In the Hebrew Scriptures, rape is generally indicated by a cry for help from the woman (showing lack of consent) and violence on the part of the man (indicating a forcible, hostile act).
But the intercourse of Shechem does not fit this pattern. Genesis 34:2 reports that he sees Dinah, takes her (the Hebrew word for “take” is often used for taking a wife), lies with her (a euphemism for sexual intercourse), and shames her (the NRSV combines the last two verbs, rendering “lay with her by force,” a reading that should be contested). Then the text (v. 3) provides three expressions of affection: first it says he bonds with her (the NRSV uses “was drawn” to her, but the word bonds more appropriately represents a word used for marital bonding), then that he loves her, and finally that he speaks tenderly to her. From this description Shechem appears to be a man in love, not a man committing an exploitative act of rape. Rapists feel hostility and hatred toward their victims, not closeness and tenderness.
So why does the text include the verb to shame (or to humble, put down), and why does it record that Jacob’s daughter has been “defiled” (34:5; compare 34:13, 27)? Shame, or intense humility, usually relates to failure to live up to societal goals and ideals. Because sexual intercourse should be part of marital bonding, it is shameful for an unmarried woman like Dinah to have sex. The declaration of love and desire for marriage comes after she and Shechem have intercourse. Furthermore, Dinah’s intercourse with Shechem makes her “defiled,” a term (Hebrew tm’ indicating here an unacceptable sexual act. The unacceptability of premarital sex in this case is intertwined with the response of Dinah’s brothers, who insist that Shechem’s requested marriage with her would be an unacceptable union.
Ironically, if there is a rape in this story, it is Simeon and Levi who “rape” the people of Shechem’s city. It is their behavior that is violent, hostile, and exploitative. Shechem’s desire for marital bonding stands in tension with Simeon and Levi’s determination that no such liaison take place. The tension between marriage within a group (endogamy) and marriage with outsiders (exogamy) is dramatized in this story of love and violence. The premarital sexual act is the narrative’s representation of the violation of group boundaries. Also, the fact that Shechem figures prominently first as a friend and then as a victim of Jacob’s group may prefigure what another biblical narrative reports—that Shechem is peacefully incorporated into Israel but then is violently destroyed (see Judges 9).
Parenthetically, from the reference in point 1 immediately above:So, there's your smoking gun: a parenthetical reference (three sentences out of 29 pages) to the third reference cited in posts 9 and 31.Frymer-Krensky points out that the word inna follows the word "lay with" which would indicate that rape was in fact not the case. The order of the words suggests that disgrace followed their laying together. She notes that had it been a case of rape the disgrace (inna) would have preceded their laying together.
And your dismissal in post # 42?And why?While I have great respect for the late Tikvah Frymer-Kensky (z"l), and was fortunate to be on friendly terms with both her and her husband-- also a fine rabbi-- I disagree with her here.First, from The Torah: A Women's Commentary: ...Poor Tikva. She get's all the blame -- despite you being "on friendly terms with both her and her husband" or the fact that she was not the author of the Women's Commentary cited.Because she's the one who's putting it forth in the source you cited.
This is not the drash of one woman and it certainly is not the error of one woman. Framing it in this way is a distortion and a dismissal that reeks of patronizing chauvinism. Instead of repeating how you are "friendly" with your sole target, you would do well to acknowledge that collectively, and in many cases individually, those responsible for the linguistic and sociological analysis have far better credentials than the two of us combined. That does not make them right, but it does argue for far greater respect.
...This is not the drash of one woman and it certainly is not the error of one woman. Framing it in this way is a distortion and a dismissal that reeks of patronizing chauvinism. Instead of repeating how you are "friendly" with your sole target, you would do well to acknowledge that collectively, and in many cases individually, those responsible for the linguistic and sociological analysis have far better credentials than the two of us combined. That does not make them right, but it does argue for far greater respect.
Very well.OK, so it's not necessarily Tikva's personal original drash, and it was my error that I apparently mistook it as such-- I'm not "targeting" anyone! I actually don't care if it's the drash of one person or a hundred people. I still disagree with it.
I have no such expectation, nor have I ever expressed such an expectation. I do, however, reject your repeated efforts to reduce its commentary to an error by a single individual and then dismiss it as such (while insisting that you are friendly to a person who, apparently, had little or no role in defining the content of that commentary).I don't understand how your apparent expectation that I refrain from disagreeing with the Women's Torah Commentary because ...
I have no such expectation, nor have I ever expressed such an expectation. I do, however, reject your repeated efforts to reduce its commentary to an error by a single individual and then dismiss it as such.
The account was written by a man about a woman. Do you not suppose Dinah's perspective may have gone unknown for all these years?
That was precisely what you did.I did no such thing. I erroneously believed that this particular comment was from Tikva Frymer-Kensky, but that is in no way, shape, or form the same thing as "reducing" the entire commentary to a single person's error.
Sadly, it clearly has nothing to do with your Torah study.The touchy, feely, gee I wonder how Dinah felt really has nothing to do with learning Torah.
Not so. I cannot comment in the blue thread, but I can ask: Will you please read Genesis 34:1-5 again?