One: Rambam (Laws of Kings 9:14) writes that the people of Shekhem were guilty of not following the seven laws of Noah, and thus they deserved to die. Their guilt was that Shekhem the son of Hamor had kidnapped Dina (34:26) and the people did not act as judges to punish him.
Two: Ibn Kaspi (1278-1340, quoted by N. Leibowitz, 1976, p. 387) argues that 34:27, which records “they (Yaakov’s sons) looted the city which defiled their sister,” implies that all the population of Shekhem were guilty of raping Dina. He writes, “This ends any moral objection since the Lawgiver Himself testifies they all had a hand in the crime.” Furthermore, the fact that the rapist had the same name as the town, Shekhem, also highlights the guilt of the town. Yet, at most the people of Shekhem were accomplices to the rape and kidnapping, but did they deserve to die after they agreed to circumcise themselves? Also, the penalty for rape in the Torah is for the rapist to marry the victim, Devarim 22:28,29, which is what Shekhem offered to do, 34:12. It is interesting that this phrase, “which defiled their sister” in 34:27 is stated in reference to the plunder of the city but not in reference to the massacre. This might imply that the plunder of the town was justified since the people of the town were accomplices to Shekhem’s (the son of Hamor) deplorable act but the defilement of Dina did not justify the killing of the men of Shekhem.
Three: Gur Aryeh (on 34:13, Maharal of Prague, see also Ramban on 34:13) criticizes the Rambam’s approach since the people of Shekhem could not have been responsible for not judging their leader when presumably they were in no position to have done so. He suggests that the episode should be viewed as a war between the people of Shekhem and the brothers of Yaakov, and once there is a war, then the entire population of the town, even those who were not directly involved in the rape were responsible since they were part of the town. This idea might explain why Yaakov’s sons decided to plunder the town, but this war seems to be one-sided since the people of Shekhem thought they made a treaty with Yaakov and his family.
Four: Meir Sternberg (1985) notes “that mass slaughter does not balance against rape according to conventional normative scales,” but the goal of the narrative is to make the punishment fit the crime. One argument for this idea is that 34:26 records that after Shimon and Levi massacred the town, they took back Dina. Sternberg claims that this shows that Dina had also been kidnapped, and by placing this information after the massacre, we see that the town “largely brought down that violence on themselves by seeking to impose their will on Jacob’s family.” Yet, as pointed out by Fewell and Gunn (1991) all 34:26 states is that Dina was staying in Shekhem’s house, but we cannot know conclusively that she was detained, as maybe she agreed to stay with him.
Sternberg's second argument is from the last verse of the chapter, 34:31, which records that after Yaakov accused Shimon and Levi of endangering the family, Shimon and Levi defended their actions by claiming “should our sister be treated like a whore?” Sternberg argues that Shimon and Levi acted out of idealism to defend their sister’s honor, and as they are given the last word, this shows that the Torah believes that this goal of redressing the wrong done to their sister whether “by hook or by crook” was justified.
Five: Leon Kass (Genesis of Wisdom 2003, p. 481) presents an interesting explanation of 34:31, that Shimon and Levi were claiming that “their failure to defend their sister’s honor would be tantamount to regarding her as a harlot," as he notes that Roman law did not recognize rape of a harlot as a punishable crime. Yet, defending their sister’s honor did not necessitate killing the male population of Shekhem Thus, Kass writes (p. 497) that “fair minded readers of the story are left with nagging questions... The potential – in this case - actual extremism to which proper vengeance can grow troubles us." However, he concludes (p. 498), “we are moved by the suggestion that a community culture that will make war to defend the virtue of its women, against a community that dishonors other people’s women, proves itself- by this very fact of its willingness to fight and die for its daughters and sisters- to be not only more fit to survive and flourish but also superior in justice.” This is at best a relative defense of Yaakov’s sons, and this going to war when the people of Shekhem agreed to the deal of Yaakov’s sons to circumcise themselves does not seem to be “superior in justice.”
Six: The sons of Yaakov were acting based on the culture of their times. The best proof for this approach is that, as noted by many, this story has many parallels to the Greek story of the sack of Troy by Agamemnon, which was because Paris, the prince of Troy, took/ abducted Helen, the wife of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus.
Seven: A completely different approach is that there was no justification for the massacre. Hertz (1960, pp. 128,129, see also N. Leibowitz, 1976, p. 385) writes, “the sons of Yaakov certainly acted in a treacherous and godless manner.” This approach vilifies the brothers, and again by their attempt to kill Yosef (37:18-24) we see that they were capable of terrible violence. On the other hand, this approach exonerates Yaakov because he criticized Shimon and Levi both here, 34:30, and in his final testament, 49:5-7.
Yet, in 34:30, Yaakov only gave a practical reason for why Shimon and Levi should not have murdered the men of Shekhem: "You have stirred up trouble for me, making me stink among the land's inhabitants, among the Canaanite and Perizzite, when I am handful of men. If they gather against me and strike me, I shall be destroyed, I and my household,”. Furthermore, as pointed out by Steinberg, the Torah seems to give Shimon and Levi the last word, as Yaakov did not respond to their claim in 34:31, “should our sister be treated as a whore?’ Why did Yaakov only give a practical reason when he criticized Shimon and Levi and why did he not respond to their response?
Perhaps Yaakov realized that his children had acted irrationally, and he tried a practical argument in 34:30 since he hoped that maybe that would get through to them. However, his practical argument seems to have made no impression, as Shimon and Levi responded by claiming that by not killing the people of the town they would have made their sister Dina into a whore. It seems that Shimon and Levi were so fixated on the family's honor that they were unconcerned about the effects of their actions. However, the family's honor had not been impinged, as Shekhem had agreed to marry Dina and he and the whole town had circumcised themselves to make a deal with Yaakov and his sons (see Luzzatto on 34:31). Accordingly, Dina was not being treated like a whore. Yaakov understood from Shimon and Levi’s response in 34:31 that nothing he could say would make them comprehend the terrible actions that they had done, and then there was no point for him to respond to their ranting. The idea being that when people are screaming irrationally there is nothing a person can do to answer them. (I have seen this behavior in my lifetime.) Instead, Yaakov waited until his death bed when he criticized their actions on moral grounds, 49:5-7.
Is there any clue in the Torah whether the Torah thinks the murder was justified (approaches one through six)? One possibility is from 35:5 which records that in the aftermath of the massacre, G-d stopped the people who lived around Shekhem from attacking Yaakov and his family This verse would seem to support Yaakov's position that Shimon and Levi had endangered the family and hence G-d had to intervene to save the family Yet, it could be understood to support Shimon and Levi's contention that the honor of the family was paramount and then they could depend on G-d to save them from the consequences of their actions.
