“And Dinah, the daughter of Leah, went out to see the daughters of the land” (Genesis 34:1) to show the gentiles her beauty, so they would see that there was none like her among them (Sechel Tov, Bereishit 34:1). Dinah conceived and bore Asenath. The sons of Israel wished to kill the child. Instead the angel Michael brought her down to the house of Potiphera in Egypt. Potiphera’s wife raised her like a daughter, and later she married Joseph (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer 38).

Job lived during the days of Jacob and married his daughter, Dinah (Bava Batra 15b).

When Dinah, the daughter of Leah, goes out of her family’s tent to view the “daughters of the land,” she is violated by one of the princes of the region, Shechem the Hivite. It is a distressing tale, as its resolution purports a punishment that fits the initial crime. Outwitting the ingratiating family of Shechem and his father Hamor, who want to be accepted by the Israelites, Jacob’s sons require a communal circumcision of the adult males, and then, during the time of their ritual pain, egregiously slaughter each male by the sword. It is, even at this early stage of the patriarchal period, an astonishingly vindictive reprisal. When an ired Jacob chastises his vigilante sons, they answer unflinchingly: “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?” Jacob is left speechless.

Poor Dinah, who seems victimized for mere curiosity. She is called the “daughter of Leah” because Leah is also “outgoing.” The rabbis view this disregard of modesty as improper for a patriarch’s daughter, but this is Dinah’s inheritance. Her behavior is immortalized in Ezekiel 16:44, which reads: “Like mother, like daughter.” But she is also called the “daughter of Jacob” because his distinguished reputation, in addition to her great beauty, influences Shechem to covet her.

Yet tradition rescues Dinah from her ignominy. She is perceived, in the rabbinic literature, as the suffering wife of the righteous and long suffering servant of God, Job. If this were not enough, from the cowardly act of Shechem emerges progeny - Dinah gives birth to Asenath, who is angelically transported to the Egyptian royal household and raised by Joseph’s Egyptian temptress. Asenath’s fate is a happy one: she assumes the hallowed role of Joseph’s wife and mother of Ephraim and Manasseh, who receive grandfather Jacob’s special blessing, a benediction which is pronounced over every generation of Jewish children each Sabbath evening. From dishonor to honor. From humiliation to nobility. Dinah - through her life and through her offspring - experiences it all.