Seeing oneself as a victim is a choice
W
riting here recently about self-styled victimhood got me thinking about its ancient pedigree. Victimizer casting himself as victim is a mode of behavior we encounter in the Torah itself.
The first self-conceived victim we come across, in parshas Vayeira, is Avimelech, king of Gerar. After he faces Divine wrath for his abduction of Sarah, he complains self-righteously to G-d: “Will You kill even a righteous nation?! Didn’t [Avraham] tell me [Sarah] was his sister, and didn’t she, too, tell me he was her brother? I did this with an innocent heart and clean hands!”
To his mind, Avimelech is just a hapless victim of others’ conniving moves. Even after Hashem tells him his hands aren’t quite squeaky clean, Avimelech summons Avraham and laces into him indignantly (Bereishis 20:9): “What have you done to us and how have I sinned to you, that you’ve brought upon me and my kingdom a great sin; things that are not to be done you’ve done to me.”
The next verse (verse 10) continues, “And Avimelech said to Avraham, what did you see, that led you to do this?” In my sefer Matamei Mordechai, I note how strange it is that this pasuk, coming in the midst of Avimelech’s tirade, begins with “And Avimelech said to Avraham…” as if he has just now begun to speak. And what is it, anyway, that he’s adding with the words “what did you see, that led you to do this?” Hadn’t he already just said that in the previous pasuk?
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