Any alternative answers? I think that the answer might be that the brachos listed in the Torah were for future generations - for the shvatim. It's very possible that Yaakov gave Dina a bracha on her own but that wouldn't get recorded in the Torah.
Actually, you see that Rivka did receive a bracha from her brother and mother that she should be the mother of a thousand. Some commentators say that is why she did NOT have so many children. But I agree with what David G said. The brachos are not mere blessings of the type many parents give their children; they are prophetic. That is why Yitzchak did not think at first that he could simply come up with another bracha for Esav. If it were just a "may you .... " type of thing, there would be no problem. But the bracha, in this case, actually projects the individual's destiny.
The brachos from Yaakov were not for the individual but to hint to them the special role each of their tribes would play in the greater Klal Yisrael. Dina never formed a tribe so there was no need for a bracha.
I agree with these assessments the brachot foreshadowed the history of each tribe.
I like her question and I liked her answer, that's all.
"Dina never formed a tribe so there was no need for a bracha."
Cute response, but it's also an utter and complete crock. Jacob's blessing to his son Joseph's boys was that the Jews would bless their future sons by saying that they should be like Ephraim and Menasseh. So, either we expect every son to produce his own tribe, or we give them blessings because we love and care for them.
The bottom line (as if it weren't obvious) is that Dina is just a girl, and that the society that produced the Torah didn't count women for very much.
The real answer: because the person who wrote it didn't include her. She wasn't the patronym of an Iron Age tribe, so why would he?
"I agree with these assessments the brachot foreshadowed the history of each tribe."
Or, here in reality, the person who wrote it lived after the tribe he was describing wee already like that.
Fred - suffice it to say that that is not what I'll be telling my daughter.
david - ephraim and menashe were not tribes?! they are in the process of becoming tribes
Why not? I'd bet you believe it, so why are you teaching your kid something else, something you believe to be untrue?
i also wonder why/if you wouldn't at least tell her that the torah doesnt include womans' sides of the story. i mean, she's probably figured that out already, or if she hasn't will soon, or someone else in your house might tell her...
"Fred - suffice it to say that that is not what I'll be telling my daughter."
Ah, the quintessential dilemma of the frum apikorus.
From Schimmel's recent book (pg. 206):
The problem with this approach—the ostrich—is that the believer is transmitting to his children these same pillars of sand. This isn’t fair to his children. Why burden them from birth until they reach intellectual maturity with a belief system and a lifestyle that may be based upon pillars of sand, and which will condition them with years of guilt if and when, upon maturity, they discover that what they had been taught to believe is true isn’t really so? Why burden them with powerful emotional conditioning about the evil and sinfulness of certain conditions (or failures to act) that aren’t really so? Why must they feel that certain sexual desires or behaviors (e.g. masturbation, or eating pork, or writing on the Sabbath) are wrong, if the basis for these ideas is the false idea of the divinity of the Bible (and the rabbinic interpretations of it)? Just because you were socialized into this belief system and lifestyle doesn’t justify your imposing them on the next generation.
And no, it does not suffice to say.
F - adopting a position that had currency amongst some obscure rishonim is a far cry from what you write. I do not plan to discuss the "secret of the 12" with my 2nd grade daughter, and I doubt that Ibn Ezra did with his.
vd"l.
"...Just because you were socialized into this belief system and lifestyle doesn’t justify your imposing them on the next generation."
Believe it or not, some people - of both the believing and non-believing persuasions - find the frum "system and lifestyle" to be a mostly enjoyable, meaningful, and productive way of life. Not everyone sees it as the torture system you make it out to be.
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