According to the Jewish mystical masterwork the Sefer Yetzirah, each Hebrew month is associated with a particular domain of human existence that is apt for tikkun, or repair. One month is a good time to focus on sleep, another on sex, one on food, another on laughter. During the current month of Tamuz, the focus is on sight. Next month, during Av, it will be hearing. Both of these faculties are more constant than any others. Barring physiological impairment, we are seeing and hearing all the time — even when we’re asleep, albeit in different ways.
As areas for tikkun, seeing and hearing are concerned with the filters through which we experience reality, filters so habituated we probably don’t notice them. In these months, we are called to examine how we perceive things, to try to see and hear what is really there and question the frameworks and stories our imaginations fill in. This is especially important during Tamuz and Av, as these are understood to be the most challenging period of the Jewish year, highly indicated for national calamity. When we are squeezed by crisis, in states of fear or grief, it can be especially hard to see things and hear things in a clear and open way — and especially important that we do so.
The Torah portions we read during Tamuz hinge on the dangers of distorted seeing. In Sh’lach, the scouts who are sent to reconnoiter the land of Israel perceive themselves as “grasshoppers,” dwarfed by the Canaanites whose land they fear to conquer. The following week, Korach sees himself as a victim of Moses’ elevation to leadership, while in Chukat, Moses in turn feels victimized by the constant complaining of the people. Now in this week’s portion, the Moabite King Balak is terrified to see the Israelites camped at his borders, fearing they will soon exhaust his precious water resources, leaving him ravaged.
The problem, as these stories all demonstrate, is that once people feel themselves to be victims, their behavior usually devolves into victimizing others. This dynamic was famously described in the 1960s by the psychologist Stephen Karpman, who called it the Drama Triangle. When people grow attached to seeing themselves as victims, they will perceive threats, whether real or imagined, from so-called persecutors, and will in turn try to enlist the help of rescuers to protect them. This is precisely what Balak does when he forms defensive alliances with neighboring kings and hires the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites, thus becoming a persecutor himself.
One of Karpman’s key insights is that once someone enters into this kind of dynamic in any position they will almost certainly get sucked into the other roles. Rescuers easily become persecutors, or come to see themselves as helplessly victimized by a situation they are “forced” to mediate. Persecutors ganged up on by rescuers or victims really can become victims themselves. In fact, in the words of another psychologist, Stan Tatkin, “Every perpetrator in the world thinks they’re a victim.”
Seeing ourselves as victims, and others as our persecutors or our saviors, is the kind of error in perception Tamuz comes to correct. The key, as in so many things, is to more clearly see our own role in things and to take much deeper responsibility for our agency. It is simplistic to assume we play only one role. The truth is always more nuanced. Conflict can only be resolved once we reconcile with this fact.
As we enter the period of the Three Weeks, our annual confrontation with what is most painful, destructive and frightening in the world, may the source of all being help us see more sides than we thought we could. May we be empowered to hear hard truths and to receive the courage and vision we need to choose new pathways with creative agency, resilience and faith.
