This one's from the Book of Genesis 34:25-29, amplified and expanded in the Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, and it's... intense.

It all begins with Dinah, Jacob's daughter, and her unfortunate encounter with Shechem, son of Hamor, the prince of the Hivites. Shechem, captivated by Dinah, takes her and, well, let’s just say it wasn't a consensual situation. He then asks his father to arrange a marriage. Jacob's sons are furious, but they conceal their anger, plotting revenge. They deceptively propose a deal: they'll agree to the marriage if all the men of Shechem agree to be circumcised.

Now, circumcision, or brit milah, is a deeply important ritual in Judaism, a sign of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. So, imagine the weight of this demand. The men of Shechem, swayed by the prospect of merging their wealth with Jacob's family, agree.

And here's where the story takes a dark turn.

While the men of Shechem are still recovering from their circumcisions, Simon and Levi, Dinah's full brothers, launch a brutal attack. They begin by slaughtering eighteen young men who had hidden and avoided circumcision, only two managing to escape into some lime pits. Then, Simon and Levi proceed to massacre every male in the city. Not a single one is spared.

But the horror doesn't end there. According to Ginzberg's retelling of this biblical narrative, while Simon and Levi were looting outside the city, 300 women rose up, throwing stones and dust at them. Simon, single-handedly, slays all of them. Then, he returns to the city to join Levi.

After the slaughter, they seize the city's wealth, taking sheep, oxen, and cattle. They also capture the women and children and bring them back to their father, Jacob. The Legends of the Jews specifies that eighty-five virgins were spared, including a beautiful woman named Bunah, who Simon takes as his wife. Forty-seven men were also kept alive. All of these captives, men and women, become servants to Jacob's sons and their descendants, remaining in servitude until the Exodus from Egypt.

What are we supposed to make of this? It's a violent, disturbing episode, one that raises serious questions about justice, revenge, and the use of religion as a pretext for violence. The text in Genesis concludes this section with Jacob's lament, "You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household."

There's no easy answer, no simple way to reconcile this story with our modern sensibilities. But perhaps that's the point. These ancient texts challenge us, force us to grapple with the complexities of human nature, the dark side of power, and the enduring struggle to find meaning and morality in a world that often seems to lack both.