The Law on women in public life: from skillful spinners to social activists

When women are specifically mentioned in the Law, it is often in reference to their status as wives or mothers. Even now this family role is a crucial and often defining feature of women's lives, and it would have been even more so in ancient times. But there are a few places in the Torah where women are mentioned apart from their family lives and in a larger community context. In this post we will look at those passages. They deal with things like skilled work, economic provision for widows, inheritance and legal action, and the effects of the patriarchal structure on obligations for vows women made.

What we learn about women:

• One part of the "women's work" in ancient Israel was spinning thread, which they were called on to do for the construction of the tabernacle.
• Widows are provided for under gleaning laws, and protected from exploitation in some sense as their cloaks may not be taken for a pledge.
• Zelophehad's daughters changed legal precedent that discriminated against women even within a patriarchal society when they brought their case before the assembly.
• Israel's patriarchal structure had implications for whether women would be held accountable for vows they made to the Lord. If husbands or fathers objected to these, women were not required to fulfill them.

What I'm wondering:

• There are a few mentions of widows being under separate laws than other women. What was a widow's life like? Maybe Ruth will provide that insight later on.
• Given the story of Zelophehad's daughters, was it uncommon for women in Israel to act in the legal sphere? 
• What is the deal with Asher's daughter Serah??
• How large a part of women's lives and family lives were vows to the Lord? There is a whole chapter devoted to this. 

Threads in the Tapestry

The first place in the Torah where women are mentioned in community roles is Exodus 35 where women who are skilled spinners spun the thread necessary to build the tabernacle. This is one neat peak into the specific work women must have done in Israelite society. In the passage all people, "men and women" mentioned explicitly, are invited to bring jewelry and other fine materials for the construction of the tabernacle. But then "skilled women" are particularly noted as the ones who will spin, and then "bring what she had spun--blue, purple or scarlet yarn or fine linen. And all the women who were willing and had the skill spun goat hair." Later on master craftsmen are appointed to lead all those who are skilled and can make things for the temple in metalworking, weaving and embroidering, and construction. The only craft women are specifically mentioned as performing is spinning. It makes me think of the line from Cinderella where the female mice sing to the male ones, "Leave the sewing to the women! Now you go get some trimmin'!" Women nowadays are more likely to be the stereotypically crafty ones. It was different in ancient Israel, but they still had their gender-conscripted skills. 

Taking this to a more poetic level, isn't it lovely that the first level of construction of all of the fabric for the tent of the Tabernacle was formed by the hands of women? It's parallel to the way the outer world of human civilization is built upon the first level work of women to bring human beings into the world. This fundamental work is the basis for civilization, which could not exist without it. It brings to the mind the image that each of us are "just threads in the tapestry."

In a separate but also fabric-related topic, a quick note that in a few words the law forbids men from dressing like women or women from dressing like men in Deuteronomy chapter 22:5. What a long discussion we could get into over that topic. But I think I will leave it there for now--the law is concise, let me be as well. 

We can also relate a third sub-topic to fabric! In chapter 24 of Deuteronomy in the midst of many rules about being sure to show mercy to vulnerable people in various situations, instructions are given that a widow's cloak must not be taken as a pledge. 

In the section immediately following that (alas no common thread here), we read about about gleaning, which is another provision for widows that will become an important topic in the life of a really well-documented biblical woman who's story is coming up: Ruth. Gleaning is a harvesting practice. When Israelites harvested their crops, they were not to go back and pick up what had been left behind after the first pass through. That portion was to remain free for the widow, the fatherless and the alien to come and take. Though hopefully these people could have been incorporated into families in Israel, they were provided for just in case. 

After both the gleaning verses and the previous section about widows' cloaks, it is repeated, "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this." How fascinating and illuminating: our not taking advantage of the vulnerable should flow from our remembrance that we who are more secure are not as self-sufficient as we pretend. We all care for the vulnerable, because we are all inherently vulnerable. Our power and our wealth are circumstantial. The Lord is the one who provides them.

Zelophehad's daughters

To introduce what I find to be the most interesting part of this post for our modern ways of thinking, we need to talk a bit about inheritance. I admit I have not studied this deeply, but I think my basic understanding is correct, that Israelite fathers passed property down to their sons. Daughters would bring dowries but not land to their marriages and they nearly became a part of their husband's possessions. This is not an uncommon set up in world history. If you read old testament genealogies you will notice that they almost exclusively feature males, following the patriarchal system--but only almost completely, which is a little odd. If they are only featuring males because that is how inheritance and tribal lines are traced why are there any daughters mentioned? In some, the women featured had important historical roles (like Ruth and Rahab who are mentioned in the one in Matthew), but it's not always the case. 

In Numbers there is a lot of talk about land, tribes, and inheritance, and there are two censuses taken. At the end of the book, in the second census, all the people listed are males with three exceptions. The first exception is the most strange to me and I have no explanation for it: Numbers 26:24 remarks, "Asher had a daughter named Serah." It clearly couldn't be true that that no other daughters were had in the other any of the other tribes descendants recorded. Scratching my head. Second, in the record of the Levite clan, we learn the name of Amram's wife, Jochebed, and their daughter . . . because she was Miriam!--sister to Moses. That one makes sense. But the most interesting exception is in 26:33. "Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons; he had only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah." These ladies have a very cool story that obviously merits their entry into a genealogy that is based on male inheritence.

In Numbers 27, Zelophehad's daughters come to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present an issue to the leaders of Israel. Their father had no sons and so there will be no one to inherit the land he would have received. They ask, "Why should our father's name disappear from his clan because he had no son?" 

There are a couple of places I could quickly find in Numbers where people come to the entrance to the tent of meeting as a court, or government center. The daughters of Zelophehad are making an official petition here, to change a rule that is affecting their family in an unfair way. Given our current climate of righteous indignation over injustice from the privileged to the less so, I am tempted to see this as an episode of activism where these women are advocating for fairer circumstances in a system that has not considered their needs. But if we believe that "the Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul" as in Psalm 19, what is going on here? Was there room for improvement in God's law? 

The way Moses responds to their request is so heartening. He brings their case before the Lord. And God responds, "What Zelophehad's daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father's relatives, and turn their father's property over to them." This is cool. At the instigation of vulnerable petitioners, the Lord reveals more of his will about how to govern to the leaders he has chosen. God then reveals explicitly how property can be passed through families, including daughters. 

Now, to some this may seem like a pretty paltry step, not exactly full gender equality. But we've got to remember that society here was set up for women to be supported in families, in subordinate positions with regard to authority, but exalted with regard to purpose for their contribution to the project of human life on earth. But Zelophehad's daughters situation shows that even though these family and society structures were in place, it didn't mean that women, particularly daughters, were just disregarded. They were able to help carry on the family line, and preserve the family wealth, which seems to have been quite an important task in their world. In a way, when they brought their issue to Moses they even helped receive the Law--quite an honor. 

To me the story gives great encouragement for women to talk about injustice we face when trying our best to navigate life and help our families and communities prosper. This was not women demanding that they be recognized as tribal leaders, they wanted to continue their father's line. But when hitting roadblocks on this goal, they didn't just throw up their hands as victims. They went to court. And the male leaders in this instance did what those in authority should always do. Moses brought their case before the Lord and listened to his instructions. When he listened to the women and to the Lord, he learned much more about how to govern effectively and what God's will was. 

This fine line between justice and equality is where both feminism and sexism often lose their footings. Feminism is wrong to seek perfect uniform equality between men and women. We are different in bodies and in life's work--it's actually unjust to suggest otherwise. Sexism is of course wrong to say that women's concerns, being often removed from the male sphere of military and economic power, have no validity. Inequality and difference are concrete and cannot be wished away, but they are no excuse for injustice. 

Where would we find Zelophehad's daughters in our modern world? Probably not running for president. Nor languishing in despair over the fact that they will never be able to succeed in the NFL. More likely they might be advocating for tax breaks for mothers who are taking time out of professional careers to nurture small children, or for medical research into women's health issues? I'm not sure here, but it's always fascinating to think how these ancient issues touch our modern ones. 

It seems the decision over the inheritance of Zelophehad's daughters set a real legal precedent, because it is returned to in the last chapter of Numbers, in fact it closes out the book. This time, the heads of the clans related to Zelophehad come to the assembly concerned that when the women marry, their tribal land will become the property of men from other tribes. Moses also brings this case before the Lord, who answers, " What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is right." He goes on to explain that land must not pass from tribe to tribe among the Israelites, and that the women must marry within their father's tribal clan. Verse 10, "So the daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded Moses." 

Contingent vows

The whole of Numbers chapter 30 is about fulfilling vows made to the Lord, but only the first two verses deal with men making vows. The rest of the chapter is concerned with vows made by women and how they may be nullified by fathers or husbands. The first two verses say that a man is always bound by his vows and must keep them. But when a woman makes a vow, it is subject to her male authority figure giving his consent. If he doesn't allow her to fill it, she is not obligated to do so. Women who are widowed or divorced are bound by their vows in the same way men are. 

At first glance this strikes me as quite practical. The Lord ordains these authority structures. He then makes allowance for women to live within them without penalty. Could there be a situation in which a husband or father would truly be able to inhibit a woman's relationship with God? In a relationship with anyone else, this would be a fair question. But if we remember who God is, we know that he works within the circumstances which are always within his control. If a vow must be fulfilled, we could trust God to provide the way. If no way is made, the vow need not be fulfilled. Why is this so neat and explicit in this one set of circumstances where a male authority figure blocks a vow's fulfillment, versus inconvenience, natural disaster, illness or whatever other unavoidable circumstance might prevent it? That's hard to say. Maybe the issue was coming up often? 

From another angle, I think this passage is cool because it acknowledges that even "a young woman still living in her father's house" would be making vows or pledges to God. It implies that God expects to be in close relationship with women even within an authority structure where they are not in religious leadership. The patriarchy doesn't mean God thinks women unimportant, rather they are in certain roles which limit their independence, but not their spiritual life or their humanity. 

Eavesdropping

As we finish looking at what we find written about women in the Torah, particularly in these parts about women in the culture at large, to me there's a strong feeling that women are being talked about, and are not part of the discussion. This was true--women were not priests, scribes or teachers. So all these things we read are discussions between men about how to deal with women in the community. As a woman interacting with this material it can feel a bit like eavesdropping, not in the sense that we shouldn't be privy to this information, but that we are observers. This is just a mood I've noticed in the text, I haven't got a takeaway from it other than what we've already said before: that God must have been working in the lives of women offstage from what is written in the law, as we saw he was so intimately involved with Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, and Rachael and Leah. Or maybe the takeaway is that if we are unsatisfied with the content we find in the law related to women, the law is not where God is most active with women. Instead, in narrative passages of Scripture, we find him hearing women's prayers about their families and the issues in their lives. Women without literacy in a community that was quite paternal would have participated in the culture shaped by the law, but the overt politics of the society would have been happening in a different sphere than the one they dwelled in. Their sphere was not recorded, we only have their larger context. But it's been quite interesting to look at what happened when the society of men did turn it's focus to women outside their homes and families. 

Injustice for Dinah and Tamar (Gen 34, 38)

Mixed in with the stories of the patriarchs and their wives in Genesis, there are two interludes where the main characters are women with injustice done to them by men. Dinah's story involves rape, romance, and murder. Tamar's story features a series of bad marriages, prostitution, and a death sentence. They are vivid stories, and their main female characters present a contrast in ways of approaching life as a woman that is much more stark than the pretty/plain contrast we saw between Rachel and Leah. I think this contrast is an interesting way to look at their stories, so I'm going to write about them together.

So far, Genesis has featured many stories where women are fairly bold: speaking, acting, influencing their husbands and the action. They talk to God, and he often talks to them. Tamar fits this mold, except that she does not interact with God. But Dinah is different in every way. Dinah is Leah's last child, the only daughter born to Jacob. The meaning of her name is not given in the text, but it means "judged," which turns out to be a bit prophetic, as we will see.

Dinah
Dinah, being a girl, would not grow up to found one of the tribes of Israel, like her brothers. But you can imagine that as the baby sister, she might have been doted on. That her brothers love her fiercely and feel possessive of her becomes evident as the story unfolds.

Almost all we know about Dinah's life takes place in one tragic episode. In her story, Dinah takes only one mild action, visiting some young women who lived nearby. The rest of the developments happen to her. On her visit, a local prince, Shechem, sees her and "seized and raped her." This is described as a violent crime, not a romantic interlude. But in the next sentence Shechem "fell in love with her, and he tried to win her affection with tender words." He is completely serious and tells his father to get involved so that he can marry Dinah. How must Dinah have experienced this? I think it is extremely hard to read. Shechem's affection (*after the RAPE*) seems genuine and strong. Dinah must have initially been terrified and violated, but did she change in her feelings? We cannot know. Dinah does not contribute to the movement of the story here, she is just raped, and then pursued for marriage.

Shechem approaches Jacob and Dinah's brothers (Leah's other sons) to ask for her hand. But the wedding negotiations appear to be between Dinah's brothers, and Shechem's father rather than between Jacob and Shechem's father. Shechem begs to marry Dinah, offering anything they will ask of him. Jacob's brothers respond, "deceitfully, "says verse 13. They pretend they will allow Shechem to marry Dinah, if he and all of his clan will be circumcised. Shechem, the text says here, is a highly respected member of his family. He presents the proposal to the leaders at the town gate and they accept in basically good faith, though they do have a motive of completely mixing with Jacob's family so that "all their livestock and possessions will be ours." Maybe this was just a motivation for accepting the terms and joining with the wealthy Israelites. But either way they are as good as their word, and all the men are circumcised in preparation for the marriage.

At this vulnerable moment for the men of Shechem's town,  Simeon and Levi fall upon them and murder every man in the town. They take Dinah from Shechem's house, and return to their camp. Then the rest of Jacob's sons arrive and plunder the the town, taking all the riches and even "their little children and wives . . . as captives." Ugh.

Jacob is furious with Levi and Simeon when he finds out, mostly because of his fear of repercussions for himself and his family. He is worried that the other nearby people will join together to crush them after such horrendous behavior, which seems reasonable. They prepare to leave town, and God tells them to go to Bethel to meet with him. From his reaction, it looks like Jacob was not in on the planned massacre. He was part of the meeting where the terms were agreed on, though he did not set them. Was he in approval of the match?

We never hear Dinah's reaction to all of this. But however she felt about the marriage, the murders were probably devastating to her. If she really hated Shechem, she may have been glad to be free of him. But two considerations make me think she might not have been. First of all, he seems to really treasure her approaching the marriage. If it was genuine and not obsessive, a human response to that kind of love just might be forgiveness and acceptance? The second is that however she felt toward Shechem, after having been publicly acknowledged as a rape victim, any more marriage prospects for her must have been difficult to come by in that society. With no husband and no children, Dinah's ability to achieve honor and advancement would have been really limited. I'm sure she was taken care of within Jacob's wealthy household. But when his descendants are listed as they depart for Egypt at the end of Genesis, where her brothers are listed along with their wives, children, and in some cases grandchildren, Dinah is just Dinah.

Tamar
Tamar's injustice is different. It develops much more slowly, and though it does also involve headline-worthy sexual scandal in the end, she is the one who commits it, in order to take care of herself, where Dinah is on the receiving end, and suffers for what happens to her.

Tamar's story starts out with an honorable arranged marriage to Judah's son Er. This marriage must have been hard for Tamar considering that her husband was "wicked in the Lord's sight," so much so that "the Lord took his life." This direct judgment is pretty rare in the Bible, but it happens twice to Judah's sons, who are Tamar's husbands, in this story. When Er dies, Tamar has not yet accomplished the important work of bearing a child to be Er's heir. Therefore, his brother Onan has a legal duty to marry Tamar, so she can have a son for Er. Onan does marry Tamar, and even sleeps with her, but he wickedly "spills his seed on the ground" so she can't actually have a child. God "considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan's life too." Tamar has really had a poor lot of husbands to deal with at this point.

With his two sons dead, rather than take her in to provide for her as part of his family, Judah sends Tamar back to her parents house to wait until his third son Shelah is old enough to marry her. At this point, Tamar is not doing well in life. She hasn't yet been able to have a son, because two of her husbands were too wicked to live, from God's perspective. She is now back at home and her only hope of a family to be with her for the rest of her life is in Judah's last son. She must have been apprehensive after her marriages to Judah's other sons. Would Shelah be any different? But when he reaches marriageable age, nothing happens. Judah does not look like he plans to even do his legal duty to Tamar by letting her marry him. This is when Tamar springs into action.

When she understands her circumstances, that she will likely be neglected by the father-in-law who has a duty to care for her, she takes her future into her own hands. The text gives us cinematic detail of her changing out of her widow's clothes and putting on a veil to disguise herself. Then Tamar brazenly sits by the road where she knows Judah will be, to present herself to him as a prostitute. She must know Judah, and be fairly sure that this plan will work, to be bold enough to put it into action.

It goes like clockwork. Or as if it were divinely orchestrated? Judah does not recognize Tamar, but does want to have sex with her. She gets his identification markers, apparently as a deposit for the goat he promises as payment. But really of course, she wants these rather than a goat! Judah, embarrassingly, cannot find her later to get them back. She is holding onto them until the key moment when she is found to be pregnant.

At that moment, Judah's great hypocrisy, callousness, and lack of love for his daughter in law is revealed. It's interesting that before he understands what's going on, he has a clue that could have jogged his memory and made him wonder about the timing of everything. Judah was told (it doesn't say who told him), "Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute. And now, because of this, she's pregnant!" Did the message bearer know what had happened I wonder? The details in the accusation are perfectly correct, and it's hard to know how anyone else would know about this unless Tamar wanted them to.

Judah, horribly, says "Bring her out and let her be burned!" Apparently this is his public stance on prostitution. But he changes his tune when she sends a message to him  "as they were taking her out to kill her." She has tied the knot in her plan well. She shows Judah his id markers she has been holding onto, and she escapes her sentence when Judah has to acknowledge the truth of his behavior. All the talk of burning is forgotten, and Judah, convicted, now declares, "She is more righteous than I am because I did not arrange for her to marry my son Shelah." In a righteousness contest, most likely neither of these two would be near the top if their particular relationship with each other were considered. However, I do think he's right that Tamar would be ahead.

Judah gives Tamar twin sons, who in true biblical fashion, at their births switch their birth order: one baby's hand comes out first, then the other baby is actually born first. Their names are Perez and Zerah, and they follow Judah immediately in future geneologies, skipping the generation of Er, Onan, and Shelah. I'm not sure what the official geneology protocols are in this kind of situation. Technically of course the boys are Judah's sons, even though Tamar's sons were supposed to count as Er's sons if they had been fathered by one of his brothers. I think it is really interesting that Tamar is one of the only females mentioned in Jesus's geneology in Matthew, perhaps it is because of the tricky nature of the line here. I wouldn't say that that alone counts as an endorsement of Tamar's scheme. But there is another place where we have some interesting commentary on what happens to both Dinah and Tamar.

The final commentary in Jacob's blessings
At the end of Jacob's life, he calls together all his sons to bless them before he dies. We have thought a little about a father's blessing and it's effect before, wondering whether it is meant to actually influence the future, or to rather predict it. In this case Jacob gives us a clear answer for what he means to do. "I will tell you what will happen to each of you in the days to come." He intends these blessings as prophecies, and when he says things like "I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob," it sounds to me like he is really speaking for God, since this is not something an old man at the end of his life will be able to do. He has a message for each of his sons, but I think what he says to his first four are particularly thought-provoking for us.

Reuben is chided " you are as unruly as a flood, and you will be my first no longer. For you went to bed with my wife; you defiled my marriage couch." A sexual sin which is mentioned in one sentence earlier in the text now keeps Reuben from the blessing of his firstborn status. Jacob does seem mainly concerned in this instance with how he has been dishonored in the affair, rather than with the personal sin of Reuben or Bilhah. But still, this is evidence of the importance of sexual and marriage purity in the evaluation of a life. In the Me Too era, this is noteworthy. How many men with illustrious careers have been found in sexual sin, which they try to say doesn't matter when you consider their great contributions to the world? This defense does not hold water for Reuben when Jacob judges him.

Simeon and Levi are lumped together and indicted for the violence they inflicted on Shechem and his town. Jacob says he does not want to join in their meetings or be party to their plans, because of their fierce anger and cruel wrath. (Speaking for God here?) Their murderous action is judged harshly here, even though it was retaliatory. In the hindsight of history given in Jacob's blessing, Shechem is remembered as a victim, not a perpetrator. And if Shechem is a victim, Dinah is an ultimate victim, suffering both in her rape, and then in the loss of the hope of a family for herself. Though it is so hard to know what her perspective on it all was, her story ends badly. Dinah was really treated as a pawn by Shechem and then her own brothers. They are cursed for their actions, but Dinah herself bears a lot of the burden of everything that happens. Remember her name means "judged." Two meanings for that could apply to the people who hurt her: Shechem judged by Dinah's angry brothers, and the brothers judged by Jacob.

Having taken in the first three blessings, Judah's comes as a surprise to me. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi are held accountable for their sins, but Judah's treatment of and relationship with Tamar is not mentioned at all. Is this because of the "happy" ending? Judah gets the best, or second best blessing, tied with righteous and faithful Joseph. As the brother's stories play out, we do see Judah taking responsibility as an oldest son in their dealings with Joseph in his high position in Egypt. But Reuben does as well, and it seems, in the balance, that his sexual sin trumps his later good behavior.

If we follow the geneology in Matthew, when Judah blessed his sons at the end of his life, he would have been blessing Perez and Zerah, the sons of Tamar. How should we understand the ethics of what happened between them?? Judah's sin was in leaving Tamar, and his son Er, without any children. When Tamar set up an outside of marriage tryst, which Judah would have had to acknowledge was a sexual sin for him as he committed it, was she coercing him into doing what he should have done? The text says that his wife had already died when he set off on the trip where Tamar met him, but I don't think their family relationship would have allowed them to marry. And after their one meeting, he never has sex with her again. This is a real-world complicated story with real-world complicated characters and motives.

Dinah and Tamar in contrast
A final judgment on Judah and Tamar is difficult, but, let's look at the arcs of Dinah's and Tamar's stories in contrast, because I think that is really interesting.

• Dinah: Injustice is done to her, she does not act, the people who wrong her are judged, she suffers.

• Tamar: Injustice is done to her, she takes action in a questionable/sinful way, the person who wronged her is not judged, she escapes her suffering.

The major caveat to the above sketches is that God's justice is not fully administered until then end of each of our lives. We can trust that he provided full perfect justice for Dinah, Simeon and Levi, Shechem, Tamar, and Judah, ultimately. But I think Jacob's prophetic commentary should pique our curiosity about God's mercy for Judah and Tamar. The true answer, by which to set your compass, is that no matter your circumstances, you are not justified in using sinful means to try to make things better for yourself. But I think we see God having mercy on Tamar (and Judah!) in their sin here. I won't go so far as to say he finds no fault with what Tamar did. But her action brings conviction to Judah, children for herself, and no final judgment from Jacob. I will just leave it as a question mark, it would be way off to conclude that God doesn't care about sexual sin. But I do think you see the story showing that Judah's sin of neglecting Tamar is a bigger infraction than hers of ensnaring him for sex.

We've been learning that after the fall, the relationship between men and women is troubled by a power dynamic, where women want to control men, but men are destined to rule over them. The curse leads us to expect to see men exploiting their power over women; and the physical nature of femininity, with women doing the vulnerable work of childbearing, reinforces that. In these two stories, women suffering from lack of power choose two different responses. I'm sure of God's ultimate justice for Dinah, who simply suffered. But we can also see here God's patience with, and activity in, the life of a woman who did not lay by the wayside, but acted to try to bring about justice and regain power for herself.

Also, I don't think we can end our discussion of all this without noticing that none of the characters in these stories invite God into the action. No prayers are even mentioned. God is over all of this as a witness and judge, but he does not intervene, and he is not asked to. How might things have been different??

Takeaways:

• Tamar and Dinah both suffer injustice from men who should have provided for them. Dinah does not act and does not escape her suffering. Tamar does act, in a morally questionable way, and does escape hers, at least in some measure.
• Continue to notice the centrality of the feminine domains of marriage, sex, and childbearing to the plot of the Bible here.

Questions:

• Do you think Dinah forgave and loved Shechem, or would have been happy to be "rescued" and brought back to her father's house?
• How do we rate the morality of Tamar's scheme with Judah? Do you think Tamar gets completely off the hook? 
• If women experience injustice from powerful men in our own lives, how should we figure out how far to go to get justice for ourselves? As far as Tamar did? Further than Dinah? Is it different in for different people in different circumstances?