Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily. All of the psychology that we need to know can be found in the Torah. My father-in-law Rabbi Nosson Scherman, shared with me something very interesting from Melachim 2, perek 25
This is where the churban is being described, and the Navi tells us the horrible ending of Sidkiyah Hamelech, one of the last kings of the Jewish people. It says,
וְאֶת־בְּנֵי֙ צִדְקִיָּ֔הוּ שָׁחֲט֖וּ לְעֵינָ֑יו וְאֶת־עֵינֵ֤י צִדְקִיָּ֙הוּ֙ עִוֵּ֔ר וַיַּאַסְרֵ֙הוּ֙ בַּֽנְחֻשְׁתַּ֔יִם וַיְבִאֵ֖הוּ בָּבֶֽל
They slaughtered his children in front of his eyes, and they blinded him and they put him in shackles to Bavel.
This is a horrible, horrible story. What was the reason that this was being told to us? And what was the reason behind this horrific ending of Sidkiyah? My father-in-law explained that the wicked Nevuchadnezzar (we have no shortage of wicked acts against the Jewish people), was not satisfied with just having Sidkiyah see this horrific event of his children being killed.
The Midrash Yalkut Shemoni on the spot says that Sidkiyah said, kill me first. I don't want to see my 10 sons being killed. His children said, kill us first, we don’t want to see our father killed). He ended up killing the children first, but not killing Sidkiyah Rather, he decided to blind him afterwards. Why? Because not only did he want him to see this horrific scene, but further, he didn't want him to be able to, in any which way, forget the scene. So therefore, this wicked Nevuchadnezar wanted that the last thing that Sidkiyah should see is that sight of his children being killed. And with that he would never see again. That was the last thing imprinted on his mind, and he put that horrific trauma into his head.
In an article in Psychology Today, July 19th, 2021, written for investigators who have to see very graphic evidence, and suffer with the trauma of that, they give them different advice. One of piece of advice they give them is to ‘See it early enough in the day, where you have plenty of time afterwards for other activities to provide distraction, diversion, replacing disturbing sounds and images with positive sensory experiences. Never view graphic evidence by yourself at night.’
So this is a concept in psychology today, that new images can wipe out, or at least dilute and distract and divert from the previous images. But the wicked King Nevuchadnezzar did not want that to happen. He wanted the pain of that scene to remain in Sidkiyah’s mind forever.
And we see from here an important concept, which is important for our emotional wellbeing- that images create more trauma and therefore it's not a good thing. If a person has v’shalom, is put in a situation where they have to view something. Okay- They didn't choose to do that. As it says regarding. A person who sees a Sotah, Someone who sees the wayward woman in her decadence stays away from wine. It doesn't say Go view it. We're not supposed to go out of our way to view traumatic scenes. If we see it, we had no choice. But trauma is the brain struggling to integrate the experience in a proper way, and it's extremely difficult to integrate these scenes and these images. Somebody told me in the name of a rabbi (I don't exactly know what the source is, but it makes sense so I'll say it over), that Hashem gives us the ability to deal with certain tests. That means that if, heaven forbid, someone sees something that's traumatic, Hashem will give them the ability to overcome it. But if we go, on our own, and bring it upon ourselves and we look for it, we don't necessarily have that heavenly help.
Therefore, this is my plea to avoid the constant looking and need to see things.
We shouldn't need to see graphic imagery in order to feel the pain of our brethren in Israel.
B’Ezrat Hashem, we'll be able to use our feelings in a positive way and not be traumatized and frozen from the graphic scenes that we bring upon ourselves.