(א) וַתֵּצֵא דִינָה בַּת לֵאָה (בראשית לד, א), (יחזקאל טז, מד): הִנֵּה כָּל הַמּשֵׁל עָלַיִךְ יִמְשֹׁל לֵאמֹר כְּאִמָּה בִּתָּהּ,
אֲמַר לֵיהּ מַהוּ דִּכְתִיב: הִנֵּה כָּל הַמּשֵׁל עָלַיִךָ יִמְשֹׁל לֵאמֹר כְּאִמָּה בִּתָּהּ. אֲמַר לֵיהּ כַּבַּת כֵּן אִמָּהּ, כַּדּוֹר כֵּן נָשִׂיא, כַּמִּזְבֵּחַ כֵּן כֹּהֲנָיו. הָכָא אָמְרֵי לְפוּם גִּנְּתָא גַּנָּנָא. אֲמַר לֵיהּ לֵית תּוֹרְתָא עֲנִישָׁא עַד דִּבְרַתָּהּ בְּעִיטָא, לֵית אִתְּתָא זָנְיָא עַד דִּבְרַתָּהּ זָנְיָא. אָמְרוּ לֵיהּ אִם כֵּן לֵאָה אִמֵּנוּ זוֹנָה הָיְתָה, אָמַר לָהֶם (בראשית ל, טז): וַתֵּצֵא לִקְרָאתוֹ וגו', יָצָאת מְקֻשֶּׁטֶת כְּזוֹנָה, לְפִיכָךְ וַתֵּצֵא דִינָה בַּת לֵאָה.
(1) Dinah the daughter of Leah went out (Genesis 34,1) Why, everyone who uses proverbs applies to you the proverb “Like mother, like daughter.” (Ezekiel 16,44)
[Reish Lakish] asks [Yosi from Me‘ona], “What is meant by the verse ‘Why, everyone who uses proverbs applies to you the proverb “Like mother, like daughter.”’ Yosi replies, "Like the daughter so too is the mother, the generation is like its Nasi, the altar is like its Cohanim. Around here we say like the garden so is the gardener... There is no cow that gores until its daughter is a kicker, no daughter prostitutes herself unless her mother has. Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yehuda, “Are you calling Leah our Matriarch a prostitute?!?” Yosi replied to them, “‘Leah went out to meet him [Yaakov]…’ and Leah went out dressed like a prostitute, therefor Dinah also went out dressed like a prostitute.”
Nonviolence and Racial Justice, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957
A Peace That Was No Peace
Living under these conditions, many Negroes lost faith in themselves. They came to feel that perhaps they were less than human. So long as the Negro maintained this subservient attitude and accepted the “place” assigned him, a sort of racial peace existed. But it was an uneasy peace in which the Negro was forced patiently to submit to insult, injustice and exploitation. It was a negative peace. True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—tension, confusion or war; it is the presence of some positive force—justice, good will and brotherhood.
Then circumstances made it necessary for the Negro to travel more. From the rural plantation he migrated to the urban industrial community. His economic life began gradually to rise, his crippling illiteracy gradually to decline. A myriad of factors came together to cause the Negro to take a new look at himself. Individually and as a group, he began to re-evaluate himself. And so he came to feel that he was somebody. His religion revealed to him that God loves all his children and that the important thing about a man is “not his specificity but his fundamentum,” not the texture of his hair or the color of his skin but the quality of his soul.
This new self-respect and sense of dignity on the part of the Negro undermined the south’s negative peace, since the white man refused to accept the change. The tension we are witnessing in race relations today can be explained in part by this revolutionary change in the Negro’s evaluation of himself and his determination to struggle and sacrifice until the walls of segregation have been finally crushed by the battering rams of justice.