By any standards, it was a shocking episode. Jacob had settled on the outskirts of the town of Shechem ruled by Chhamur.

Dina, Jacob's daughter, goes out to see the town. Shechem, Chachem, Chahm,'s son sees her, abducts and rapes her,

and then falls in love with her and wants to marry her. He begs his father,

get me this girl as my wife. Jacob hears about this and keeps quiet, but his sons are furious.

She must be rescued and the people punished. Hamer and his son come to visit the family and ask them

to give their consent to the marriage. Jacob's sons pretend to take the offer seriously.

We'll settle among you, they say, on one condition that all your males are circumcised.

Chahmour and Shechem bring back the proposal to the people of the town, and they agree.

On the third day after the circumcision, when the pain was at its height, and the men incapacitated,

Shimon and Levy, Dina's brothers, enter the town and kill all the males.

It was a terrible retribution.

Jacob rebukes his sons.

You have brought trouble on me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Peresites, the people living in this land.

We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.

But Chimmon and Levy reply, should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?

There is a real and substantive difference of opinion between Jacob and his sons.

They believe that Dina had to be rescued, whatever the cost in human life.

Jacob believed that the cost was just too high.

There's a hint in the text that Chimmon and Levy were right in what they did,

were justified. Unusually, the Torah adds, three times, a kind of commentary on the moral

gravity of the situation. Here it is, listen carefully, and the sons of Jacob came in from the

field when they heard it and the men were

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