Trauma, The topic Not Spoken About – Lech Lecha 5783

Every Parent wants their kid to do well, be kind, and happy. We all want a mensch. Parents go to great lengths to achieve that by putting their kids in good schools, in sports and giving children all they didn’t have growing up. All these things are very much in our control. Although important, the most defining aspect of raising a child for success is sometimes negated; a home free of conflict, stress, and abuse, whether physical or sexual. These 3 things have a profound effect in a child. If left undiscussed, it can have lasting effects into adulthood. As a result, stressful or disturbing experiences, traumas, stay so deep in the psyche of a child that it can cause depression, PTSD or substance abuse. Parents don’t want their kids to suffer from any of these symptoms, even less to put them in situations that will create these unwanted experiences. The parents themselves were victims of these same abuses or traumatic experiences and didn’t work out the problem to extinction. And, the nature of kids is they learn from our behavior; they absorb like a sponge. 

Parents set out to do the best for their children. By giving our children everything we think necessary. The truth is all they need is a healthy, safe home. However, we often overlook these necessities because of our failure to work on our traumas. Failure to work on the behavior we ourselves ran from. Those disturbing experiences, conflict, or abuse in our childhood. Unprocessed memories. The pain of that memory makes us ignore its there. Trauma is not something we want to talk about, we don’t want to acknowledge is there.  

To give our children a healthy sense of self, of safety, trust and ensure a bright future, we need a healthy sense for ourselves first. We can only give our children that we acquire ourselves. 

Lasting Effects of Trauma

The unfortunate truth is childhood traumas shape us in ways we don’t want to see. The pain of the memory gives us a wrenching sensation in our stomach that makes us run. Run away far from what we call home, our birthplace, our parents home. It is this defined location we attach the pain of a self we don’t to experience again. Trauma puts us on a journey of self discovery. We set out to create a new self by creating the space for our new identity which often involves making our parents the adversary. Basically this turns out to be so contradictory to what parents intended for their kids future. 

But more sad is we ourselves turn out to be so much like the people we ran away from. Those same people we abhorred because of the neglect, or abuse they infringed on us, are the ones who have ingrained their identity in us. 

They say people who have shared experiences are connected by a common thread on a quilt. If that quilt is made up of threads and connections we have with people, the parent-child relationship is so significant, half the quilt is our parents. We become our parents. We take with us on the journey of self discovery the pain or the habits from our home. 

Lech Lecha- Go On a Journey

Parsha Lech Lecha speaks about this, a journey of self discovery. In between the lines, we learn Abraham has to leave what he calls home. The Torah makes explicit Abraham needs to form a new identity apart from where he grew up and the people who help shape him as person. 

“And the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.”

G-d never shares his destination. One thing is clear, Abraham must set out away from his land, his father’s home and all he has learned from both places. To look for himself Abraham goes on a journey. 

From the Midrash we learn Abraham brakes his fathers idols. Deep-rooted in his culture is idolatry. The people of his homeland have practices not in line with Torah values. That’s all we know. What is clear is Abraham is the father of many nations and the father of monotheism. In order to get achieve this truth we needed to find himself. He needed to be able to hear God and learn his ways. Abraham needed the space to clear his mind. To carve a path free of the costumes of his homeland and specially his father’s home. Abraham set out to workout any and all learned behaviors from his childhood. His jourmey to detach from any disturbing experiences or trauma. 

God gives Abraham 10 test. He was tested to see how he behaved under those circumstances. Was he going to take the same approach as his father? Or follow the inner voice of his new found identity, a new outlook. The 10 test was all about behavior. 

Open to Newness

What Abraham did is a hard task; to be open to form a new self. To aligned yourself to the infinite energy and do what’s asked according to Torah is challenging. It’s a consistent alignment. Our brain develops pathways that make us behave and react in a certain way. A way close to what we know, the home we grew up in. The challenge is to aligned ourselves, instead of reacting. 

To give my child what he needs, I have to align myself to his needs and what he is saying. To create a safe, healthy home requires work and effort of aligning yourself to what’s needed that day, that week to feed the higher family purpose. It’s always to think about the child. That’s what gets us close to a happy, kind child. It is only a happy, kind child that will do well in his lifetime and shape future generations.

Lech Lecha is an empowering Parsha. We have the power to decide what our future will be. We have the power to heal ourselves from any childhood traumas. ALl we have to do is align ourselves and set out on a journey of self discovery. G-d will show us the way.