She is SUCH a Dena

Have you heard the latest? 

"She is SUCH a Dena."

Truth--- it's actually another popular Jewish name (hint; begins with a K) that has taken center stage in 2020, but I am proposing a new one. 

Dena Dina Deena Dinah is featured in this week's Parsha. 

We are taught that she is the first model of Jewish female leadership.

Her name is the first clue--- 

Dena means judgment. 

Leah, her mother, "passed judgment by herself." She prayed for a daughter instead of a son, and God answered her prayers.

Leah trusted her own judgment and named her daughter Dena to honor that.

Trust yourself.

When Dena's father Jacob meets his brother Eisav he introduces all of his wives and children to his brother. 

Dena is missing from the narrative.

Rashi asks, "why?"

She is missing from the narrative because she was hidden from plain sight. 

Her father locked her inside of a box. 

He was rightfully worried for his daughter. 

Afraid that Eisav would lay his eyes on her and want her. 

Jacob was wrong. 

You need to be seen.

Dena had a sparkle.

She had an appeal. 

She was an influencer.

She had a way with people.

And Rashi says she should have been able to use her gifts to influence Eisav back to the proper path. 

God punishes Jacob for hiding her.

Your gifts are vital. 

Dena is later raped. 

It is her father's self-fulfilling prophecy, his punishment. Not hers. 

It is not Dena's fault. 

It's never the victim's fault. 

Blaming the victim is a trap, and if you read the verses at face value, you fall into that trap as well. 

The Torah is very specific in what it shares with us. 

Right before it tells us of her rape, It tells us, "Dena was outgoing, like her mother Leah."

Ooph

Victim blaming?

Just the opposite.

The Torah is floodlighting the visceral reaction to abuse--- what did they do to deserve it? 

 "Like mother, Like daughter"---- Mother was virtuous, daughter too.

Both virtuous in their outgoing natures. In fact, both are highly praised for their way of being. 

Who she was, how she acted had nothing to do with it. 

Trust yourself, step into your power, show up, be seen, you're not a victim, discard the traps that are embedded in society and pulling you down. 

You are Such a Dena!

 Pictured, me, Dena, my mother, Leah, my daughter, Rachel. (Not pictured my grandmother Sara—- all four mothers)

(If my message here also resonates visa vi the Orthodox movement to erase women’s faces from print, that is not by accident.) 

(Lessons about Dena are based on the Rebbe’s teachings)