Musar su Genesi 34:63

A pious man is so called because he has a sense of shame, for the word 'hassid' or 'pious' means 'white', for the translation of 'stork' (Hassidah) in Aramaic is "hawaeita" meaning "the white one", as you note in Leviticus 11:19, and similarly in Isaiah 29:22: "Neither shall his face now become white" (with shame), and the Aramaic translation of "herpah" (shame) is hisda (same as Hassid), as you will note in Genesis 34:14. And all of this for what reason? That the Hassid or pious person must bear shame in order to fulfill the Torah, and he must remove shame from his face at performing any precept. Then he is called a Hassid or "pious one", and thus he attains to prophecy as it is written: "Then didst Thou speak in vision to Thy pious ones" (Ps. 89:20). And through his sense of shame he will attain to true reverence of God, as it is written: "In order that His awe be upon your faces and you do not sin" (Exod. 20:20). What kind of awe or fear of God can be seen in a person's face? You must surely say, "A sense of shame" (which causes the face to change color) (Nedarim 20a).

Since the commission of even such a "shade of an impropriety" can harm the public image of someone perceived as a צדיק, Jacob had to be punished. Dinah was raped, i.e. became someone's sex partner without benefit of the holy state of matrimony. Her brothers described such relations as only being conducted with a harlot, i.e. that only harlots were sexually violated (34, 31). The episode in which Reuben is described as having slept with Bilhah (35, 22) is also perceived as an indirect result of the flaw in Jacob's piety discovered by the guardian angel of Esau.

ותצא דינה בת לאה . The lesson we learn from this incident is how careful women have to be to conduct their affairs as far as possible within the privacy of the home. This rule does not only apply to married women but also to unmarried girls. If Dinah, a daughter of such illustrious parents as Jacob and Leah, was not safe from an attack on her virginity, daughters of less illustrious parents certainly need to be guarded carefully.

To return to our main subject, that the person presenting the offering is in fact the real sacrifice, something we derived from the wording of Leviticus 1,2: אדם כי יקריב מכם. This has an additional mystical dimension. It can happen that man is "sacrificed" even in our world [not only when the soul is sacrificed by the archangel Michael on the Celestial Altar. Ed.]. This happens as a result of the transmigration of souls as we have explained earlier (Torah Ohr on Eikev). It is the reason why we are commanded to slaughter animals even when we consume them as חולין, non-consecrated meat. Extreme care has to be taken in the performance of ritual slaughter so that we do not wind up eating נבלה. When this happens the verse from Genesis 34,7: נבלה עשה בישראל, "he committed an outrage in Israel," would apply. No one knows whose soul the animal in question harbored. By not having been slaughtered in the most meticulous way a great injustice may have been done. According to the directive ואהבת לרעך כמוך, "Love your neighbor like yourself," the obligation to kill the animal in such a way that its death elevates it spiritually is included. Should the animal die of natural causes (any cause other than approved ritual slaughter) the spirit of impurity which was contained in that animal will not have been released but will suffuse it. On the other hand, if it is healthy and contains some spark of sanctity, and is killed by means of ritual slaughter the soul will exit in purity.

ותדבק נפשו בדינה . We find a statement in Bereshit Rabbah 80,7, that three expressions are used to describe G–d's love or attachment for Israel. The expressions are: דביקה, חשיקה, and חפיצה. The first expression is used in Deut. 4,4; the second expression is used in Deut. 7,7; the last expression is used in Malachi 3,12. The Midrash continues that we learn this lesson from this wicked person Shechem, of whom all these three kinds of feelings for Dinah are reported in 34,3-19 [actually the expression ויאהב is also used for his feelings.] Shechem's attachment to Dinah was of a terrestrial nature, designed to gratify his cravings in this world, and he wanted to achieve realization by means of these three kinds of "love."

Another peculiarity is found when the angel tells Jacob that in the future (at Bet El in 35, 9) he will be known as "Israel," suggesting that at this time he was still only "Jacob" (32, 29). We find, however, that in 33, 20 and 34,7 Jacob is already described as ישראל. Rashi comments on the former, that the name ישראל did not refer to the altar he had built, but that he employed this name as being his own. He built the altar to the G–d א-ל who had named him ישראל. This is strange since the Torah did not yet report G–d as having changed Jacob's name. This commentary does not take into consideration that the Torah reports the change of Jacob's name to be effective only after chapter 35, 10. If we accept the interpretation of the Talmud in Megillah 18, that we learn from this verse that G–d i.e. אל-הי ישראל, called Jacob “א-ל,” we have no problem: Jacob had already been renamed at the time the Torah was recorded in writing. We have to solve the difficulty in Rashi's commentary by saying that when the Torah reported Jacob as arriving שגם, "whole" in body, spirit and economic strength in 33, 18, that his thigh joint had healed, that he was free from both Esau and Laban, which were the troubles that Samael had referred to when he acknowledged that Jacob had fought man and G–d and prevailed When Jacob assumed the title "Israel" for himself, this was not an act of arrogance on his part, but on the contrary, it was an acknowledgment to G–d that his achievements were not due to his righteousness and physical prowess but to the blessing he had received from the angel (who represented Samael and who at one time had been the agent of forces called קליפה). Having said all this, this still leaves us with the problem why Jacob was referred to as ישראל, in connection with the rape of Dinah in 34, 7 where the foul deed was described as something that must not be perpetrated "in Israel."

Adam and Eve, who were the cause of the drop of semen becoming smelly, were also instrumental in Adam ejaculating semen for one hundred and thirty years without that semen impregnating his wife. Instead, that semen turned into a variety of evil spirits, thus necessitating additional refinement צירוף, and תקונים. The exile in Egypt was the first step designed to remove impurity from the holy seed of the descendants of Jacob who resembled the spiritual beauty of Adam before he had sinned. Jacob's first drop of semen was intended to impregnate Rachel, whom he thought he had married under the wedding canopy. It was Joseph who kept alive the covenant with G–d, and therefore the descent to Egypt of Jacob's entire family was orchestrated through Joseph. The area in which this refinement was to take place was one called ערות הארץ, a part of the earth in which shame resides. The earth is perceived as being similar to a human being in that it has a head, eyes, arms, legs, as well as parts corresponding to the private parts of a human being, מקום ערוה. Our sages deduce this from such verses as Proverbs 8, 26: ראש עפרות תבל, "the head of the clumps of dust in the world;" earth is also described as רחבת ידים "possessed of generous hands" (Genesis 34,21). Scripture speaks of the earth's טבור, "navel." There are many similar metaphors which describe parts of the earth. This means that though earth is one continuous mass, entity, it possesses many parts just as a human being, who is a unit, has many parts. Just as various organs in the human body perform different functions and possess different degrees of importance, so earth has many parts, each of which performs a different function.

The meaning of the name "Israel" in the future envisioned would not only denote the fact that he had prevailed in a struggle between the forces of evil and of good. At that time, Israel would not compete with evil but with the most highly placed angels. The position of Israel then would be so exalted that angels would address halachic enquiries to Israel. Rashi has mentioned this in connection with Numbers 23,23: כעת יאמר ליעקב ולישראל מה פעל השם, "At such a time Jacob and Israel will be spoken to about what G–d's works are." [my translation reflects the commentary mentioned. Ed.] The name "Israel" also denotes something of eternal value. We have already explained that the first two letters 310-יש, refer to the 310 worlds that every צדיק and צדקת will inherit in the Hereafter, [based on להנחיל אוהבי יש, Proverbs 8,21 Ed.] The remaining letters רלא, are an allusion to the superiority of Israel over the angels, seeing that Israel possesses the merit of having observed the Torah which is based on 22 letters, (alphabet) These 22 letters are 231 gateways, i.e. the permutations constructed from the alphabet as explained in the Sefer Yetzirah. [The second Mishnah in the fifth chapter of the book explains how these permutations are worked; you combine the first letter א, for instance, with all the other 21 letters. The second letter ב, is combined with the remaining 20 letters. The third letter ג, is combined with the remaining 19 letters, etc. By continuing in this fashion you will arrive at a total of 231. Ed.] The name ישראל is a composite of יש+ראל. Jacob had seen an allusion to this already in his dream of the ladder, during the course of which he glimpsed the highest domain of holiness, a dimension of the World to Come. When he lay down, i.e. וישכב, the letters in that word are a composite of יש+כ"ב, the 22 letters of the Aleph Bet. We have elaborated on that theme in its place. When Samael named Jacob ישראל, however, that was not what he had in mind, and that is why Jacob had still suffered from the "touch" (ויגע) during the struggle with Samael even after he had obtained his blessing. This effect also expressed itself in the word וישכב, with which Shechem's rape of Dinah is introduced in 34,2 [It would have been sufficient to merely mention ויענה, "he violated her against her will," the word following וישכב. Ed.]. The same word וישכב is repeated in the Torah's description of Reuben's relations with Bilhah, his father's concubine, in 35,22. Subsequently, however, there was no longer any Nachash (in the sense of serpent) attached to Jacob [play on words of Numbers 23,23 כי לא נחש ביעקב where Bileam describes the virtues of the Jewish people], seeing the name Jacob referred to the World to Come ever since Jacob's spirit was resurrected. This in turn represented an additional spiritual level over and above the one where G–d called Jacob "El," in 33,20. When G–d called Jacob "Isra-el," we must view the "Isra" as an additional dimension to the title "El" that He had already bestowed on him. The numerical value of the word א-ל, is 10% (מעשר) of the numerical value of the word 310) יש).