Dvar Torah on Parshat Vayishlach

Parenting is no pleasure. No, wait, I don’t really mean that. Let me put it differently: Parenting is a pleasure. It’s wonderful, beautiful, rewarding, and amazing. However, it also certainly does have its challenges. I think the hardest challenge is not the physical stuff you have to deal with when they’re young; I got past that by pretending it was exercise that I was getting without going to the gym. The real difficulty is that parents are constantly trying to gaze into the future, and determine, through some cloudy, nonexistent crystal ball, what affect a particular action, experience, or behavior will have on their children’s future. Such as:

- If we discipline her firmly, she will grow up to be responsible, and respectful.  Or maybe resentful and rebellious. Or crushed.

- If we send him to the more traditional, demanding school, he will have good work habits, get a better education, and will do better in college. Or maybe he will be broken by the strict regimen, lose his creative spark, and come to hate rules of any sort.  

- If we let them play with the kids next door, they will grow up to be outgoing, and self-confident, like those kids are. Or wild and loud, like those kids are. But maybe it will make them more assertive. Or maybe those wild kids will offer them drugs.

It goes on forever; a constant, fairly pathetic attempt to gauge how our everyday decisions about how we raise our children will impact on them, while we know that it really is a crap shoot and we don’t have a clue.

In this week’s parsha, Vayishlach, Yaakov is faced with a difficult parenting decision, one that might throw some light on the challenges we face as parents.   

At the start of the parsha, Yaakov returns after a twenty-year absence to Canaan, where he will face his estranged brother, Esav. We are told of Yaakov’s preparations for the meeting, which are extensive. They include a combination of diplomacy – sending messengers to Esav with gifts – prayer to God for protection and assistance, and getting ready for a fight.

As Yaakov makes his way back to Canaan, and approaches the place where he will meet with Esav, we are told that he “woke up that night and took his two wives and his two concubines and his eleven children and crossed over the ford of Yabok.” (Bereishit; 32,33)

The Midrash in Bereishit Rabba (76, 9) asks a simple question: What does the Torah mean by “eleven children”? Yaakov had twelve at this time. Who’s missing? The Midrash says that his daughter, Dinah, is the one who is left out, and for a very good reason. Yaakov, knowing that his brother Esav had a roving, possessive eye, hid Dinah from him, by locking her in a box, so that Esav would not “take her from him”. This is why Yaakov is said to have only eleven children; Dinah, the twelfth, was hidden away.

Now, knowing Esav, and knowing Judaism’s traditional negative attitude towards him, one certainly understands Yaakov’s fears, and the precautions he took – although locking his daughter in a box does feels like a bit much. However, the Midrash is critical of this parenting decision. Had Yaakov allowed Esav to see and be attracted by Dinah, the Midrash tells us, he might have married her, which would have been a good thing, as it would have saved Dinah from her tragic fate: being kidnapped and raped by Shechem, which occurs a bit later in our parsha, just after the meeting between Yaakov and Esav. The Midrash makes it clear that marriage to Esav, who is, after all, a member of the family, would have been preferable to what happened to Dinah with Shechem, a stranger. It would actually have saved her.

The Midrash goes further, and implies – Rashi, in his commentary on the Torah, which uses this Midrash as its source, says this more explicitly – that had Esav taken Dinah, she may well have had a positive effect on him, and he might have repented, and changed his ways. For failing to take this possibility into account, and denying Dinah the chance to meet Esav, Yaakov is punished, by Dinah being raped by Shechem.

Well, this is certainly a demanding Midrash! Yaakov was meant to bet on Dinah’s positive effect on Esav, as well as see Esav as a better mate for Dinah than what might be coming down the pike – which turns out to be the rapist/kidnapper Shechem. How in the world was Yaakov supposed to know this, to anticipate such strange developments, and act accordingly? What kind of parent is the Midrash asking Yaakov to be, what kind of risks is it asking him to take with his daughter’s future? In terms of the difficulties parents have in trying to gauge how their decisions about their kids will affect them later in life, and anticipate the likely chain of cause and effect that our parenting strategies will have, this is really asking a lot. Yaakov is meant to hope for the best, and allow the violent and dangerous Esav  - his arch enemy - access to his daughter, in the hope that maybe love will conquer all and things might work out for the best! Wow! That’s some parenting strategy!

I’d like to add one more element to our discussion. When it’s all over, and Yaakov has parted ways with Esav, he presumably lets Dinah out of the box, and settles down in the Land of Canaan. At this point, we are told, famously, ותצא דינה – “And Dinah went out…to see what was going on with the girls of the place.” This “went out” is seen by the Rabbis as a problem: had she not been so outgoing, had she known her place, stayed at home, and not gone out to mix with the locals, she would not have been seen, and raped, and taken, by Shechem. This understanding would seem to be a classic expression of the desire to keep girls and women at home, protected by fathers and brothers and husbands. This dynamic still exists, of course, most extremely in places like Saudi Arabia, where women actually have a legal guardian, usually the father, husband or another relative, without whose permission they may not go anywhere.

It also seems, in a way, to blame the victim, as Dinah is held responsible for going out in the first place. Now, we shouldn’t forget that Shechem is ultimately killed by Dinah’s brothers, along with his entire town (!), so it’s not as if Dinah’s going out (and thereby perhaps “asking for it”) gets him off the hook in any way, but, still, Dinah is given some blame here, which we certainly should find difficult to accept.  

I think we have to see Dinah’s going out in the context of what happened to her just before – her father locked her in a box. Taken together, this narrative, which blames Yaakov for denying Dinah to Esav, blames Dinah for “going out” to mingle with the Canaanite girls, and sees her rape as a consequence of her not marrying Esav, seems to point to an interesting parenting strategy. As a father, Yaakov should have had more faith. Faith in Dinah, and her ability to interact positively with Esav. Faith in Esav, and his capacity, even after all that has happened, to change. Faith in love’s ability to affect people for the good. He should not have locked Dinah in a box, denying her her freedom, her personhood, and the chance of a good relationship in a match that might look unlikely, but could make sense.

This is a faith which, clearly, her father did not have. Yaakov is not being punished for not seeing the future, and not realizing that if Dinah doesn’t marry Esav she will be assaulted by Shechem; he couldn’t know or anticipate that. Rather, the rape of Dinah is a punishment for Yaakov (I know it was much worse for her, but bear with the Rabbis here) for an intrinsically bad parenting decision, his decision to lock his daughter up, and not trust in her ability to transform his brother with love, or in his brother’s capacity, once within Dinah’s orbit,  for change.

For us, as parents, this is a frightening narrative. The urge to lock up our daughters, as well as our sons, and protect them from all that is Esav-like out there – violence, aggression, selfishness, anger - is natural. It feels, to a degree, like the essence of parenting: protect them, guard them, keep them out of harm’s way and away from bad things. Putting our kids in a protective box feels right, but the Midrash knows it’s wrong. We have to have more faith, both in their ability to navigate and even influence the outside world, as well as in the outside world’s ability to transform itself and not be all that bad. In the absence of the ability to see the future when making parenting decisions, we are asked to take the risk, that maybe, if my kid is strong enough, he or she can make the world a better place. He or she can change its Esav-like qualities for the better, as Yaakov should have believed Dinah could do with his brother.

Because, if we put them in a box, and lock it, the Torah tells us what our children will do – “and Dinah went out.” They will rebel, run away, literally and figuratively try to get out of the box into which we, in our mistrust and lack of faith, have locked them.

Yes, it is impossible to be a good parent, to see the future, and control it though our parenting decisions and actions. We can not ascertain the dangers and disappointments that are lurking out there, and somehow keep our children away, totally protected from a world which really can be bad. What we must do is to parent by taking a leap of faith, faith in our children’s ability to deal with and in fact tame a wild world, and in the world’s ability to be tamed.  

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix