Parashat Vayakhel, Exodus 35:1-38:20

Too many of us feel we do not have a role to play in the Jewish community.

Years ago, when I first came to Canada, there was a television program that I found to be quite novel. It was a home repair show hosted by a woman named Mag Ruffman. Here was a woman who was both an actress and a licensed contractor. She eagerly tackled all sorts of projects, faithfully recording obstacles as well as successes. In the decade or so since that show was on the air, there has been an increase in the number of women involved in home improvement projects. There are DIY ( do it yourself) websites for women. It is even possible to purchase tools designed specifically for women's hands.

The novelty of women involved in construction is one of the outstanding features of this week's portion, Vayakhel. Women are specifically mentioned as having contributed material for the building of the mishkan (tabernacle). Beyond that, women took part in constructing items for the tabernacle. And all the skilled women spun with their own hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen. And all the women who excelled in that skill spun the goats' hair. (Exodus 35:25-26)

Before we get overly excited, realize that spinning and weaving were traditionally women's work. Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber, an archeologist who specializes in textiles, relates that evidence of these activities is found in early human societies. Most of us know of arrowheads and flint knives and may have even seen such artifacts in museums. Unlike these stone implements, cloth deteriorates quickly, but impressions left by cloth in clay have been unearthed, providing tantalizing remains of complex weaving patterns.

Early on, because of the easy compatibility of clothmaking with child care, women had almost total responsibility for producing the cloth and clothing in their societies.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years, p. 257

We know that spinning and weaving were traditionally women's work from a variety of pictorial sources such as on ancient pottery. There are ancient Greek and Roman murals showing women at looms while children play nearby. They might even have been the ancient equivalent of factory workers. The archeological evidence of loom weights and spindles – items that do not deteriorate – are a silent testimony to women’s work.

Other evidence speaks more loudly. Regarding the "Woman of Valor" (eshet chayil,) Proverbs 31:19 informs us that She sets her hands to the distaff;/ Her fingers work the spindle.

Producing and dyeing yarns, weaving, and embroidering textiles for the Tent of Meeting and officiating priests’ clothing thus provided an avenue for women of the Exodus account to participate in this public and communal religious practice. According to II Kings 23:7, women continued producing textiles as devotional service also during the time of the Jerusalem Temple: while working in a room within the Temple precinct…

Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, The Torah A Women's Commentary, p. 467

While we think of women's work as taking place in the home, spinning and weaving were very much communal, as artwork from ancient and medieval times attests. Women's role in general is traditionally defined as being in the private domain, but Vayakhel places women in the communal realm. Men and women, all whose hearts moved them (Exodus 35:22) donated items for the tabernacle and priestly vestments. The words men and women are constructed in an unusual manner in the Hebrew (anashim al nashim), which has come to the attention of a number of commentators. Sforno takes it to mean that the women bringing the gifts were accompanied by their husbands, who approved of their donation. Nachmanides says that the men were following the women's' example. Either way, it was a public act on the part of the women.

Too many of us feel we do not have a role to play in the Jewish community. Women feel alienated by particular traditions, Gays feel rejected by others. One group is too family-oriented, the other one is singles only, nobody is sensitive to those with special needs, or the elderly. We can all find an obstacle to set ourselves apart. Vayakhel is about what can be done achieved when the disparate elements come together.

The very name of the portion, Vayakhel, indicates a communal activity. The parasha begins by telling us that Moses then convoked (vayakhel) the whole Israelite community. (Exodus 35:1). The root of Vaykhel is khl, related to the word kehilla meaning community. Devoted people from both sexes and across all classes contribute to the creation of the tabernacle. Skilled individuals, men and women, transform the items into holy objects. Mundane tasks result in sacredness. Some of us have material goods to donate, others have skills, and still others contribute their presence. Everyone has a gift that can be put to God's service. Together these form the warp and weft of our modern Jewish tapestry.

I make pleasant songs and weave verses
because my soul longs for You.

Anim Zemirot (Shir HaKavod),
attributed to Rabbi Yehuda HeChassid of Regensburg

Shabbat shalom,
MS

Parashat Vayishlach, Genesis 32:4-36:43

Sponsored by Harriet Train and Geary Shorser, in loving memory of Sydney Shorser.

Is any one story the real truth, or is the truth to be found only by knowing all the varying perspectives?

Lovers of Japanese films fall into two general categories – aficionados of Godzilla movies and fans of the great director Akira Kurosawa. I confess to an affinity for both. A discussion of Godzilla films will have to wait until the next time we read Breishit or Noah. This week, we’re going to look at one of the classics of the cinema – Kurosawa’s Rashomon.

This 1950 film takes place in ancient Japan where a samurai and his wife are attacked by a bandit. The woman is raped and the husband murdered. As the film unfolds, the same story is seen from four perspectives – the bandit’s, the woman’s, the dead man’s, and a woodcutter’s who finds the body. Each story is different. Is any one story the real truth, or is the truth to be found only by knowing all the varying perspectives?

The story of Dinah is a Rashomon-like tale. Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, goes out to visit the daughters of the land (Genesis 34:1). The story of Dinah is a tale of “going out.” Such tales are often associated with romance in the Torah. Both Rebecca and Rachel go out to the well and come back betrothed. In Dinah’s case, her actions are not as clear. The Torah states Now Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had borne to Jacob, went out (va-tetse) (Genesis 34:1). Rashi notes that this verb, va-tetse, is also used in reference to Dinah’s mother, Leah:

Why isn’t she called "the daughter of Jacob?" Because of her "going out" she is called "the daughter of Leah," for Leah too was in the habit of "going out," as it is said, And Leah went out to meet him (Genesis 30:16). From this we get the adage: "Like mother like daughter."

Rashi implies that the daughter is worse than the mother. The mother went out to seek her husband, Jacob. And the unbetrothed daughter sets out for sexual purposes as well.

What happens next depends on your perspective.

Version 1: Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, chief of the country, saw her, and took her and lay with her by force (Genesis 34:2).

Hamor, the Hivite chief (whose name means "jackass"), tries to right this wrong by negotiating a marriage between his son Shechem and Jacob’s daughter Dinah. But Jacob’s sons now enter the picture. Meanwhile Jacob’s sons, having heard the news, came in from the field. The men were distressed and very angry, because he [Shechem] had committed an outrage in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter – a thing not to be done (Genesis 34:7). They insist that in order for the marriage to occur all of Hamor’s clan must be circumcised. The men comply but on the third day after the procedure, Dinah’s full brothers, Simeon and Levi, take vengeance by slaying all the men in the clan. Clearly according to this perspective Dinah was raped.

Version 2: In the Torah, when men "go out" it is destiny. This is even true of those we do not take as role models. Both Esau and Ishmael make gains in their journeys. Even Cain is under God’s protection as he wanders the earth, eventually founding a city.

When women leave home it is to do something useful such as water the flock, as Rebecca does in Genesis 24:15, or welcome guests as modeled by Rachel in Genesis 29:9. When they become wives, they disappear to the women’s world. Recall that Sarah was in the tent when Abraham received visitors (Genesis 18:10).

The roles of men and women clearly differ in the Torah. Men do the falling in love; women are the recipients of that love. Dinah, too, is the object of courtship. Being strongly drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and in love with the maiden, he [Shechem] spoke to the maiden tenderly (Genesis 34:3).

When Shechem sees Dinah, his reactions are similar to those of Isaac and Jacob upon seeing their besherte for the first time. Remember, in the Torah men are the ones who fall in love.

But what of the preceding verse which states that Shechem took her by force (va-ye'aneha)? According to Moshe Weinfeld the verb va-ye’aneha refers simply to sexual intimacy, not force. If so, Dinah herself is active in this courtship. She is even to be found in Shechem’s house while the marriage negotiations are taking place. Anita Diamant in her midrash The Red Tent also interprets the encounter between Shechem and Dinah as willing participation from both. According to this perspective Dinah is the only woman who "goes out" in the Torah as a man would, and she is thwarted by her family.

Version 3: A very different perspective is provided by Ita Sheres in her book Dinah’s Rebellion. Her interpretation places the redaction of the book of Genesis after the destruction of the First Temple. This was a time when the Jewish people living outside the land of Israel were struggling for survival.

Dinah represents the Jewish community faced with the danger of being among other people. Dinah, meaning Israel, must keep to herself and not assimilate.

…from the redactors' vantage point, the story of Dinah, while intrinsically about a sister who was violated by a strange man--and in that sense not very different from other stories in other traditions about violated and abused women--undertakes to draw the line between an individual's moral behavior and his/her social and political commitments. The story's ultimate premise lies in the redactors' belief that there is a deep link between moral behavior, political commitment, and the individual's position in the universe.

Ita Sheres, Dinah's Rebellion, p. 5

Dinah serves as a personal warning. As a woman in the Jewish community she plays an important role in the physical continuity of the people. That is her strength. It is also her weakness, because she can be seduced by outsiders. In addition, just as Dinah the woman faces outside dangers, so too, does the entire community. The biblical tale is an allegory for the communal situation after the destruction of the First Temple.

Thus we have here three different perspectives on the same story. Where is the truth to be found? However we view it, this is one of the "troubling texts" of the Torah that continue to challenge us.

At the very beginning of Vayishlach, Jacob struggles with a divine being. We no longer wrestle with divine messengers, but we still bear the name that Jacob received after this encounter. We too are called Israel, the one who "struggled with God." Our struggle is not with holy creatures but with holy texts such as the story of Dinah.

Shabbat shalom,
MS