The Jewish world has two camps – those who regularly learn Torah and those who do not. That is a fundamental choice we make that, more than anything else, determines our spiritual destiny. It is the responsibility of every Jew to choose wisely.
Blaming the Victim
“And Dina daughter of Leah, born to Yaakov, went out to look at the daughters of the land” (34:1).
Rashi notes that Dina was referred to here as the “daughter of Leah,” not as daughter of Yaakov, because she was a gadabout like her mother and got herself into trouble. Dina wandered out from Yaakov’s house, too curious for her own good, and met with a terrible, brutal fate – kidnap and rape. Rashi’s innocent observation is jarring from a modern perspective, in which it is considered mean-spirited and repugnant to blame the victim at all, even slightly, and even when the victim has somehow contributed to his/her own victimization.
What changed? Certainly, sympathy for any victim is natural, especially for a crime victim. No one has the right to assault, assail, molest, or harass another person; there is no such concept as the “victim had it coming.” Yet something else has changed as well. Rashi’s old-fashioned principles recall a time when personal responsibility was the norm and not the exception. And even an innocent victim has to ponder what he/she could have done differently to avoid his/her particular fate. That such an approach still does not resonate with the modern reader is an indication of how much the Torah ethic of personal responsibility has evaded us, or has been eradicated from public discourse.
Since the Torah promotes the ethic of personal responsibility, our sages never shied away from “blaming the victim,” even for slight missteps that barely contributed to the victim’s fate. They fervently advocated introspection when anyone encountered any personal difficulty. Thus, “if a person is beset by troubles, he should examine his deeds; if he finds nothing unbecoming in his conduct, he should attribute his suffering to his lack of Torah study” (Masechet Berachot 5a).
The Rambam takes this concept to a higher level, positing that of the three types of evil that can befall a human being, the most prevalent are those we bring on ourselves (Moreh Nevuchim 3:12). We victimize ourselves through the vices we indulge, by the foods we eat, the alcohol, tobacco or drugs we ingest, and the reckless conduct (known as “thrill-seeking”) in which many people engage. In effect, we are victimized mainly by the poor choices we make in life.
Too often in the modern world, people make knowing, conscious decisions, destroy their lives and then expect society (or the government) to pick up the pieces and the expense of rebuilding their shattered lives. Society seeks to avoid “blaming the victim” not because it necessarily loves or sympathizes with the victim but because it abhors individual responsibility and accountability. We are quick to deny the consequences of moral lapses, even as many also deny any notion of absolute morality. That is a deadly combination.
While nothing justifies the dastardly assault on Dina, period, our sages perceived it as morally convenient but hypocritical to absolve the victim who contributes to his own misfortune. They fought the philosophy of the “cult of the victim” with all the intellectual strength they could muster – and found slivers of guilt in the most unlikely places.
For example, not only is Dina criticized for “going out,” but Yaakov is also criticized. The Torah says that when Yaakov prepared to meet Eisav, “he arose that night and took his two wives, two maidservants, and eleven children, and crossed the ford of Yabok ” (32:23). But of course Yaakov then had twelve children, eleven sons (Binyamin was yet to be born) and one daughter, Dina. Rashi asks: “And where was Dina? [Yaakov] placed her in a box and locked her in it, so that Eisav should not set his eyes on her. For that Yaakov was punished (perhaps Dina could have inspired Eisav’s repentance) and [Dina] fell into the clutches of Shechem.”
