Healing from Trauma through Time and Art
The d’var Torah I shared in context of Parashat Hayei Sarah (October 29/30) dealt with the topic of generational trauma passed down from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob (click here to read “Abraham, Sarah and Generational Pain”). We learn in Parashat Vayigash that, while Jacob’s children are also victims and purveyors of the generational disfunction imparted by Jacob and his wives, there is obvious growth and healing on fundamental levels that poise the Tribe of Israel to blossom into the Nation of Israel over the subsequent 250 years while living in the land of Goshen, Egypt.
Both Joseph and Judah exhibit in word and in deed a recognition that people can heal from trauma and hurt. We can learn from our serious mistakes. Forgiveness can be asked for and granted. Life not only goes on, but, in fact, people who have suffered greatly can still flourish. Rabbis Joe Mendelsohn, Ben Goldstein and I share a dynamic conversation about this topic in this week’s Sipurei Reishit - a weekly Torah commentary offered by the OC Board of Rabbis and Jewish Federation of OC. I hope you enjoy it.
Beginning tomorrow night, December 11 at 6pm, the Jewish Collaborative will be hosting 3 programs within the week that address the topic of generational pain caused by trauma in recent Jewish history. In the State of Israel, there is a specific discipline within the broader field of psychotherapy designed to help Holocaust survivors, their children and grandchildren cope with the psychological aftermath of living through unspeakable horror. A 2019 article published in the Israeli Journal of Psychotherapy titled Psychotherapy of Holocaust Survivors – Integration of Traumatic Experiences outlines this phenomenon in clinical detail.
Our first in-person Havdalah Together program (Saturday, December 11 beginning at 6pm) hosted at Heritage Pointe Senior Living in Mission Viejo will feature local author, Joel Poremba, who recently published a book about the miraculous story of his father, Nathan, who, against all odds, survived on his own as a young boy in the forests of Eastern Europe. Please join us in-person, on Zoom or on Facebook for this special event and book signing. Suffice it to say that Joel was a middle-aged man and father of adult children before he learned any details about his father’s traumatic childhood. Learn more and RSVP here.
On Sunday, December 12 at 10am, JCoOC’s Let’s Get Reel series will feature a short documentary by Israeli filmmaker, Yasmin Gorenberg titled 40 Nickels. Co-hosted with the OC Jewish Coalition for Refugees, this touching film depicts the story of Yasmin’s grandfather as a child raised in St. Louis in the 1930s - the son of a mother and grandmother who lost their husband/father and all their sons/brothers during the rash of pogroms in the Ukraine in the early 1920s. We see through the art of filmmaking how their painful story left an indelible imprint on Yasmin’s grandfather and, subsequently her father (well know author Gershom Gorenberg) and herself.
On Saturday night, December 18 at 7pm, in partnership with Chamber Music OC (CMOC) and Violins of Hope Los Angeles, JCoOC will host an intimate chamber music concert titled An Evening of Music, Memory and Promise, featuring the talents of CMOC’s faculty and students performing on string instruments once belonging to victims of the Holocaust. Click here to learn more about the father and son team that created Violins of Hope. This event is a shared fundraiser that will benefit Jewish artistic education and programming for both CMOC and JCoOC. To learn more, make a donation and reserve your tickets, CLICK HERE.
Writing, filmmaking, and music are among the many healing avenues that nurture a measure of reconciliation with the unchangeable, painful truths that shape us. As an adult working alongside Pharaoh in a strange land (Egypt), Joseph comes to understand that his brothers' dislike, rejection, and abuse of him as a boy did not and could not define him. In next week’s parashah, Vayehi, Joseph’s two Egyptian-born sons – Ephraim and Manasseh - assume their place among the Twelve Tribes of Israel, setting the stage for the creation of a thriving Jewish peoplehood that begins in the Book of Exodus.
Nathan Poremba and Norm Gorenberg did what they needed to do to enable their lives to go on after unspeakable tragedy. It is in the hands of their children and grandchildren and craftsmen like Amnon and Avshi Weinstein to share messages of hope and resilience born of their stories. Please join us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Marcia Tilchin
