There are two traumas that sit on my shoulders at all times. They are very different in nature, but they weigh just as heavily—perhaps the second even more so.
The first trauma is familiar, recognizable, almost expected given the life I’ve lived. It is the trauma of what has already happened.
In truth, it began even before I was born. I was raised among Holocaust survivors—men and women with numbers burned into their arms, not metaphorically, but physically. Those numbers were not history lessons; they were living presences. They sat next to me in shul. They hugged me. They laughed, cried, and rebuilt families, but the shadow of what they endured never left the room. Trauma does not need words to be transmitted. It seeps through silence.
Later, I watched the towers fall on 9/11 in New York. I was in London after 7/7. I served in combat zones. I was deployed to natural disasters and terror attacks across the globe. I stood in places where life had been violently interrupted, where order collapsed, where death arrived without warning.
After October 7, I walked through the kibbutzim. I saw what evil looks like when it removes its mask. And then came months of emergency call-up, identifying thousands of bodies. There are things you see, smells you carry, details your mind never fully releases. Anyone who has done this kind of work knows that it doesn’t end when you take off the uniform. It follows you home.
That is trauma number one—the trauma of memory, of scars formed by events that already happened.
But as heavy as that is, it pales in comparison to the second trauma I carry.
The second trauma is not rooted in the past at all. It is rooted in the future.
It is the trauma of seeing what is coming.
It is as if I am standing on the side of a massive train track, watching a colossal train—an unstoppable, roaring train called Galut—barreling forward at full speed. And there are Jews standing on the tracks. Calm. Comfortable. Busy with their lives. Confident that the train will somehow stop, slow down, or veer off course.
And I scream.
I beg.
“Please—get off the tracks. You don’t understand what’s coming. You will be lost forever if you stay there.”
And the response I mostly receive is not hostility. It is something far worse.
Complacency. Disbelief. A polite smile. A confident shrug.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“It’s always been bad.”
“We’re fine here.”
“History doesn’t repeat itself like that anymore.”
That response cuts deeper than any battlefield I’ve been in. Because it adds a new layer to the trauma: the trauma of helplessness. The trauma of warning those you love and realizing they don’t hear you—not because you’re unclear, but because they are unwilling.
This morning, as I said Hallel, something struck me with unusual force. I found myself reading Psalm 115 with fresh eyes, and an unconventional interpretation emerged—one that felt painfully relevant.
“Their idols are silver and gold, the handiwork of man.”
In exile, our idols are not statues. They are material comfort, financial security, social status, and the illusion of permanence. Jews in exile do not bow to stone gods—we bow to materialism.
“They have a mouth, but cannot speak. They have eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear. They have a nose, but cannot smell. Their hands, they cannot feel. Their feet, they cannot walk.”
Jews in exile seem to be missing the most basic spiritual and historical senses. They speak endlessly, yet cannot articulate the truth of their situation. They have eyes, yet cannot see the danger gathering around them. They have ears, yet do not hear the warnings—no matter how loud or how frequent. They are surrounded by the stench of hatred and violence, yet cannot smell it until it is already suffocating.
Even when Jews are attacked. Even when they are murdered. Even when the warning signs are flashing in bright red, many still do not sense the urgency of leaving exile. Their feet cannot walk—because walking would require movement, disruption, sacrifice. And idols demand stillness.
That realization only deepened the second trauma.
Because it is one thing to warn people who are unaware.
It is another to warn people who are numb.
This is why I understand the prophets.
Not in some grand or arrogant sense—but emotionally. Viscerally.
The prophets of old were not ignored because they lacked evidence. They were ignored because their message was inconvenient. Because it disrupted comfort. Because it demanded change. They were accused of fearmongering, of extremism, of undermining stability.
Sound familiar?
I now understand how it feels to carry knowledge that others refuse to carry with you. To feel responsible without having authority. To love deeply and therefore suffer deeply.
And so I live with these two traumas.
One of what I have seen.
And one of what I fear I will see.
The first trauma scars the soul.
The second breaks the heart.
Because the first is about loss that already occurred.
The second is about loss that is still preventable—and may not be prevented.
I pray every day that I am wrong.
I would gladly bear the embarrassment of a false alarm.
I would happily be remembered as someone who overreacted.
But until then, I will keep screaming.
I will keep warning.
I will keep begging people to step off the tracks.
Because silence, in the face of what I see coming, would be the greatest trauma of all.
This article appeared on Rabbi Josh Wander’s Substack.
