This week we began to read the Book of Exodus in the Torah cycle, but the harrowing events of the week keep taking me back to the story of the rape of Dina in the Book of Genesis. Dina, as we know, had her honor sullied by Shechem, son of Hamor. Her brothers, led by Shimon and Levi, took their fearful vengeance by tricking the men of Shechem into circumcising themselves and then, as the men were recovering from the painful surgery, storming the town and slaughtering them. Jacob, upon hearing of the massacre, rails against his sons: "You have made me odious among the inhabitants of the land!" And they respond: "Should our sister be treated like a whore?"
There's an obvious answer to that rhetorical question, and it resembles the answer to the response I hear when questions are raised about the Gaza offensive: "Should we let them shoot rockets at our cities?" No, we could not overlook the rape of our sister; no, we cannot pass over the rocket attacks on our cities. But did that make it right, good or wise to massacre the men of Shechem? And does it make it right, good or wise to bomb Gaza to its foundations?
The raid on Shechem resulted in the destabilization and flight of Jacob's family, turning what was supposed to have been a homecoming into a renewed exile. And now comes an eerie link with this week's reading. Jacob's response, "you have made me odious among the inhabitants of the land," is echoed by the complaint of his descendants, slaves in Egypt, to Moses: "You have made us odious to Pharaoh and his courtiers!"
Coming from slaves, of course, this is an absurd complaint. Odious is exactly what they already were. They had no need to fear becoming odious; Jacob did. In fighting for their sister's honor, Dina's brothers lost their own. It was only to be regained on the long road out of Egypt.
Yes, there was and is a call to reclaim the honor of Sderot and Ashkelon, to repel the violence perpetrated against our cities and our citizens. But by fighting kill with overkill, we lose what we seek to regain.
States are charged with wielding violence to protect their citizens. Their responsibility is to wield minimum violence for maximum effectiveness. In Gaza, I fear, we've done the opposite: maximum violence with minimum effectiveness, leaving our cities still open to violence, our captive Gilad still in enemy hands.
The time has come to regain our lost honor and our hope. But, as the Israelites learned on the way out of Egypt, sometimes there are no shortcuts. If we want to keep moving out of exile rather than back in, we'll need to take not the short road of overkill, but the long road of wisdom.
There's an obvious answer to that rhetorical question, and it resembles the answer to the response I hear when questions are raised about the Gaza offensive: "Should we let them shoot rockets at our cities?" No, we could not overlook the rape of our sister; no, we cannot pass over the rocket attacks on our cities. But did that make it right, good or wise to massacre the men of Shechem? And does it make it right, good or wise to bomb Gaza to its foundations?
The raid on Shechem resulted in the destabilization and flight of Jacob's family, turning what was supposed to have been a homecoming into a renewed exile. And now comes an eerie link with this week's reading. Jacob's response, "you have made me odious among the inhabitants of the land," is echoed by the complaint of his descendants, slaves in Egypt, to Moses: "You have made us odious to Pharaoh and his courtiers!"
Coming from slaves, of course, this is an absurd complaint. Odious is exactly what they already were. They had no need to fear becoming odious; Jacob did. In fighting for their sister's honor, Dina's brothers lost their own. It was only to be regained on the long road out of Egypt.
Yes, there was and is a call to reclaim the honor of Sderot and Ashkelon, to repel the violence perpetrated against our cities and our citizens. But by fighting kill with overkill, we lose what we seek to regain.
States are charged with wielding violence to protect their citizens. Their responsibility is to wield minimum violence for maximum effectiveness. In Gaza, I fear, we've done the opposite: maximum violence with minimum effectiveness, leaving our cities still open to violence, our captive Gilad still in enemy hands.
The time has come to regain our lost honor and our hope. But, as the Israelites learned on the way out of Egypt, sometimes there are no shortcuts. If we want to keep moving out of exile rather than back in, we'll need to take not the short road of overkill, but the long road of wisdom.
1 comment:
Right on!
or as they say in Aussie: Good on ya!
Jon/Yehiel
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