Shechem שכם
The first place Avraham stopped in Canaan, the city of Dina and Yosef, and the site where the kingdom split.
Shechem is a narrow valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and almost every time Jews arrive there something breaks open. Avraham stops here first upon entering Canaan and builds an altar. Yaakov, returning from Charan, buys a field from the townsmen—one of the three parcels of the Land purchased outright.
Here the story of Dina unfolds, and here Yosef sets out to find his brothers and is sold. Centuries later his bones, carried out of Egypt, are buried in that same field. Under Yehoshua the tribes stand between the two mountains for the blessings and curses, and there he gathers them for a final covenant.
Finally Rechavam comes to Shechem to be crowned, refuses to lighten the burden, and the kingdom splits in two. The sages say plainly: Shechem is a place "designated for trouble".
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 12:6 — Avraham’s first halt in Canaan — “as far as the place of Shechem”
- Bereishit 33:18–34 — the purchase of the plot and the story of Dinah
- Bereishit 37:12–14 — from here Yosef went out to his brothers
- Yehoshua 24 — Yehoshua’s covenant before his death and the burial of Yosef
- Melachim I 12 — the schism of the kingdom under Rechavam
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Sanhedrin 102a — “a place destined for misfortune” — three times at Shechem
Basis: tradition.