The Parting of the Ways (Psychoanalysis and Jewish Life) by Kradin Richard

Author:Kradin, Richard [Kradin, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Published: 2019-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

1. ​ There is a famous experiment in which a subject is asked to report when he is about to move a limb, while the muscles and the brain are monitored for electrical activity. What has been demonstrated is that the muscles and brain are activated before the subject claims any awareness of a motivation to move. This experiment raises profound questions concerning mechanisms of free will.

2. ​ Mystical experiences in Judaism are particularly hard to characterize. Scholem argued that Judaism proscribed experiences of full union with the divine (i.e., the unio mystica ). However, Moshe Idel has argued against this notion and Dov Ber of Lubavitch’s detailed treatise includes reference to a complete loss of any conscious awareness at the height of the mystical experience, even that of ecstasy.

3. ​ The great scholar of Hasidism, Louis Jacobs, suggests that one must be careful in attributing the idea of unio mystica to the early tzaddikim , as it may be difficult to distinguish psychological connotation from the theosophical ones of the kabbalists. Louis Jacobs, Their Heads in Heaven (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2005). In the case of the Maggid of Mezyritch, R. Solomon of Lutzk recorded his experiences of unio mystica . However, variants of the Maggid’s teachings, in this case the phrase “Make thee two trumpets ( hatzotzerot ) of silver” of Numbers 10:2 was reported by R. Israel of Kosnitz, another disciple of the Maggid , as referring to the coniunctio between k’lal Yisroel and the sefira Malchut , and not with En Sof.

4. ​ There is a small cottage research industry that is investigating the neurobiology of mystical experience, although few consistent results have been generated. Eugene D’Aquilo and Andrew Newberg in the Mystical Mind (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999) suggested that mystical experience is conditioned as a progressive de-afferentiation of consciousness, so that sensory input is progressively and actively inhibited, resulting in states of consciousness that lack content.

5. ​ I am editing this chapter while in Jerusalem in July 2014, during Israel’s war with Gaza, which was initiated by unprovoked missile attacks on the State of Israel, by the terrorist organization Hamas, which has repeatedly stated a policy of aiming to annihilate Jews and Israel. This unprovoked attack on civilians engendered a measured but lethal response by Israel. Several truces have been violated by Hamas since the beginning of the war. Yet much of the civilized world, fueled by disturbing images of war televised by the press, while accepting Israel’s right to defend itself, has once again condemned it for brutality. How exactly this differs from the Augustinian dogma concerning the Jews (i.e., they can defend themselves but are not allowed to win) is unclear to me.

6. ​ Aharon ha Levi was a companion of Schneur Zalman’s son, Dov Ber. He split with Chabad in order to start his own branch of Hasidism, which he claimed was closer in philosophy to the Alter Rebbe’s than what was taught by Dov Ber. However, the group did not prosper and is no longer extant.

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