THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, May 21, 1982

'Judaism, Psychoanalysis'

By ALLEN A. WARSEN

"Judaism
and
Psychoanalysis," edited by
Dr. Mortimer Ostow (Ktav),
is an impressive collection
of essays written by well-
known psychoanalysts.
Dr. Ostow commences his
leading essay by quoting
Sigmund Freud's letter to a
Christian clergyman whom
he asks: "Why was it that
none of all the pious ever
discovered psychoanalysis?
Why did it have to wait for a
completely godless Jew?"
Though Dr. Ostow con-
:rs Freud's questions
'1.–,Nocative, yet he too asks:
"Why indeed was it an un-
believing Jew who dis-
covered and Jews who em-
braced it? Was it just a for-
tuitous association, or is
there a true connection be-
tween Jewishness and
psychoanalysis?"

Dr. Ostow devotes a
part of his essay to an
examination of the rela-
tionship
between
Judaism
and
psychoanalysis and con-
siders some of the areas
in which both relate to
each other.

He points out that the
rabbis always stressed the
importance of knowledge
and religious Jews pray
daily for "knowledge,
understanding and judg-
ment." Similarly,
psychoanalysis "teaches,
that relief from neurosis can
be achieved by acquiring
knowledge about oneself."
Second, he stresses, that
by means of psychoanalytic
techniques it is possible to
attain "universal princi-
ples." Likewise, the Jewish
mystics in their pursuit of
universal principles aspire
to achieve transcendental
goals.

In Jewish history, Dr.
Ostow writes, there have
been mystics and mystical
movements since ancient
times. Many of the Tal-
mudic rabbis engaged in
speculative thinking. The
"Zohar" is the classic text of
Jewish mysticism. Lurianic
Kabalism of the 16th Cen-
tury and Hasidism since the
18th Century have sought
to transcend empirical
reality.

In addition, Dr. Ostow
compares psychoanaly-
tic techniques of inter-
preting human behavior
with rabbinical methods
of biblical exegesis.
These methods are:
"First, one ascertains the
plain meaning of the text
(p'shat). Second, one
find in the text, or
east read into it, hints
of alternative, implied
meanings (remez). For
example, one could treat
a word of the text as an
abbreviation for a phrase
(i.e. as an acronym) or as
a combination of words
(notarikon).

>o

"Third, one could abstract
from the text a homiletic
meaning (drash).". Fourth,
the Jewish mystics provided
an added technique of find-
ing esoteric meanings
(sodot) in biblical ex-
pressions or letters.

The balance of Dr. Os-
tow's essay is devoted to an
evaluation of the early
Jewish psychoanalysts.
Their writings on Jewish
themes, he points out, re-
flected ignorance and am-
bivalence of Jewish reli-
gion, culture, history and
people.
Outstanding
psychoanalysts like T. Reik
and K. Abraham exhibited
in their so called Jewish
studies "a fragmentary
knowledge of Judaism they
had picked up in their
youth."

Freud, as Dr. Gerson D.
Cohen has proved, knew
a great deal about
Judaism, but his attitude
toward Jews and their in-
tellectual accom-
plishments was ambiva-
lent.

Nevertheless,
when
Freud fled Vienna in 1938,
he compared himself to
Rabbi Johanan Ben-
Zakkai. E. Jones, in his
famous biography "Sig-
mund Feud: Life and
Work," recorded: "Freud ob-
served, `Johanan Ben-
Zakkai asked for permis-
sion to open a school for the
study of the Torah. We are
going to do the same. We
are, after all, used to perse-
cution by our history, tradi-
tion and some of us by per-
sonal experience.' "
Martin S. Bergman's es-
say, "Moses and the Evolu-
tion of Freud's Jewish Iden-
tity," explores the Jewish
background of the founder
of psychoanalysis and his
attitude toward Judaism.
Dr. Bergman begins his
essay by recording certain
events in the life of Freud.
He notes that Freud's fam-
ily came from the small
Galician town of Buczacz,
the birth-place of S. J. Ag-
non, the Hebrew writer and
Nobel Prize winner.

Spirit. Since then I have
preserved the same Bible.
Now, on your 35th birthday,
I have brought it out from
its retirement and I send it
to you as a token from their
old father."

SPECIAL
9-DAY
EVENT

Though Freud was an
unbeliever, according to
E. Jones he never con-
templated conversion to
Christianity.

"There was one area,"
writes Bergman, "of Jewish
life that Freud knew and
loved, that was the Jewish
joke." He, moreover, was
fascinated throughout,most
of his adult life with Moses,
the great liberator.
Profound is Bergman's
concluding paragraph: "The
Midrash somewhere con=
tains a story in which the
Angel of Death has come to
take the soul of Moses. But
Moses commands the Angel
of Death to wait outside the
tent, until he is finished
writing the Pentateuch.
One can imagine Freud, too,
holding the Angel of Death"
at bay until he completed
"Moses and Monotheism."
Dr. Leonard R. Sillman in
his essay "Montheism and
the Sense of Reality" states,
"According to Genesis, the
Jews were differentiated
from the rest of mankind by
virtue of Abraham's pact
with God. This pact was
made because Abraham
wanted a son by the woman
he loved, Sarah."

This ideal of love, the
author continues, be-
came sanctified in
Jewish religion. Con-
sequently, the father be-
came- the protector of the
family and provided his
children with "greater
security through grow-
ing up."

In contrast, Sillman
points out, in the ancient
world, the fathers, like the
tyrants throughout the
Freud was born on ages, had the powers of life
"Rosh Hodesh Iyar, and death over their chil-
5116" and was given the dren. It is an historic fact
name Shlomo. In his that child exposure among
youth; he studied He- peoples of antiquity was
brew and Jewish history.
common, a practice that re-
As he grew older, he flected "an attitude of hospi-
joined the Vienna Bnai taly towrd the child."
Brith and married
Insightful is this state-
Martha Bernays, the ment: ". . . monotheism
daughter of a rabbi in helped develop the pre-
Hamburg.
conscious function of com-
His father, Jacob, a munication between ideas
"maskil" (an enlightened and thereby acted to
Jew), was a traveling mer- enhance the intelligence of
chant. On Sigmund's birth-
the believers."
day, Jacob wrote him thig-
Similarly, the belief in a
letter:
God of righteous
"My dear son,
"It was the seventh year strengthened the believers'
of your age that the spirit of moral sense.
These qualities, undoub-
God began to move you to
tedly,
were determining
learning. I would say the
spirit of God speaketh to factors that contributed to
you: 'Read My Book; there the survival of the Jewish
will be opened to thee people.
sources of knowledge and of
Inspiring Act
the intellect.' It is the Book
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"Thou has seen in this deals and its optimism so
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thou has done cording to Ivan Novick,
and hast tried to fly high president of the Zionist
upon the wings of the Holy Organization of America.

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