VAYISHLACH: Yes, Judaism Believes in Rape-Victim Blame[-Shar]ing!
Two Powerful Lessons Revealed by Dinah’s Ordeal in Parshat Vayishlach
21/11/2018
In Parshat Vayishlach, Dinah Bat Yaakov undergoes a horrific ordeal.
Many layers of insights and deeper meanings (including rectifications and gilgulim) are revealed within this episode, but we’re just going to focus on gleaning 2 lessons from one aspect of it: Dinah’s behavior & dress.
Chazal point out that Dinah left her family’s secure area to go out to see the Canaanite females, which is how Shechem saw her and managed to abduct her in the first place. Also, her sleeve accidentally went up, exposing her elbow.
If you, like me, grew up with feminist brainwashing, you initially find this insight offensive.
Blaming the victim! How dare they?!
But that’s not what Chazal is doing.
Lesson #1: Please Protect Your Precious Self
First of all, Dinah inherited her mother’s yatzanit trait; Leah Imeinu was otherwise exceptionally modest and saintly. But nobody’s perfect. Either way, an inherited trait is not Dinah’s fault.
Secondly, Dinah and Yosef Hatzaddik switched souls, which is why he possessed certain feminine attributes and Dinah possessed certain masculine attributes.
(Initially, Leah Imeinu was going to birth Yosef Hatzaddik, but in her great compassion and righteousness, she prayed for a girl so that her sister Rachel Imeinu would be equal to Zilpah & Bilha in the number of Tribes produced.)
So the fact that Dinah possessed certain masculine tendencies that led her to take this risk is definitely not Dinah’s fault.
So this is the first lesson: Ladies, you need to protect yourselves.
This is the opposite of feminist ideology, which insists that you have the right NOT to protect yourself.
But here’s your real right: You have the RIGHT to protect yourself.
In fact, it’s even an obligation to protect yourself.
That’s from the Torah, not from me.
Yet as we all know, protective measures like modest behavior and modest dress are not full-proof.
Nothing is fool-proof.
Bomb shelters can be bombed. Locks can be picked.
But we enter bomb shelters anyway. We lock our doors anyway.
Why? Because it’s good hishtadlut.
And because Judaism loves women, it encourages women to at least make efforts toward self-protection.
Because of feminist propaganda, women and girls in America are discouraged from taking proper measures to protect themselves. This dumbing-down of the American female has reaped terrible consequences for girls and women.
In response to the growing number of assaults and harassment against young women, some caring tough guys formed a website (No-Nonsense Self-Defense) to give females—particularly college-aged women—sensible advice for self-protection.
They discovered that despite feminist blather about female “rights!” to behave however and go wherever they want, such conduct usually ignited or escalated a threatening encounter, resulting in a full assault against the woman.
While feminist snarkiness and “grrrrl” characters in books and movies display female feistiness as the desirable and victorious trait, studies reveal that this same feistiness often precedes a violent encounter.
Meaning, 80% of violent encounters were preceded by the young woman using INEFFECTIVE violence when striking out against her potential assailant.
In other words, despite media brainwashing, real-life feisty girls are more likely to lose when faced with a predatory male.
From Myrtle Rising, here.
Rabbi Pinchas Winston eBook on the Downfall of American Society
Check out Rabbi Pinchas Winston‘s ebook here:
See Ya: Regarding the Downfall of American Society
Length: 136 pages
It is a common assumption that Mankind has advanced over the millennia in every way, scientifically, technologically, philosophically. It is also commonly assumed that religion was only necessary until man became sophisticated enough to reject it. But this may be the basis of modern man’s downfall. It always has been.
You can read the first few chapters for free on the site.
הזמנה ליום העיון – תורה ולשון בצהרי יום
הזמנה ליום העיון “תורה ולשון בצהרי יום” בזאת חנוכה תשפ”ג
יום חמישי, 1 בדצמבר 2022
לאחר שימי העיון בשנים תשפ”א-תשפ”ב התקיימו במתכונת זום בלבד, אנו מודים לה’ כי לעולם חסדו, שהחיינו וקיימנו לזמן הזה, ובעזרתו יתברך אנו שמחים להזמין את הציבור לשוב להתכנס במצפה יריחו ולהיפגש פנים אל פנים ביום העיון “תורה ולשון בצהרי יום” זאת חנוכה, יום שני, ב’ בטבת תשפ”ג, בבית הכנסת “יגל יעקב” ובית המדרש “נר יצחק”, מצפה יריחו, החל מהשעה 14:00.
Hyehudi Responds (Regarding Rabbi Dovid Cohen)…
For those who don’t read every word ever posted here, and do thorough, regular chazarah (gasp!), here is the chronology of events:
First, there was this, posted approx. weeks back (sending readers to an article by Yechezkel Hirshman against Rabbi Dovid Cohen’s remarks): The Torah Doesn’t Exactly Belong to Rabbi Dovid Cohen…
Then, noticing I posted one too many articles that day, I reposted it again a few days ago. A Hyehudi reader helped me see the original article had since been hidden, which I subsequently noted to all readers. Mr. Hirshman wrote us a letter I made public yesterday.
Following are some excerpts and my response:
… I have really only seen two posts referenced and the substance of these two posts in particular give me a bit of insight. (Oddly enough, they both mention Rav Dovid Cohen.)
Actually, we referenced this gem, as well.
… I think you likewise have an obligation to notify me if you reference my posts.
My own policy is to approach the mentioned writer if their email address is public (including those using pseudonyms) only in case of both lengthy, and personal, or especially biting criticism, such as I did with this and this (which I was planning to do with Mr. Hirshman as well). In all other cases, I rely on the writers’ own writing mediums to inform them (I believe “backlinks” are enabled by default on Blogger, as well). Even if doing more wasn’t near-impossible to Hyehudi.org, as a curated aggregation site, this would still be unnecessary.
Back to the deleted post, all I will say on why I deleted it is that Rav Dovid Cohen is still a distinguished person and represents the Torah world, so to denigrate him any more than is absolutely necessary would be לא תלין נבלתו because, when any distinguished Torah personality is disgraced, it is קללת אלוקים תלוי and I do my utmost to be sensitive to Kavod shamayim.
I cannot concur.
I have written more about my views on these questions here, here, and here (start at “By the way”).
Rabbi Cohen does not represent the Torah itself, since, as Rabbi Yitzchak Brand says, Torah observance is parceled out among various groups, so who cares what community he represents?
Rabbi Cohen hasn’t retracted his ignorant, one-sided nonsense or personal smears and incitement to abandon the Temple Mount [All in one! Here is the original quote] (or anything he and his ilk blindly and uncaringly caused with Coronavirus craziness, as noted by Mr. Hirshman himself!), so why should his voiceless, forcibly anonymous critics fall silent? Mr. Hirshman says Rabbi Cohen is being “disgraced”, but that is by his own hand (or honest disagreement, not disgrace).
See especially this: Repeating a Rabbi’s Own Words Is Not Lashon Hara!
To the contrary! The “קללת אלוקים תלוי” is that people like him don’t fear saying things like that. And the masses or non-Jews assume all observant Jews are like that (which is the Gemara’s reasoning behind “מפרסמין את החנפים מפני חלול השם” in cases of physically committed sins), or “מדשתקי רבנן ש”מ ניחא להו”, Heaven forfend.
And the so-called “Torah world” has looong been the “אין לי אלא תורה” world!