Don’t Let the Past Torment the Future

Everyone has fears.  Some people are afraid of heights.  Others are terrified of bees.  Some are afraid of being alone.  Others are terrified of large groups.  Some are afraid of the past.  And others are terrified by the future. 

One would think that the Israelites would be afraid of the past.  One would think they were so traumatized by their slavery that they would never want to go back to Egypt.  And yet, time and time again, they pine after Egypt.  They refuse to go forward.  When the spies return from scouting the land, they proclaim, “The country we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers.”  (Numbers 13)  

The people respond, “’Why is God taking us to that land to fall by the sword? It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!’  And they said to one another, ‘Let us head back for Egypt.’”  They appear more terrified by the future than their harrowing past.  I wonder.  Do past traumas limit our ability to see positive futures?  It appears so.

We are a traumatized people.  We are so scarred by our past that we cannot march forward.  The future appears even more terrifying than our past.  Or is it that our past haunts our future?

The scouts continue, “All the people that we saw in the land are giants and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”  How did they know how they appeared to others?  They could not!  Instead, they projected their negative self-image.  Their doubts colored not only how they saw themselves but how they imagined others saw them. They were so terrified and traumatized by their past that they believed the Canaanites saw them as tiny grasshoppers.  Why?  Because that is how they saw themselves. 

Too often we allow our doubts, and our fears, to color how we see the world.  Our traumatized past overwhelms our future.  The past holds us back.    

In this social media age, we are in even more danger of succumbing to these fears.  The algorithms are designed to make our past choices dictate our future ones.  Facebook and Instagram take us to where we have already been.  It is not about experiencing new adventures but rather about reliving past choices.  And if trauma is part of that past, then social media has us spinning in painful circles rather than marching forward. 

But the task is to march forward. 

How do we remember without becoming overwhelmed by these traumas and fears?  How do we remember Egyptian slavery without becoming enslaved by these memories?  How do we remember our painful history of antisemitism, most especially the Holocaust, without becoming ruled by it?

The Hasidic master, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, taught, “The whole world is a narrow bridge.  The most important thing is not to be afraid.”  Narrow bridges are indeed frightening.   But bridges are meant to be crossed!  They are invitations to another side.  

The only way to get there is by marching forward.