By Rabbi Michael Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — It seems strange, but there is scarcely a day when we don’t hear about some person losing his or her grip on reality. We are bombarded by a series of rampage shootings that we hear on the radio and television that occur with almost clockwork regularity. Christopher Dorner’s rampage came just weeks after the tragic shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which has ignited a national push for gun control legislation.
However, the Dorner story is different. He was a veteran who served overseas fighting for his country. He was a former law enforcement officer, someone who dedicated his life to protecting the public. Dorner even happened to be an advocate for gun control restrictions!
Now that the news regarding Dorner is slowly vanishing from the headlines, I wanted to share some thoughts and raise some questions regarding this terrible human tragedy that resulted in so many tragic deaths. What happened? What are the lessons we can learn?
Some psychologists believe that Dorner fits the case of a classic individual who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of his military service in Iraq and Afghanistan. CNN Journalists Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan spoke about the difficulties Dorner had coping with stressful situations during his L.A. Police training.
Some of his fellow recruits recall seeing him crying, and begging for “Reintegration Training.” He asked his superiors for help with getting reintegration training, but since he was only a recruit, “they refused him, and did not offer any suggestions for getting help!”
I realize that hindsight is always 20-20, but if we are to learn any lessons from the Dorner case, the next time a veteran from the military makes a request for this kind of training, the police psychologists need to watch this situation very carefully and not dismiss it. Often, the inability to cope with stressful circumstances could be like the iceberg that we only partially see because most of it is submerged under the waters.
When anger and resentment combine with the experiences of anxiety resulting from a close brush with death, the psychological trauma remains undiagnosed. True, not every sufferer of PTSD behaves psychotically. However, the memories, nightmares, and flashbacks that veterans often experience are real and very psychologically unsettling.
I have personally worked with many individuals who came back from the war who admitted that they could not sustain a healthy relationship, or had difficulties falling asleep. These individuals also had a lower threshold for enduring pain and very often had a shorter fuse than most civilians who never witnessed war. Not everyone shared this perspective of Dorner.
Most sociopaths do not express empathy for gay rights; nor do they stand up against anti-Semitism or combat racism. According to the psychologist Izzy Kalman of Psychology Today, Dorner’s behavior does not fit the typical mold of what we might imagine a murderer to be. Kalman’s theory is very interesting. He argued that Dorner grew up with values that taught him to see the world in black and white terms, e.g., good guys vs. bad guys—a world where there was no moral ambiguity. His conclusion is very striking, “We all become sociopathic when we feel victimized . . . Our conscience gets flushed down the drain. We feel like we are the good guys, the innocent victims, and they are the bad guys, the bullies — and bullies, as we have been taught, are not to be tolerated.”[1]
In coping with bullies, Kalman further explains, “We pick up guns and tell our bullies, ‘Hasta la vista, baby!’” So what is his solution? We need to stop “teaching children … that we are entitled to a life in which no one disrespects us … that our emotional pain is other people’s fault.”
Was Dorner a victim of PTSD? On the other hand, was his Manichean disposition of seeing the world in terms of binary opposites too simplistic for dealing with real problems? Maybe the truth is somewhere between.
Personally, I think our country made a blunder going into a war in an effort to remake the world in our image and likeness. Force-feeding nations to ingest democratic principles is the wrong way to spread our ideals.
Evolution is a slow process, and it calls for a different approach. In terms of rabbinic wisdom, there is much to be said. When we study the rituals of war in the Torah, we also discover the purification rites that enabled individuals who became spiritually and ceremonially defiled in battle, and how they eventually became purified and spiritually renewed (cf. Num. 19 ff.).
Interestingly, even before going to the battlefield, soldiers had to donate half shekel. The biblical writer notes, “When you take a census of the Israelites who are to be registered, each one, as he is enrolled, shall give the LORD a forfeit for his life, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered” (Exod. 30:12).
The verse suggests that a soul needs atonement whenever one goes out to war. Every enemy soldier has a family and wears many hats other than that of a soldier. The ritual of the half shekel reminded soldiers that killing a human being is wrong unless one is doing so in self-defense. Reasons for such a rite are obvious.
War brutalizes people. Once one kills an enemy soldier as a foe, for some soldiers, killing becomes permitted because they are the bad guys and villains. But how can the act of killing not spiritually and psychologically brutalize a soul–especially a sensitive soul?
Even the Nazis realized that they could not command their soldiers to kill Jews as fellow human beings; but they could command them to kill the Jews “because they were not human–but were like vermin.” Most people don’t think much about exterminating pests infestations in their homes. That’s how the Nazis convinced their people to murder Jews.
There is a very moving passage in the Book of Jeremiah that provides an answer to this perplexing moral question:
“And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not; for, behold, I am bringing evil upon all flesh, says the LORD; but I will give you your soul as a prize of war in all places to which you may go” (Jer. 45:5). In some ways, this prophetic text serves to clarify the passage in Exodus 30:12.
There is something profound in this passage. When we are engaged in a conflict such as a war, or for that manner – any kind of conflict – we must be careful not to let our soul be tainted or diminished. If you are fighting for something that is dear to you, then be careful to guard your soul, i.e., don’t let yourself sink to a level where you forget your humanity. Remember, even an enemy soldier is not some faceless entity; always be careful even in a time of conflict never to lose your humanity. Sometimes the hardest battles we fight are not on the physical battlefield, but on the emotional battlefield of life. A soldier’s struggle to hold on to his soul becomes challenging and difficult–and full of pitfalls.
Singer Carole King’s song, “Just Call Out My Name,” has a stanza that really speaks on many levels about this theme:
Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend
When people can be so cold
They’ll hurt you, yes, and desert you
And take your soul if you let them
Oh, but don’t you let them.
Dorner’s killing rampage illustrates the timeless truth that we have to find a way to help our veterans to regain their original state of psychological wholeness. If we don’t, I fear we may be witnessing more killing sprees from people who came home damaged from a senseless war.
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Notes:
[1] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychological-solution-bullying/201302/officer-christopher-dorner-all-american-hero
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Rabbi Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, California. He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com