A fundamental principle of Western civilization is that each individual has value as an individual. Concern for every person and their rights are formalized in secular systems that promote fairness and equality under the law. This principle reflects a primary Torah value, as well-known statements in our mesorah depict each person’s infinite worth. Hashem created man b’tzelem Elokim, and as the Mishna teaches (Sanhedrin 4:6): someone who saves another person’s life is as if he’s saved the entire world, and someone who takes another person’s life is as if he’s destroyed the entire world.
With these sensitivities in mind, one can appreciate the category of potential trauma known as “aftermath of battle,” which is different than other forms of potentially traumatic experiences. The traditional understanding of post-traumatic stress is that after a life-threatening event, a person’s fight-or-flight response has gone awry. In such a case, the person becomes fearful of non-threatening experiences because these experiences remind the person in some way of the threatening one.
However, for soldiers and other personnel returning from combat zones, exposure to the scenes of war can also lead to post-traumatic stress symptoms, even if these personnel were never in a life-threatening situation themselves. This reality was evident from the testimony of many people following the October 7 attacks, including ZAKA workers and members of the rabbinate responsible for identifying the dead.
If these individuals were not directly in harm’s way, and as such their fight-or-flight fear response would not have been triggered, how do we explain the post-traumatic stress symptoms among these personnel? The research does not yet have a definitive explanation, but there seems to be something disorienting and traumatic about exposure to scenes of large-scale human suffering. Confrontation with this type of scene can be emotionally overwhelming. There is also a profound dissonance between a fundamental belief – that there is value to each human life – and the reality before them. This negation of a person’s worldview can throw their inner world into turmoil.
This reaction, that life is devalued, is reflected in verses in Tanach. For example, in Tehillim (44:12-13) the pasukim assert: “You (Hashem) deliver us like sheep to be eaten, and have scattered us among the nations; You sell Your nation for no fortune, and You did not inflate their price.” In other words, the lives of the Jewish people, rachamana litzlan, have been cheapened because of their oppression. This type of exposure to human suffering can also make life seem pointless, as expressed by Iyov (7:16): “I am disgusted; I shall not live forever, leave me alone, for my days are as nothing.”
In addition to the challenges of theodicy that may arise, these experiences often raise personal and psychologically-oriented questions. How does a person maintain the sensitivity to the sanctity of life when that sanctity has been desecrated to such an extent? What happens when the person himself realizes that his own sensitivity to human suffering and death has been diminished? How does a person restore this sensitivity that they may have lost? In some sense, these questions, though troubling, can be important. It could be that a person’s desensitization to human suffering and loss is a necessary coping strategy to handle the overwhelming nature of exposure to mass casualties, and there is an equally necessary process of restoring that sensitivity. However, the difficulty with this process of restoration is twofold. First, some people may feel that they are unable to regain the sensitivity that they once had, and they are distressed by a sense of despair. Second, to whatever extent a person regains this sensitivity, he might once again be overwhelmed by memories of their exposure to death on a vast scale.
While there is no simple solution, perhaps a good starting point is a lesson that we can learn from Hashem’s judgment on Rosh Hashana. The Mishna (Rosh Hashana 1:2) teaches:
“At four times of the year the world is judged: On Passover concerning grain; on Shavuot concerning fruits of a tree; on Rosh Hashana, all creatures pass before Him like b’nei maron, as it is stated: ‘He Who fashions their hearts alike, Who considers all their deeds’ (Psalms 33:15); and on the festival of Sukkot they are judged concerning water.”
The Gemara cites three opinions about how to translate the words “b’nei maron” – as sheep passing through a narrow gate, as people ascending a steep cliff, or as soldiers being assigned to battle – each one meaning that each person passes individually before G-d for judgment. Why is it necessary to teach that each person passes before Hashem for judgment? Why wouldn’t it be sufficient to teach more generally, that on Rosh Hashana, people’s fates are judged, which would be more parallel to the other statements of the Mishna?
I would like to suggest that one lesson we can learn from this Mishna is an aspect of the principle of v’halachta bidrachav, that we should emulate Hashem’s ways, so to speak. If the Mishna would have used general language, The Chachamim are teaching us that when we approach our own judgment on Rosh Hashana, we should not think that we are just one of the masses: did my actions this past year really matter? Is Hashem really examining me, in my own life? It is that one might believe, chas v’shalom, that Hashem couldn’t assess each person, but we may question why He would.
The Mishna is teaching us this way of thinking is incorrect. Hashem is interested and values, so to speak, each individual. And just as we are taught this that is an attribute of Hashem, we can internalize this middah in ourselves. Even if we have experiences that challenge this sensitivity, Chazal are teaching us that regaining the ability to value each person’s worth is a lofty goal. May this be a year that we see all our shevuyim brought home safely to their families, and all of our soldiers returning home unharmed. Kesiva v’chasima tova.
