Parts Theory and the Promised Land

Gowan Batist - 08/09/2025
Parshah: Vaetchanan

Who here has heard of parts theory? Raise your hand? It’s also sometimes called internal family systems.

Our working definition is that parts therapy is a psychological framework where individuals are seen as having a multitude of “parts” within them rather than a single, unified self. This allows a therapist or individual working with this framework to explore dialogue between different internal voices and reactions, sometimes linked with developmental stages or life experiences.

Here’s how using this framework might look in practice:
A young child comes home from school, and yells “I never want to go to play group again!”
Parent: You seem very upset. What happened at the play group?
Kid: I tripped and all the kids laughed and Ben called me stupid
Parent: And you feel very angry, and never want to go to a play group again?
Kid: Yes
Parent: Lets sit here with your angry feeling for a minute, and think about what it is trying to tell you. You fell, and the other kids were mean, so you are angry. What is your anger saying about this situation?
Kid: That my friends shouldn’t call me stupid. If I don’t go back, they won’t be able to be mean again.
Parent: You’re right, they shouldn’t call you stupid. If you never go back to the play group, they won’t call you names, but you also won’t get to play. What could we do instead?
Kid: tell them they hurt my feelings and I don’t want them to call me stupid. We all fall sometimes.
Parent: Good idea, I will go with you if you want me to. Now that we’ve made the plan, let's say to your angry self “Thank you for protecting me, I have a plan now, you can go sit down”
Kid: “Thank you angry self for reminding me that my friends shouldn’t be mean. I have a plan now, you can go sit down.”
Parent: Great! Now let's go have dinner.

Feelings are real, valid expressions of our inner life, but their immediate conclusions are often not justified – and sometimes are even dangerous for ourselves and/or others. The role of the core inner self, the parent, the therapist, the teacher, and the Rabbi is to watch and observe all these parts and their reactions, and then make a considered, chosen path of action, not reaction. The most effective pathway to convince that part that’s having a big reaction to calm down is to validate, not deny or suppress. Hear that part out, listen for the need under the big reaction, and let that part know you’ve got it from here.

That’s what the mommy bloggers say, anyway.

If we extend this theory as a lens for reading Torah, all the characters in a particular story can be seen as representing aspects of ourselves, or as representations of the one person/people Yisrael. This can be a really interesting way to read the Torah- what if a story about a person arguing with God is read as a fully internal dialogue, a conflict between parts of the self that are loving and resentful, merciful and impatient, wise and doubting.

Where we find ourselves in Deuteronomy this week, Moshe represents the part of us as a people who had the skills to help us get through a traumatic situation. Slavery, oppression, the plagues, wandering in the desert: there was plenty of hardship to go around. And hardship changes a person; if you survive, you do so by adapting and learning coping strategies. Strategies like dissociation, hypervigilance, distrust and hoarding work to stay alive, but don’t work to create a good life.

The problem is that these same parts that keep us alive can keep us from thriving.

Like fear of the other.
Tribalism is a strategy that can help keep you alive in a hostile environment.
But… It also keeps you from loving your neighbors.

Moshe helped us through the plagues, through the desert. He led with strategies like, paint your doorposts with blood so your firstborn will be spared while everyone else’s children die. It’s pretty harsh. So is stoning idolaters and tearing down other nations’ temples. Moshe was shaped by the very potent forces of privilege and persecution, and he brought the skillset life taught him into his life’s work- escaping and surviving in the desert. However, should someone who is the right leader for that experience be expected to know how to thrive in a time of peace? Is he the leader we should be following, here and now?

Moshe can’t change. He is who he is. He is our internal survivor. We can thank him for keeping him alive, ask him for his wisdom, but then, crucially, choose which pieces to bring with us into the promised land- which could be a way of conceptualizing an emotionally safe, healthy inner life.

The new school approach in Parts Therapy is to listen to that part of you that survived, learn what you can, and then say thank you and goodbye to those parts which no longer serve you.

That’s exactly what the Israelites do with Moshe- gather around, listen to what he has to teach us, and then say goodbye. It’s very modern, mommy bloggers in 2025 are teaching this to their toddlers. It’s a shockingly contemporary approach to handling trauma, spelled out for us in the Torah.

One of the ways I approach difficult Torah portions, especially the bits that are explicitly violent and xenophobic, is to think of the Torah as the genetic code of our people. One person, the People Israel. A genetic code contains every possible trait of the ancestors who came before us, but not every trait is expressed, or “turned on.” There is a role for nurture as well as nature, that chooses which traits come forth.

We have ancestors who survived by being generous and those who survived by being selfish. Ancestors who were warriors and peacemakers, cowards and heroes. Their voices are all there, they all served a function and are part of what brought us to this moment. In our time we get to choose which voices will direct our current actions and create the world our children will inherit.

The Torah is very clear that in the promised land, we can’t bring with us the survival traits we needed in order to arrive at its borders. Moses (and what he represents, the previous generation) is explicitly not allowed to enter the land of milk and honey.

It’s scary and a leap of faith to let go of the skills we needed. We are currently, in the year 5785, still using the skills of violence and destruction, fear and othering. We need to set those down and say goodbye if we are to enter the promised land.

This portion is bleak, talking about orchestrating the total destruction of the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The “G” word comes to mind. The Torah says Adonai will dislodge these peoples from their lands to make room for the Israelites. (Historical evidence suggests that this physical warfare never happened, that large scale disease decimated these peoples- but no matter.) Moshe commands them to tear down their sacred places, and “doom them to destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter.” This is the kind of thinking you need to survive as a smaller military force – it also happens to help against plagues. You strike first before you can be wiped out yourself.

This is still the kind of thinking Jews in many parts of the world cling to, as a survival strategy. It works, but at great cost. Ultimately, Moshe was not allowed into the promised land, and we cannot truly enter it either, as long as we cling to this strategy.

However, how we let go matters. If we try to brutally suppress the parts of ourselves we don’t like, or deny, avoid, or shut down out of shame, we will never be able to escape them. We can’t release parts of ourselves created as an adaptation to harsh conditions by being harsh with ourselves. They will never believe that they are no longer needed that way.

How could we “gentle parent” the Patriarchs? Beneath the violent instructions Moshe gives there is a legitimate fear of being assimilated into or oppressed by a larger population, of losing the hard won freedom and cultural differentiation that was the project of his life. Can we address that fear in a positive way? What if we say to our inner Moshe, “No, we are not going to kill everybody who isn’t like us. We’re also gonna intermarry with them if we want to, too. However, we hear your fear, and we will respond to it in a healthy way. We will exist and thrive and have cultural continuity, just not how you imagined. We will do it by loving our culture, telling and writing down our stories, creating rituals and celebrations, and committing to loving each other. I know you’re afraid for us, and the next couple thousand years are going to have some really hard times, but if we want to be in the promised land, we need to use a new set of tools. So thanks for the suggestions, (I know you meant them to be commandments) but no thanks. God said you can’t go any further, so we need to find our own way from here.” Then we can put those tools away, or change what they do. Like beating swords into ploughshares.

Are there parts of you that are using tools that are no longer serving you?

This weekend is about loving the world unconditionally, and part of that is loving our Selves unconditionally. If the Torah is the cultural DNA of our people, it contains the good, bad, and ugly parts. We don’t just read the warm and fuzzy sections. We don’t just focus on the qualities we like about ourselves. We try to learn and love every part, while choosing which ones we let lead at the proper times.

After all, Torah is not one voice, but many singers in a chorus- including the scribes who wrote it down, every line of commentary, and, finally, ours- the readers. We are characters in this story, too. Our interpretations and choices matter.


Sometimes there is a tension between the part of ourselves who want to be good descendents and follow in the footsteps of those who came before, and the part of ourselves who want to be good ancestors and lead in new ways. We get to choose.

We can lovingly listen, learn, and then ultimately to those strategies that no longer serve us, we can say:
Thank you and goodbye, you can’t cross the river with me.