הכתב והקבלה — כי נבלה עשה בישראל וכן לא יעשה

Q — 'נבלה עשה בישראל וכן לא יעשה' — what does 'וכן לא יעשה' add? Rashi (the nations had pulled back from arayot since the mabul) and Ramban (no one would consider this a נבלה in pagan culture) both struggle.

A — HaKtav VeHaKabbalah reads 'כן' here in the Tanakh sense it carries in 'כֵּן בְּנוֹת צְלָפְחָד דֹּבְרוֹת' — 'right, true, upright.' The phrase is then not about a forbidden act but about the *bystander silence*. The brothers' fury was not at Shechem alone — 'פועל הרע בידים' — but at the entire population of Shechem who *saw* a girl seized from the street and didn't lift a finger. 'וכן לא יעשה' = no one was acting in righteousness; not a single bystander did what was 'נכון והיושר.' This is why the very next chapter calls the whole town complicit in 'טמאו אחותם' (34:27). The grammar of 'וכן' converts what looks like a peshat-comment into a sweeping indictment of moral passivity.