• This Week's Torah Portion

“During wartimes, poetry has frequently served as a beacon of light in the darkness, offering comfort, inspiration, and reflecting the resilience of the human spirit.” So writes Ophir Levios, the IDF’s chief of education in the preface to “Hineini” (Here I Am) Vol. 1, the first of a series of nine poetry booklets that have come out under the auspices of the IDF and the literary journal Mashiv Haruaḥ since October 7^th. In the wake of the brutal Hamas attack against the villages and kibbutzim along the southern border of Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza and Lebanon, there has been a flood of new Hebrew poetry published on various platforms. These poems offer comfort and inspiration, but also mine the Bible and the Hebrew literary past to encapsulate the shock, speechlessness, outrage, and deep searing pain occasioned by the attacks. One such poem is “Dinah” by poet and literature professor Smadar Falk Peretz, which was published in the online journal Gluyah in early 2024. It responds to the horrors of October 7^th using Dinah’s story from Parashah Vayishlach, and from an unabashedly female point of view:  

Dinah Over there-the open field Where you were exposed to every wind When you went out to frolic with flowers in your hair, That place where your judgment was sealed. With merciful hands To gather your desecrated body That became a battlefield To give it voice In the wide open space – The world’s pain is sealed Over and over again with blood And brokenness- In those places where we do not speak.

דינה לְשָׁם – לַשָּׂדֶה הַפָּתוּחַ, בּוֹ הָיִית חֲשׂוּפָה לְכָל רוּחַ, עֵת יָצָאתְ לְחוֹלֵל וּפְרָחִים בִּשְׂעָרֵךְ לַמָּקוֹם בּוֹ נֶחְתַּם דִּינֵךְ. בְּיָדַיִם חוֹמְלוֹת לֶאֱסֹף אֶת גּוּפֵךְ הַמְּחֻלָּל שֶׁהָיָה לִשְׂדֵה קְרָב לָתֵת לוֹ קוֹל בְּמֶרְחָב – צַעֲרוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם נֶחְתַּם שׁוּב וָשׁוּב בְּדָם וּשְׁבָרִים – בִּמְקוֹמוֹת בָּהֶם אֲנַחְנוּ לֹא מְדַבְּרִים.

Genesis 34:1 states that Dinah, “the daughter whom Leah bore to Jacob went out to visit the daughters of the land.” According to a famous commentary authored by Naphtali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (1816-1893), the phrase “went out” suggests that Dinah ventured beyond “the guidelines of proper behavior by going to watch the locals dance and make merry” (“Ha’amek Davar” on Genesis 34:1). Falk Peretz’s poem, written weeks after October 7^th, brings this quest for merriment to the present moment. Falk Peretz likens Dinah’s going out to the experiences of those free-spirited youth who attended the Supernova music festival only to be massacred or captured by Hamas militants. At that Sukkot / Sh’mini Atzeret music festival, one free-spirited, Dinah-like woman went out to dance and frolic with flowers in her hair. The phrase “yatzat leḥolel” (you went out to dance) brings to mind the description of women of Jerusalem “yots’ot veḥolot” – going out to dance in the vineyards on Tu B’Av in Mishnah Taanit 4:8. But rather than being chosen as a bride, as in the Tu B’Av rite, this woman was cruelly raped and killed. The biblical story speaks of Dinah in the third person, but Falk Peretz’s poem addresses the festival goer in the second person. In contrast to the criticism leveled against the biblical Dinah by rabbinic sources for roaming (Genesis Rabbah 18:2, 45:5), Falk Peretz projects connection and empathy with this modern festivalgoer. Quickly, the mood moves from revelry to foreboding, with the reveler “exposed to every wind,” and the field as the site where “your judgement was sealed.” This reference to the sealing of judgement recalls the literal meaning of Dinah’s name: “her judgment.” It also references the tradition that the season of repentance ends on Hoshanah Rabbah, the last day of Sukkot, which fell right before the October 7^th attacks occurred. After Schechem rapes the biblical Dinah, her brothers trick the Shechemites into believing that Jacob’s clan has agreed to Shechem and Dinah’s marriage and an alliance between their clans. The Shechemites assent to being circumcised, but just as they are recovering, Shimon and Levi lead their bothers in killing them and laying waste to the city. There is good reason to question the morality of this attack; Jacob himself excoriates his sons, charging them with making him “odious among the inhabitants of the land” (Genesis 34:30), a sentiment he echoes in his deathbed message to / about them: “Simeon and Levi are a pair; Their weapons are tools of violence” (Genesis 49:5). Yet, Shimon and Levi succeed in liberating their sister from her assumed captivity in Shechem’s house. All this stands in marked contrast to the events of October 7^th, where soldiers did not arrive to save the brutalized victims. Whereas “the sons of Jacob came upon the slain [haḥalalim] and plundered the town, because their sister had been defiled” (Genesis 34:27), the speaker of this poem seeks to gather her Dinah’s “desecrated/slain [mehullal, same root] body.” – this same Dinah who wanted nothing more than lehollel (to dance or frolic) – and give voice to her abject suffering. In my correspondence with Smadar Falk Peretz, she emphasized that the Hebrew verb root ח.ל.ל. is central to the poem. This root has many meanings, including to dance, to create, and to violate. The noun “ḥalal” connotes a slain victim, as well an empty space or vacuum. This root, Falk Peretz shared, serves “to unite opposites: the holy vs. the profane (ḥol), dance and vitality vs. death, health vs. annihilation, and suggests a longing for healing.” The poem registers the challenge of speaking on behalf of victims, given the pervasive refusal of many to admit that Hamas militants utilized sexual violence as part of their murderous attack. Because of this denial, attaining the hoped-for healing has been even more difficult. The regular couplet rhymes at the end of the first and last four lines of the poem suggest a desire to impose some order on violent chaos. The rhyme scheme breaks down, however, in lines 5-9. The only rhymes at the end of these mid-poem lines are “merhav” and “qerav” (battlefield), pointing to a widening of the battlefield and carnage. The poem ends with a statement about the ways pain and suffering have repeatedly been stamped and sealed in human history through bloodshed and brokenness [shevarim].This links suffering to the broken, three-fold, shevarimblast of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, which is often compared to the sound of weeping. All this, the poet says, occurs in those places where people don’t talk. I think of the biblical Dinah who never gets the opportunity to speak for herself and her own needs. I’m reminded of moments of silence observed in memory of the slain and the unwillingness of so many on both sides to give voice to the suffering of others. The one source of hope amidst this portrait of devastation is the poet’s commitment to elevate the story in such poignant words and, by extension, our willingness to listen. To learn more about the sexual violence that was committed on October 7^th, watch the documentary Screams Before Silence; take a look at the URJ’s Screams Before Silence Action Guide to find ways to continue bearing witness, demanding justice and raising your voice; and watch this discussion between URJ leaders and Screams Before Silence interviewer Sheryl Sandberg.