Upholding Torah values is far more complex than one might think.
Values are articulated in the Torah in two forms. There are commandments and prohibitions, including clean and clear halachic instructions and value statements. Upholding these values may be hard at times, but it is a straightforward task.
The Torah also includes significant narrative portions that demonstrate how we are to live and employ our values. Our sages (Bereishit Rabba 60:8) suggest that these implementation lessons may be even more essential to our lives as demonstrated by the Torah’s fulsome storytelling, which contrasts with its relatively terse articulation of commandments, yafeh sichatan shel avdei Avot m’Toratan shel banim. Yet these principles are far more subjective, requiring wisdom and nuance in their application.
Valuable insight can be derived from a careful reading of the complex biblical story of Shechem and Dina (Bereishit 34). Shechem was a powerful man who violated Yaakov’s daughter. He subsequently sought to continue his relationship with Dina by marrying her and by proposing further intermarriage and integration of Jacob’s family within his community. Shechem’s community seemed to consider his behavior acceptable, as they neither objected nor reacted to his crime. Dina’s brothers, Shimon and Levi, were deeply upset by the offense committed against their sister and the lack of communal reaction and proceeded to massacre the residents of the city. According to Rambam (Hilchot Melachim 9:14), the community was indeed legally culpable for their failure to uphold the universal moral code known as the Noahide laws.
Yaakov, however, repudiated his sons for their violent behavior and continued to do so even on his deathbed. He was demonstrating an important Biblical value. He (no less than his sons) objected to the immoral actions of Shechem. He (no less than his sons) was disturbed by the acceptability of such immoral behavior by the surrounding society. But he understood (far better than his sons) how to act upon his values within an environment that did not live by them.
Yaakov understood that whatever his principles and level of righteous indignation, no real purpose would be served by forcefully imposing his value system on a host society that did not embrace it. He would make the case for his values, but if that failed, he would seek to find a way for his family to live those values undisturbed, to coexist in that society, neither imposing his values on them nor having their values imposed upon him. But that was not to be. Shechem sought to impose on Yaakov’s family by soliciting their embrace of his violation. Rather than moving on and allowing Yaakov to do the same, he sought to marry Dina and thereby perpetuate his offense to Yaakov and his family’s sensibilities. This was untenable. Even as Yaakov roundly rejected the violent response of his sons, he could not have his family become part of a culture that sought to impose its way of life on them.
The Biblical value taught by Yaakov guide us to live with a pragmatic pluralism. We will never change our halachic values, but we recognize that others will not always be immediately influenced by us to change their values or behaviors, and we must therefore have an approach to navigate how we will live with them.
We of the traditional faith community must, however, demand the same from those who advance values opposed by the Torah. We cannot function in an environment where our commitment to coexistence goes unreciprocated and where we are not free to live our religious values without the shadow of aggressive imposition, lawsuit, or cancellation. It is incumbent upon all of us to realize the Biblical vision (Melachim I 5:5) we can all embrace, sitting “under our own vine and fig tree where no one shall make us afraid.”
Rabbi Moshe Hauer is executive vice president of the Orthodox Union (OU), the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization.
