trauma

I recently visited a young woman who was shot at a party. In the wee hours of a cousin's birthday, a dispute got out of hand, and a guest fired. The small caliber round went through her back, and she was rushed to the emergency room. Fortunately, she should not have any long-term physical effects - youthful bodies heal fast. Unfortunately, the emotional trauma is deep.

At first, I thought she was depressed. She lied in bed, scarcely moving, barely speaking. When she did speak, it was in the faintest whisper. I tried to imagine what she might be feeling, since death reached into her life with that bullet. What had I felt during a sudden death in my own life? Numbness, emotional distance, a deep feeling of overwhelm. I realized that it was shock.

Sudden trauma can be too much, and we cannot cope. Sometimes trauma, reminding us of our very fragility, can call to mind all the losses, endings, and separations of a lifetime. For that young woman, it called up her sister's shocking death a decade ago. When we are overwhelmed because the grief is too much, we must go away. In order to heal, we must retreat.

The rabbis knew the pain of such an emotional exile, and recognized that God is present even in trauma and shock. The Zohar, the cornerstone of the Jewish mystical tradition, tells this parable:

"It is like a king who had an only son. That son committed offenses against the king. One day he misbehaved before the king, whereupon the king said to him: ‘All these days I have disciplined you, but you have not improved. Now, see, what shall I do to you? If I banish you from the country, and deprive you of your royal rank, perhaps bears of the field or wolves of the field or robbers will cause you to perish from the earth. What shall I do? I and you together will leave the country and be together in exile."

Unlike the king in the parable, I don't believe that God sends suffering or trauma in order to punish or instruct us. But I am convinced that God, like the king, is most near in those moments. God is with us in the loss and the healing, close at hand. The Zohar's parable reminds: "All the time that Israel are in exile, God’s presence is in exile with them."