Righteous Anger and What We Do With It

The Torah reading is a very sad and painful tale about one of the children of Jacob, Dinah.  Dinah was forcibly taken by the son of a local prince and violated.  After raping her, Shechem longed for Dinah.  Shechem, the rapist, desired Dinah and his family approached Dinah’s family to ask that their families be joined.   The families came to an agreement: If the entire city were circumcised, Dinah’s family would consent to the arrangement. Shechem and his people agreed.  The deed was done.

At eight days old circumcisions, a brit milah, is no big deal but at twenty or thirty years old it is a significant operation.  On the third day as the men were recuperating and in great pain, two of the sons of Jacob, Shimon and Levi, attacked and slew the entire population: the perpetrator, his family, all the inhabitants under their rule and even the livestock were slaughtered.  After the revenge, Jacob, the father of Shimon and Levi was distraught.  He accused Shimon and Levi of making him a vile, disgusting, and a terrible thing in the eyes of the inhabitants of the land.  Without mincing his words, Jacob heaped his angst on Shimon and Levi by also telling them that their family would now be targeted by the other tribes nearby.

Many years later, as Jacob lay dying; he assembled all his children and blessed them.  He chose his words very carefully as he blessed them with the gifts they had already begun to show.  When it came to Shimon and Levi, Jacob blessed them by saying “you are companions of violence...”  He went on to tell them they would eventually be subsumed by the other tribes because of their unchecked ferocious anger.

What is truly remarkable is that after all those years Jacob did not calm down, moderate his disappointment in his two children.  His initial reaction to Shimon and Levi remained decades later.  Not even at the cusp of death was his anger mollified.  So, Jacob was not speaking out of anger; he was speaking from his heart.

What do we make of Shimon and Levi?  Are they heroes or villains?  The Sages are divided.  Two opinions, one by Rambam and the other by Ramban, indicated that the entire people, the city of Shechem, had violated some great universal principle that made it imperative that Shechem’s people shared the common guilt for Dinah’s rape.  Yet, the explanations seem forced.

In 1961 Stanley Milgram conducted a famous study at Yale University.  He collected volunteers to administer electric shocks to another “volunteer” who was strapped into a chair.  When the “volunteer” in the chair answered questions incorrectly he was to be administered electric shocks by the other.  The real volunteer sat before a panel with thirty switches in a straight line.  From left to right they read, “Slight Shock, Moderate Shock, Strong Shock, Very Strong Shock, Intense Shock, Extreme Intensity Shock, Danger: Severe Shock.  The “volunteer” in the chair was an actor who, when he saw that a charge was being sent by the real volunteer they made painful noises, at times even complaining they had a heart condition.

Ranging from 15 to 450 volts the volunteer pressed the switches that would have sent shocks rippling through the subject.  After hearing the actor scream at 150 volts over 80% continued to press the shock button.  Well over sixty percent of the volunteers in the trial complied with task and pressed the switch at full strength, 450 volts!

About the same time that this experiment was going on, another occurrence was riveting the world’s attention in Israel.  In 1960 Adolf Eichmann was captured in Argentina.  The architect of the “Final Solution,” Adolf Eichmann oversaw the murder of six million.  

Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem about one year later.  A reporter for the New Yorker was dispatched to cover the story, Hannah Arendt.  What she found shocked her.  Arendt expected to see a monster with all but fangs and blood at the edges of his lips.  Instead, Arendt found a bureaucrat.   She was amazed at Eichmann’s inability to think critically.  Eichmann appeared like any unstriking businessman and not the picture of a psychopath at all.  His “following orders” justification was recited remarkable clarity and with no self doubt or guilt about sending millions of Jews to their deaths.  

Is this what God meant when He said just before the ultimate destruction in Noah’s time that “the thoughts of man’s heart are always evil?”  Was God also frustrated by humanity that the earth needed to be swept clean?  Is it possible that what lies at the center of every human being is so ugly and terrible that we do not deserve life?  Was Lord Acton’s statement, “Power tends to corrupt.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely” correct?  Given the opportunity to do evil and not be held responsible for our actions – like Eichmann and the volunteers in the Milgram study- we would all follow the same path?

Yet again in 1971 another experiment was conducted at Stanford University.  Two groups of students were divided into “prison guards” and “prisoners.”  The two week experiment was halted after just six days because of the terrible brutality used by the “prison guards.”

Katherine DeCelles, a University of Toronto professor, recently brought some new evidence to light.  In a study featured in Journal of Applied Psychology, DeCelles determined that people who had a high “moral identity;” those whose self-view, personal self-sense was to be kind were kind when they were in a position of power.  In other words, not all people placed in positions of power will abuse their privilege.  The way we see ourselves determines how we behave.

Perhaps this is the reason Torah preserves this very uncomfortable story about Dinah and her brothers.  Perhaps this is why we have Father Jacob telling his sons twice in his lifetime that they did wrong as a signal for us to learn the lesson Shimon and Levi should have known.  Perhaps this is also why the Torah never declares outright who was right and who was wrong in the story of Dinah and her brothers.  Which side we believe is correct may be an indication of our moral compass.  And, if by chance we chose wrongly God gave us an opportunity to turn ourselves around.

In Judaism we have a tool to keep us in check.  It is called teshuva.  Teshuva is the right and task of every being to change course.  When we perceive that we are on the wrong course we can repent and redirect our path.

As Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel said in 1968, “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

Ki Tavo: My Father, an Aramean?

When the first fruits, or bikkkurim in Hebrew, were brought to the Temple, the farmer who brought them was supposed to declare, “My father was destroyed by wandering Aramean….” The Talmud tells us that this phrase is so powerful and compelling that it needs to be repeated at the Passover seder.1 Why? What does the sentence mean?

One interpretation of this phrase is that it refers back to Laban who attempted to murder Jacob. The Passover Haggadda uses this interpretation to define how ruthless Laban was: While Pharaoh only wanted to murder the Israelite boys, the plot of Laban would obliterate the Jewish nation had he succeeded in murdering the patriarch Jacob!

However, there is an entirely different possibility for this text. It might also mean that Jacob – my father - was wandering while in the land of Aram. If this reading is correct, the meaning of the Torah text changes to a statement about the patriarch’s impoverishment, not that Laban was out to kill him.2 That is to say we are to be reminded of the protection of God over Jacob while he was vulnerable and in exile.

This reading is compelling because for the past two thousand years the condition of the Jew has been the same as this journey of Jacob. Dependent upon the mercy of distant rulers and the whims of local authorities, the Jew has been in a long state of exile. Imagine what this would mean to our ancient ancestors as they ate their bread of affliction in constant dread of expulsion, or worse.

Reb Tzadok Hakohen of Lublin reads this segment of the Torah with a slightly different nuance. His understanding posits that Laban sought to take away from Jacob his father-hood. That is to say, Laban was jealous that Jacob was wealthy and destined to be the progenitor of the nascent Jewish people. Laban hoped to supplant young Jacob and become the patriarch in his stead. It was not his physical life that Laban wanted to end but his spiritual legacy.

The passage arises at the Passover Seder at the time of the second cup of wine. At that moment that participant is consumed with the idea that the Lord God took us from the depths of despair and raised us to a covenanted nation at Sinai. If this is the real intent of the text in Deuteronomy then, in its context, the humble farmer who brings his first fruits to the Temple is expressing the single notion of Deliverance. This farmer acknowledges through these words his moral an, spiritual and physical impoverishment. It is only through the great gift of God that he is able to present his first fruits to the Kohen at the Temple. It is as if he is saying, “If not for You, God, I would have nothing.”

One more idea. The phrase- a wandering Aramean – was only to be recited after the Jews had entered the Land of Israel. Until that time they were not to use those words. The graduation of the Israelites from desert nomads to inhabitants of the land made it imperative to never forget their roots. In much the same way, we who live in freedom repeat those ancient words to recall our humble beginnings.

Musar: The seeds of prayer are placed into the earth with the ever-resent thought that everything belongs to God. I am only here because He wills it.



1 Pesachim 116a
2 See Rashbam


Haftara Insight:
The series of prophetic readings that align with the topical thread of consolation reaches its apogee this week. Isaiah calls to the survivors of devastation to arise and allow their soulful self to shine outward. That inner luster will act as a beacon to the nations of the world. They will all witness the grandeur of the people of Jacob. The time for tears is over. The time of jubilation has begun....

A Matter of Law:
The parsha makes special mention of the widow, the orphan and the stranger. In Jewish society if any of these people are marginalized it is wicked. Our responsibility is to make sure there are no needy among these three groups. Accursed is the person who allows the Torah to be abrogated in his community. J.Sotah 7:4