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| Photo by David Watts Creative Commons License http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2879166584 |
As I write this, I am thinking about taking my
sons out for a swim on a very hot Sydney day. More on that later.
I received a message on Facebook:
I really enjoyed reading your blog.
I have a question that you might be able to answer.
Where was Dina when the blessings were given by Jacob? He loved her, she was his daughter… so why is there no mention of her receiving a blessing from Jacob?
I have a question that you might be able to answer.
Where was Dina when the blessings were given by Jacob? He loved her, she was his daughter… so why is there no mention of her receiving a blessing from Jacob?
The simplest explanation would be that the man, Jacob, lived in a
male dominated world, in which excluding his daughter from an important family
moment was considered normal. Perhaps, this is true, although the first parental
blessing to a child mentioned in the Torah was given to a daughter, Rebecca, by
her mother and brother[i],
rather than from a father to a son.
Looking at the blessings in context it seems plausible to me that
for Jacob this blessing was not personal and his parental love for his children
as much as it is about Jacob in his role as a public figure, as the patriarch
of the people of Israel.
The blessings are introduced with “Jacob called for his sons and
said, "Gather and I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of
days[ii]”.
Some of the content is clearly as one commentator explains it about ‘their
might that would be shown in war and their portions of Canaan that they would
settle[iii]’.
The conclusion of the blessings refers to the recipients of the blessings not
as Jacob’s children but as the “tribes of Israel[iv]”
who their father blessed according to their (otherwise determined) blessings.
Some of the blessings are clearly about events centuries later that
relate to the tribes descended from Jabob’s twelve sons rather than the men
themselves. Judah is told that his brothers will bow to him[v]
which is clearly a reference to the reign of King David some six hundred years
later. The blessing continues to talk about enduring rulership by “Judah” in
the centuries following David. “Zebulun will dwell on the coast of the seas;
and he will be at the harbor of the ships[vi]”,
a reference to the portion in the land of Israel that the tribe, not the man,
will inhabit.
The word length of the blessings to Judah is 55 words reflecting
the role of his tribe in the future of the Jewish people. Tribes with much
smaller roles in the future of the Jewish people are given much shorter
blessings the shortest is the blessing to Gad which is only 6 words.
Jacob’s intention to do his duty for the future of his people is
thwarted, by some personal matters that need to bubble to the surface. His
disappointment with Reuben, Simon and Levi are at least as much about his personal
past, as it might be about their public future. His longest blessing clocks in
at 61 words to Joseph in which Jacobs love for his favourite son and his
feelings about his terrible treatment by his brothers’ bubbles out.
“A charming son is Joseph, a son charming to the eye; the daughters
(of Egypt) strode along to see him… They
heaped bitterness upon him and fought; archers hated him…[vii]”
If Jacob lived today, he might have been better at juggling his
public and private roles, and would have blessed Dina and her brothers as a
loving father, then would go ahead and separately attend to carrying out his
public duties. Personally, I am still challenged as a father with public
obligations to get the balance right. Perhaps Jacob shows us that our task is
not to get it right, but to do our best as the imperfect beings we are, and
that is good enough. Ok, better get the
boys to the pool.
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