“My Soul Was Burned” | The Adult Jewish Man Sat in an Armchair, Weeping as He Revealed What Happened to Him in Childhood

This article is dedicated to you, those people whose fate everyone has already decided. Those who have been labeled only as “bad,” as self-interested and cruel, without checking what is really happening inside | Therapist Mordechai Rot in a moving story with an important message (Kikar Magazine) Weeping (Photo: AI)

My dear brothers, holy souls. We all sometimes encounter difficult stories, harrowing stories of abuse and evil, stories that an ordinary person simply cannot bear to hear. When we are exposed to these stories, our blood boils. We immediately pass judgment and hurl the harshest words at that person: “What terrible cruelty! What a disgusting narcissist! Where are his character traits?! Where is his fear of Heaven?! How can he abuse others like that, where is the compassion in his heart?!” It is easy for us to judge. It is easy for us to paint the world in black and white, to mark the “good” and the “bad” and throw the bad into the trash heap of history. >> To the full magazine, click here

But here, דווקא in the most painful place, I want to stop you. I want to give you a completely different look at those people who seem to you from the outside to be bad, wicked, and cruel. I want to reveal to you a deep secret of the soul, something is always hidden behind that cruelty. There is no such thing as pure, inborn evil in the world! No baby is born evil. There are hard lives, there are shattered and wounded childhoods, and they are what made that person who he is today.

Before I continue, I want to shout a warning here that will echo from one end of the world to the other: do not misunderstand me! This does not mean in any way that you should get close to such people. It does not mean you are allowed to be by their side, and it certainly does not mean you should let them abuse you, hurt you, or trample your soul! Heaven forbid! Never let anyone hurt you! These people must, simply must, take full responsibility for their lives! Yes, childhood was a minefield, but today they are adults and they must go deal with themselves, save their souls, and stop this cycle of harm. This is especially true if they manage, even for one moment of clarity, to notice that they are hurting those around them and abusing them.

In truth, in most cases, these people are not even capable of noticing it. Their soul’s defense mechanisms are so sealed and rigid that they simply blind their eyes from seeing the pain they are causing. But in the deepest depth of the soul, beneath all the armor and shells, compassion is always hidden. Always know that behind those bad, threatening, and harsh faces is only a frightened child. A little boy who was abused, a person who experienced unbearable hardship, and that is why he behaves the way he does today. And when you are willing to look at the full picture, you suddenly breathe life differently.

It was a long time ago. I was sitting in my clinic, and a Jew came in. Broken, shattered, his eyes dim and full of constant tension. He sat down opposite me, his fingernails pressing hard into his palms, and he told me in choked tears: “Mordechai, my wife left me. We are now in the midst of heartbreaking divorce proceedings. She claims that I am a cruel person, that I am merciless, that I am a narcissist and that I have no heart. She told me with cold eyes that she can no longer live with me, not even for one more minute. Twenty-five years of suffering were enough for her, she simply can’t go through this hell anymore...”

I sat opposite that man. When you listen to him, you immediately recognize it. You hear his way of speaking, a rigid, demanding style, trying to control every word and every detail in the conversation. He would not let me get a word in edgewise, he established facts on the ground, he seemed completely entrenched in his position. Outwardly, perhaps we too would have heard this story and said, “What a difficult and cruel man! His wife is right to leave him! How can anyone live with such a monster?” It is easy for us to sentence him in an instant. To condemn him to hell and move on.

But if you are willing not to stop at the outer shell, if you are willing to go one layer deeper, into the holy of holies of the soul, you discover an entire world of unimaginable pain there. I asked him gently about the home where he grew up, and suddenly his tough armor cracked. The intimidating, forceful man became in an instant a little boy, frightened and terrified. He began to describe his childhood, and my heart was simply torn to pieces.

He grew up in a home with boundaries that were too harsh, with crazy, suffocating iron rules in which it was forbidden to make even the slightest mistake. A home where there was no room to breathe. For every little thing, a not-perfect grade, a cup of water accidentally spilled, or just a word the parents didn’t like, came a terrifying and punitive outburst of rage. But it did not stop there. This was not just educational rigidity, it was severe, daily, shocking abuse. Abuse through harsh words that burned his soul, public humiliation in front of his siblings, and cold cruelty that made him feel like the most miserable, worthless, zero-like creature on earth.

He lived in constant fear. Every day in that home was survival in a minefield, with not even a drop of compassion, understanding, or flexibility. To survive that hell, the little boy developed a crazy defense mechanism. His soul shouted to him in the subconscious: “So that no one ever abuses you again, so that no one controls you and humiliates you again, you have to be the one who controls everyone with a firm hand! You have to subdue everyone before they have time to subdue you.” He brought this sick, survival-based mechanism with him, without realizing it, into his marriage. For 25 years he tried to control his wife and children, not out of evil, but out of a deep and suffocating inner fear that if he let go of control for even a moment, he would become that helpless child again, suffering abuse. He put on a mask of cruelty simply because he was convinced that this was the only way to protect his life.

First path, the cruel armor of the frightened child

These difficult feelings are born in the heart when a child grows up feeling that he has no one to lean on in the world, that he has no safe harbor. This happens to people who grew up in a home where they felt completely alone, a cold and alienated home where you can never know what a moment will bring, one quiet moment and the next everything explodes. A home with no kind word or hug, or, Heaven forbid, a place where there was pain and harm. And when a child lives in such hell, a terrifying belief is seared into his soft heart, an inner fire whispering to him at night: “Listen closely, in this world there is no mercy. Everyone is self-interested. Everyone here is only trying to exploit you, trample you, and use you for their own selfish purposes. If you are not a wolf, they will devour you.”

That little child grows up, and that painful belief becomes the glasses through which he sees the whole world. To survive, he develops a crazy defense mechanism. He says to himself subconsciously, without even noticing it: people are exploiters? Fine. So that I will never be hurt again, I will simply exploit them first. I will be the one who hurts, not the one who is hurt! And from there, the road to the abyss is short and shocking. Without even realizing what is happening to him, that person becomes exactly what hurt him: he begins to exploit, be cruel, belittle, and sometimes even abuse others. When you meet such a person on the street, in the community, or at work, you see a monster. You see a cold, cruel, manipulative person who sees only himself and tramples everyone. You keep your distance, you hate him, you tell yourself, “What a bad and depraved man.” But oh, my dear brothers, Lord of the Universe! If you were to remove his mask for just a moment, if you were to peek into his bleeding heart, you would burst into bitter tears. You would discover that behind this harsh and cruel armor does not sit a bad person, but only that little, frightened boy who was beaten in his soul in childhood. His cruelty is not evil, it is only an endless cry of self-defense. He hurts others simply because he is convinced that this is the only way he will not die.

Second path, a king without a crown, when the soul loses its brakes

This deep confusion grows in the heart when a child does not receive the right balance every soul needs, to know where the boundary is, where to stop. This happens to people who grew up at two extreme ends that drive the soul crazy, either in an overly permissive, indulgent home where everything was allowed, with no order or healthy discipline. A home that never said no and actually left them alone without guidance, which causes them today to kick against all rules, disdain laws, and flee from any trace of responsibility. Or exactly the other way around, a rigid and harsh home, where they lived under constant fear of iron rules, without a drop of compassion, understanding, or flexibility.

And what happens to such a child when he grows up and becomes a man? His soul, in a desperate attempt to protect itself, creates a terrible and dangerous distortion. He begins to move through the world with a strong, sick inner belief: “I am above everyone. I am special, I am entitled to rights that no one else is entitled to, and the laws of ordinary people? They do not apply to me at all!” He develops a crazy, blind, endless hunger for power, control, and excessive competitiveness that serves only one purpose, to trample everyone in order to prove he is superior. He simply cannot see anyone from a distance. He has no compassion, no empathy, and he cannot consider the needs or feelings of the people around him, not his friends, not his partners, and sometimes not even his wife and children at home! This man will force everyone to do exactly, but exactly, what he wants. He will boast, show off, and wave his achievements in everyone’s face, and the thing he fears most in the world, his biggest nightmare, is being an average person. For him, being ordinary like everyone else feels like being a zero. He must always be on top, at the summit, in full control.

But the real disaster, my brothers, is that deep inside his heart there are no internal brakes. He has no self-control, and his ability to tolerate frustration is zero. If something does not happen now, at this very moment, exactly as he planned it, the whole world must turn upside down. He cannot restrain his impulses, he erupts excessively, screams, rages, and is flooded with toxic emotions, simply because his heart never learned the secret of self-discipline and balance. When you meet such a person on the street or in synagogue, a boastful, domineering, selfish person who explodes over any nonsense and only seeks to control others, you are filled with anger. You say to yourself: “What a disgusting arrogant person! What an unbearable man!” But oh, Tatte Mamme, if you understood the bitter truth! This insane pride is not strength, it is only a mask of defense meant to cover deep fractures in the heart. The control he tries to gain over others by force is a cry from a child who in childhood felt completely invisible in a permissive home that set no boundaries, or alternatively, a child who suffocated under the iron rules of a harsh home and today simply kicks against everything so he will not feel helpless again. He behaves like a supreme king, but inside, very deep inside, he is a frightened slave to his own impulses.

Beyond the mechanisms we have seen, there are other deep and painful reasons in the soul that cause a person, when he grows up and becomes an adult, to behave in an abusive, harmful, and cruel way toward those around him. These are two more destructive paths in which the wounds of the past generate outward aggression:

1. The mask of shame: trampling others so they will not see the flaw

Some people walk around the world with a subconscious, deep, and penetrating belief: “I am flawed. I am bad, inferior, and no one will love me if they find out who I really am.” Their heart is run by constant shame, terrible insecurity, and a pathological hypersensitivity to even the slightest criticism, accusation, or rejection. So what does the soul do in order to survive and not feel that defect? It simply attacks! To get ahead of the pain and escape the feeling that he is not okay, this person begins to mock others, to deliver venomous criticism at everyone, and to present himself as the most successful, most perfect, and best man. His cruelty is only an armored shield designed to hide a soul that is terrified people will discover how small and inferior it feels.

2. The punitive whip: when mistakes were forbidden at home

These difficult feelings sometimes come from an extremely rigid and demanding home. A home where everything was measured only by achievements, status, and grades, and there was simply no room for mistakes. In such a home, the child’s peace of mind is completely sacrificed on the altar of perfection. As a result of this educational hell, the child grows up and develops a cruel and rigid belief: “Mistakes must be paid for. People should be punished severely for every slip-up!” The moment someone around him does not meet his expectations, this schema ignites like a wildfire. He becomes, in an instant, angry, intolerant, and domineering. He treats himself, but mainly those around him, in a strict, harsh, and punitive way, without a drop of flexibility or understanding. For him, punishment and force are the only language he knows from home.

Emotional therapist Mordechai Rot (Credit: Reuven Chayon)

This article is dedicated to you, those people whose fate everyone has already decided. Those who were labeled only as “bad,” as self-interested and cruel, without checking what is really happening inside. Know this, my dear brothers, this world is not black and white. There is complexity in the world, and there is immense, bleeding pain that ultimately gives birth to evil on the outside. And again I warn in the strongest terms: never, but never, let a person abuse you or hurt you! Protect yourselves at all costs! The duty of the hurting person is to get up, go get help, and heal the wounds of his past so that he stops harming those around him.

But in a moment of reflection, when you encounter cruelty on the street or in the community, always remember: behind the most frightening and opaque mask, sometimes the loneliest and most wounded child in the world is crying. This article was written מתוך great pain and great caution. Deep pain for those children who were hurt once, in the midst of childhood, and today are bleeding on the people closest to them, on their family members and those around them. Terrible pain for the victims themselves, and for the cruel wheel of harm that never stops turning and crushing souls. And at the same time, great caution, to shout and remind every person in the world: you must not under any circumstances let anyone hurt you! Protect yourselves at all costs.

I call from here on all of us: let us stop this painful chain together. Let us put an end to the bleeding intergenerational transfer, and bring compassion, protection, and true healing into the world. And always remember again: behind the most frightening and opaque mask, sometimes the loneliest and most wounded child in the world is crying. >> To the full magazine, click here

I wish you, dear brothers and holy souls, a Shabbat Shalom! A Shabbat of love, a Shabbat of deep faith. “May we pray and merit to see the painful root of things, and understand that much of the evil we encounter in the world is actually broken inner pain that was not treated in time, and may we always know, from a place of health and self-protection, to judge the entire world favorably.” For responses: machon.rot@gmail.com