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THE BIG IDEA

The torah energy this week challenges us, especially during this time, to check our internal moral compass, especially when engaging in violent retaliation. 

According to the Torah Omens it is time to face our greatest fear, (the way Jacob prepares to face his brother Esau from whom he stole the blessing), wrestle with our inner critic (the way Jacob struggles with the angel), and embrace the deeper meaning in the name Israel (to strive with both that human and divine and prevail). 

This week also carries one of the hardest energies in the Torah, the rape and abduction of Jacob’s only daughter Dina, the vengeance killing of an entire population of men by Simeon and Levi (2 of Dina’s brothers), and Jacob’s expressed disapproval of their actions. 

The question of proportional response is an ancient one. For thousands of years, the greatest torah scholars and sages have debated the right and wrong of our ancestors choices and actions. Proving that we are not a people that can indiscriminately kill ever - without clear spiritual and moral justification.

As we step back into war, and Israeli soldiers continue the fight for our lives and the continued existence of Israel, it is of utmost importance to remember the attributes of divine mercy and compassion we are spiritually tasked to embody, and the pain it (should) cause us when we are forced into a position of needing kill others.

PRACTICE AWAKENING

For obvious reasons I have always found the story of Dina incredibly disturbing. Jacob has only one daughter, and the first and only thing that happens to her is that she is abducted and raped. In fact, the first thing that happens to the entire family system upon return to the promised land is that Dina is abducted and raped. 

And as much as the story very literally evokes our current hellish situation, namely, the abduction and torture of our people, and the impulse for unilateral retaliation. I am feeling the way through this story seeing Dina less as an individual person, and more as the feminine daughter archetype within us all.

To me, in this moment, Dina represents the sheltered part of ourselves, born in a protected household, that come to this land for the first time, and walk around with certain assumptions about personal safety. The story feels like a warning to all of us, that expect a certain peaceful experience, cruelly awakening to a very different reality. 

Were Simeon and Levi morally justified in neutralizing 24,000 men in retaliation for Dina’s abduction and rape by the town Prince?

I leave it to you to decide.

I am simply left shaken by the relevance of the Torah in this moment — warnings to all times, and relevant through time, preparing and awakening the Dina, Simeon, Levi, and Jacob within us all.