Vayishlach: Who gets the last word - Yaakov or Shimon and Levi?

 It's become a truism that understanding the Tanach requires understanding the historical norms of the time. While some see the Torah as archaic, and out of touch with modernity, it's important to understand that the Torah's conception of morality made it revolutionary, and as all concur, the first of the great religions. I personally take umbrage at the fact that Judaism is seen as the forbearer of Christianity, and thereafter Islam, but it cannot be denied that so many of the practices, customs and philosophical underpinnings in the Torah were thereafter usurped or at minimum, transplanted by other universal faiths. 

In the light of the above, I would like to address one of the most complex episodes in the Torah, the rape of Dinah. Interestingly - and shockingly - the Code of Hammurabi states that a woman who has been raped is to be put to death, not the perpetrator but rather the victim. The Torah states that a woman who is raped in a field is always free of guilt, for what could she do, "She surely cried out, but there was no one to hear her." In contrast, our faith contends that a woman who is raped in a city is culpable because she certainly voiced consent through her silence; otherwise, her cries for help would have been heard. 

As for Dinah, the commentators share that the rape of Dinah was the first rape ever recorded in the history of man - that until that horrible incident, no such act had been committed, as the verse states (Bereishit 34:7). All of the nations of the time had an unwritten doctrine that raping a woman from your nation or any other was forbidden, and yet the calumny of the first rape ever recorded in the history of mankind befalls the sons of Jacob, the ignominy and degradation, to put it mildly. 

Shimon and Levi, do not heed Yaakov's rebuke, utterly rebuffing him, saying in one of the most powerful utterances in the whole Torah, "Shall our sister be like a harlot." If it was simply brotherly love upending their filial devotion, Shimon and Levi would seemingly be on solid footing, the value they placed on their sister's honor on par with the unquestioned leadership Yaakov sought to steer his family clear of disaster and impending demise. That, though is not the calculus at hand, because after Yaakov states that you've jeopardized the fate of our whole people, Shimon and Levi's rejoinder, in colloquial terms, is, "Would you have our daughter be no more than a prostitute?" at which point, Yaakov is silent. And thereafter, Hashem intervenes to cast "His fear" on the surrounding nation, the tribe of Jacob left unscathed - which would seem to denote that Shimon and Levi got the last word, and that Hashem took their side because of the veracity of their claim, and the pathos that drove them. 

The logos, or logical, and more mechanical way of sizing up the situation, only receives expression at the culmination of Yaakov's life, when Yaakov deplores Shimon and Levi's wrath. "Shimon and Levi are comrades, their weaponry is a stolen craft. Into their conspiracy, may my soul not enter! With their congregation, do not join, O my honor! For in their rage they murdered people and at their whim they hamstrung an Ox. Accursed is their rage for it is intense, and their wrath for it is harsh; I will separate them within Jacob, and I will disperse them in Israel." 

Questions can be asked as to why Jacob waited only until then, the end of his life. Yet, by the same token he gives Shechem to Joseph, stating, "which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow." (Bereishit 48:22), which would seem to connote that Yaakov felt that Shechem, which fell into his hands through Shimon and Levi's actions were rightful. 

It is hard for me to ascertain what the message of the exchange between Yaakov and Shimon and Levi in this past week's parshah was. Though Yaakov got the last word, it would seem that things unfolded more in keeping with Shimon and Levi's vision of justice. On the face of it, even though the murder of a nation for the wanton rape of Dinah was rightful, Yaakov feared for the repercussions. After Shimon and Levi, in the face of Yaakov's rebuke asserted that they deemed their action rightful, Hashem intervened to protect the people of Israel, and yet, from the tone and intonation in Yaakov's parting words, the message he seems to be conveying is that it's wrongful to resort to maverick actions when human means leave one susceptible, and not inured from the seemingly inevitable ramifications of those very same actions.