Betrayal is one of the oldest and most serious hurts we inflict upon each other. Dante, for example, relegated betrayers to the lowest and coldest regions of Hell, to be forever frozen up to their necks in a lake of ice. But, as awful as betrayal is, there are ways to recover from it and move forward successfully.
Who among us has not experienced some measure of betrayal? It may not have been epic in scope or devastating in its hurt, but it probably felt quite real just the same – the disappointment, the hurt, the loss of trust, the feelings of vulnerability. And while we don’t typically like to admit it, most of us have probably been the betrayer at some point too. Believe it or not though, appreciating that fact is actually one of the first steps in recovering from being betrayed.
However shattered and hurt we feel, the script of our lives is ours to rewrite.
The ones who betrayed us are not monsters, and we need not see them as such. After all, who needs more monsters in their life? Nor were we foolish or na?ve to have missed a traitor’s capacity for betrayal. That same duplicitous capacity is in us, and has probably been practiced by us. So rather than make the typical and debilitating move to seeing how different the betrayer and the betrayed are, we can start by recognizing, without making excuses for anyone, how much we share.
It also bears remembering that only the people with whom we’ve felt (or assumed) a strong bond of trust can truly betray us. And we should not forget that it’s because they were, and may still be, so worthy of our love and/or trust that they had the power to hurt us.
Of course, strong feelings of rage and even revenge are real, perhaps necessary, parts of dealing with betrayal. The wishful hope to see the scales rebalanced is genuine and, for the most part, healthy. The sense that there are consequences when we’ve been hurt – that there’s some kind of justice in the world, whether there is or not – is part of what keeps us going as humans.
Things get shattered in the wake of betrayal, some of them irreparably. But however shattered and hurt we feel, the script of our lives is always ours to rewrite. And going forward, the rewritten version can be every bit as good as the old one. Not the same, as we are not the same person in a sense, but just as good.
That’s what recovery is all about. We can literally re-cover. We can decide to re-wrap or re-structure our lives in new ways – to put our story between new covers and in a new context. We do so because we realize that our re-covered lives will still continue providing us all the trust and success and joy we hope for, or at least we won’t necessarily experience any less joy by virtue of the betrayals we’ve experienced.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”