In response to the rape of Dinah, Shimon and Levi famously deceived the people of Shechem, wiping out all of the inhabitants.
Jacob condemns them for this action – both immediately afterward, as well as in the blessings near the end of his life.
And we, even today, are shocked by it. Certainly murdering an entire town for the sins of one person would seem to be disproportionate?
But what if this was actually a good action? After all, Sarah had been taken by powerful men – and Avraham had stood aside. Rivkah had also been taken, with no objection from Isaac. But those were not good events, right? We don’t accept “Might Makes Right,” and the sanctity of a marriage must not be violated.
Consider that after Shimon and Levi act, there is not a single example in the chumash of a Jewish woman taken against her will. Shimon and Levi seemingly put an end to it, and with such dramatic punctuation that they made history: no longer would Jewish men accept that Jewish women could be taken in this way.
Is it possible that this very masculine act (physical violence) actually directly led to the empowerment of women?
The question might also be considered for behavior in war in general – which is highly apropos right now in Israel (and Syria and Gaza, etc.): can a massively disproportionate response be justified, just as murdering an entire town might have been justified for Shimon and Levi, because it leads to a much better situation over the long term? After all, the enemy who accepts they are defeated is the enemy that stops fighting. War is over not when one side has “won,” but when the other side has internalized that they have lost, and that any further violence would be a lost cause. Shechem lost. Jewish women were not violated again.
Can we and should we apply the lessons of Shimon and Levi to Israel’s wars today?