|
“MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE
THEM”: Love and the symbols of love in
the Jewish Scriptures A Jungian Perspective
GUSTAV DREIFUSS TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction
Part I. The
Jewish people in the modern age Part II. Symbols
of conjunction in creation (birth) and destruction (death) Part III.
Sexuality and love Part
IV. Appendix 1
Circumcision, sex and love 2 The Song
of Songs Acknowledgments
Notes Afterword INTRODUCTION I belong to
the generation, which knew Jung personally. During my years of study at the
Jung Institute in During my
training and also in my personal analysis in It is not
the purpose of this book to explore the implications that such differences
may have had for the successive development of both Judaism and Christianity,
nonetheless, a comparison between the two myths serves to show, in addition
to many obvious points of contact, certain significant differences: Jewish Myth
Christian Myth Abraham, son
of Terah Jesus, “son” of
God, wholly human half
human, half divine. God requests
the sacrifice of God sacrifices Abraham's
son his own son but then
relents through but then
resurrects him in heaven Isaac
marries and becomes a Jesus,
unmarried, heavenly, father has no ‘normal' human life. From my
point of view, the essential difference lies in the fact that the son of God
is sacrificed and killed, while the son of Abraham is spared.(2) In the Christian myth the Lamb is sacrificed, while
in the Jewish myth, the lamb (Isaac) is spared and the ram is sacrificed in
his stead. Jung's work
on religion is of an undeniable Christian, (3) and Christianity discriminates
between the Old and New Testaments, considering the latter the substitution
and completion of the former. From the Christian point of view the themes of
the Old Testament are seen as prefiguration of themes and events of the New
Testament and are given no intrinsic value outside of this. In addition,
Christianity takes no account of the post-biblical developments of Jewish
culture, the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the Kabbalah. (4) From the
first article I wrote on Circumcision, (5) the main object of my writings has
been to look at Judaism from a Jungian perspective. I have also used my
writings to reflect on the fate of the Jewish people, on its long suffering
through the centuries, culminating in the Holocaust. I have wondered what
consequences this tragic event of the 20th century has had on me, on the
Jewish people and on Judaism as a whole. My image of
a benevolent and merciful God-the-Father has been shattered. (I cannot
accept, and I find quite repulsive, the orthodox interpretation which sees
the Jews as being punished for not having respected or followed strictly
enough the commandments.) However, now that I have settled in the It is my
belief that we must accept the mystery of the creation and see the Biblical
creation story as a patriarchal myth. In a new myth both sexes would be the
creators: an archetypal father and mother, as “world parents”. This would
give a suitable recognition and expression of the female principle in the new
millennium. PART I THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE MODERN AGE Religion in the World Today In the
contemporary Western world, most people find themselves with no means of
maintaining contact with the human soul, since religion, for the majority, is
no longer able to be the expression of the soul. Judaism
offers models, which vary according to their various expressions, be they
orthodox, conservative, liberal or reform. These are models and rituals,
which give sense to life. Anyone who takes part in a ritual achieves a
connection to the archetypes, most particularly to the Self, and is in some
way anchored to the transcendental, to the life beyond. We may take as an
example the ritual of the Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in the Jewish
religion. These festivities, when Jews repent for sins committed, both
against their fellows and against God, and ask pardon and redemption for
them, represent a day of soul-searching on both the individual and the
collective level. However, we
should not forget that, from the psychological point of view, the life of an
individual who identifies himself or herself in an
institutional religion is a life which is to a certain extent unquestioning,
accepting, a life which is devoid of or contains very little awareness. The
believer remains unconscious and being unconscious means taking life as it
is, independently of belonging or not to an organized religion. On the other
hand, it would seem that it is precisely because of the increasingly minor
influence of traditional religions that our present culture is experiencing a
progressive accentuation of material values which, at the psychological
level, may be seen as the expression of a lack of spiritual values. In such a
materialistic culture, the relationship with the life beyond, with the
infinite, is necessarily weakened or lost. An individual who does not belong
to an organized religion and thus takes no part in any kind of religious
ritual is left with no way of entering into relation with the divine. Jung
himself poses the essence of the problem: “The
decisive question for man is is he related to something infinite, or not?
That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing
which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon
futility, and upon all kind of goals which are not of real importance. If we
understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the
infinite, desires and attitudes change.” (9) In Jungian
analysis, the relationship with the infinite, the beyond, with the collective
unconscious is set up by means of the symbols which appear in dreams and in
the active imagination and which transform the personality. Thus, even
those who no longer take part in the rituals can maintain their own
religiousness outside of the organized religion. For paying attention to
dreams, thus renewing contact with the unconscious, with the Self, is itself
a religious attitude, an experience of the transcendental, of God, even
though it is something, which is absolutely personal. I feel that
we can find an explanation for the ever-increasing interest in mysticism
which has occurred over the last few decades and the growth throughout the
world of a particular type of religious groups, many of which draw their
inspiration from eastern religions, in the archetype of the Self. People are
looking for deeper meanings, for the mystic experience. For meditation offers
a personal experience of the transcendental and the mystery of life. Our world is
in transformation, and important and far-reaching changes are occurring in
the collective conscious, among which it is significant to isolate the growth
of female values. In this world the concept of a God-the-father has become
obsolete. This change in consciousness and renewed awareness of female values
may be seen even in the now widespread practice of using both male and female
pronouns and subjects rather than generalizing by means of the (so-called
neuter) male subject as was current even only a few years ago. We must
therefore extend this awareness and give new definitions also to the concept
of God. In the transpersonal or archetypal sphere we must talk about
God/Goddess, or about world parents or world creators. (10) However,
even these definitions are human creations, stemming from our imagination.
The mystery of life remains whether we choose to call it vital energy, cosmic
energy or élan vital, in
Bergson's definition, or the "transcendental Self" in Jung's
terminology, or even En-Sof (the
Infinite), to use a term from the Kabbalah. Another
important point, which should not be ignored when considering the divine
image, is that which in Jungian terminology is called the integration of the
shadow. (11) When traditional religion talks about a benevolent God, it
ignores Evil (or a malevolent God). Even though the Bible states that God
created both good and evil, that God gives both life and death, what is most
generally emphasized is the good side of God. The dark side of the divine,
its shadow, symbolized by Satan, is not integrated into the commonly accepted
divine image. Everything that is evil or destructive is generally attributed
to humankind, or to Satan, considered as a separate entity from God. (12)
Very often too, the dark side tends to be connected to women and to the
earth. In precisely
the same way that at the individual level an awareness of one's dark side is
essential, so too in the world of archetypes is a reintegration of the dark
side, of evil, in the divine image. The concept of a solely benevolent, good
God is no longer sufficient, for such an image can provide no answer to the
problem of the origins of evil. Is there a Jewish Psychology? There is
absolutely no doubt that a Jewish psychology exists. The Jewish people has
not become Christian, it has continued to exist after the expulsion from the It seems
essential to ask ourselves just what this typical Jewish psychology is, and
whether or not there is any sufficient difference in this respect between an
Israeli Jew and a Jew still living in the Diaspora. Jews who live outside of As a symbol,
Many Jews
feel dissatisfied with the way in which traditional rituals are practiced,
yet they nonetheless retain a deep need to remain in contact with the Jewish
spirit. The Jewish legacy lives on in the psyche. Even the large percentages
of Jews who cannot identify themselves in any of the official Jewish
religious persuasions nonetheless feel the need for an individual religious
experience. Along with
the above-mentioned recent development of interest in mysticism as a whole
and in eastern religions in particular, there has also been a great renewal
of interest in Jewish mysticism, especially among the secular Jews. It is my
belief that the very fact of living in the Bible lands has re-awakened the
Jewish mystical soul, as though the "earth" had aroused in many
Jews the need to embrace a new-old way of drawing near to the
"spirit". The Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism) is now studied widely
throughout With respect
to the problem of the female principle and to sexuality, which make up the
main concerns of this study, we can state the following: from a psychological
point of view, traditional Judaism contains two contradictory aspects. On one
side there is a deeply rooted fear of the female element, while on the other
there exists a fascination with the female element such as to seek to
re-introduce the female principle into the image of God, or to re-absorb it
into the Self. It should not be forgotten, after all, that in the early
centuries of the exile the divine image became charged with female symbols,
through the appearance of the figure of the Shekhinah, and of Rachel, the
mother weeping for her lost children (Jer.
31:15). However, in
Talmudic literature the Shekhinah is never seen as a female symbol, but
merely as the aspect of God present in a particular place and in a particular
event. It is the Dwelling, the Abode, as the name indicates, the divine
Presence. (13) As a Jungian
analyst, I feel that psychology can offer us a new way of understanding the
divine. We must give new meanings to the religious texts and to the ancient
traditions. It is my personal view that Judaism is suffering from an
inability to renew it and that its main problem is the rigid nature of
Orthodox belief and behavior, together with the lack of new myths. It may be
that orthodoxy, the rigid observance of the law and the sense of belonging to
the Jewish community represents a kind of protection from the danger of being
overcome by the unconscious. This notwithstanding, orthodoxy also prevents
any kind of transformation of halakhic norms. I feel that
the most strictly patriarchal Judaism could usefully renew itself through the
adoption of matriarchal, or rather, female, values in a new form of vital
partnership. In place of God-the-Father of law, order and rationality, we
could see the creators of the world as parents, both father and mother, God
and Shekhinah, Animus and Anima. Female values, especially the openness to
transformation, could lead Judaism out of a sterile, static situation towards
a new, dynamic, fertile state of renewal and re-birth. The Jewish Psyche and the Significance of the Land. In order to
understand the special nature of the contemporary Jewish religious experience,
it is in my view necessary to consider in more depth the psychological
significance for the Jewish people of the return to the Homeland, which goes
beyond the purely political significance of this achievement. The Jewish
people lived for two thousand years in dispersion, far away from the biblical
homelands. Uprooted in this way, the separation caused an exaggerated
valuation of the intellect and the spirit in the Jews. Although the Jewish
tradition maintained traces of a female aspect in the divine image, the
Motherland, and in a wider sense, the maternal female principle, was not
perhaps given the importance it deserved. There is a
deep link between the Bible and the The return
(spiritual) of the Jewish people to the biblical lands corresponds in the
(heavenly) world of archetypes to the union of God with the Shekhinah, a
symbol that represents the male/female transcendental metaphysical reality.
"...The symbols make the irrational union of opposites possible".
(15) In the kabalistic symbol of the union of God with the Shekhinah, the
female principle, the Mother, is elevated to the level of the male principle,
the Father. However, the
point should not be ignored that this elevation of the "earthly"
female principle brings with it the risk of being overcome by the archetype
of the Mother, of the In the The human
individual stands between the opposite of spirit and matter, between the
archetypes of the Father and the Mother. Whenever an archetype is
constellated, there comes with it the risk of being overcome by it. It is
essential to seek an intermediary position between the two extremes and an
awareness, which can give the just expression to both, though admittedly this
is a task that is by no means easy to achieve. One must learn to transform
passion into compassion. Conclusion Even though As far as my
own position is concerned, as a psycho-analyst working in At the collective level, the Anthropos,
primordial man, may serve as an appropriate symbol for the common origin of
the entire human race and in which the entire human race is united in a sense
of communion and unity (Gefuehlszusammenhang).
(16) Jung
nonetheless believed that there are cultural differences between different
peoples, brought about by the various historical processes responsible for so
many variations in language, modes of behavior, religious and economic
development and social concepts of justice. However, at the base of all human
development lies the primary energy, that is, the collective unconscious and
the archetypes. Even though
there are considerable differences in the concept of Messianism held by the
Jewish and Christian religions, from the point of view of Jungian psychology
the Messiah operates as a psychic conception, an archetype. The realization
of the messianic idea is inherent in the process of individuation. In
individual psychological development redemption is experienced whenever a
conflict is resolved or an individual reaches a deep, tranquil contact with
his or her inner being, thus attaining a state of readiness to face a new
conflict and a new redemption. PART II SYMBOLS OF CONJUNCTION IN CREATION (BIRTH) AND DESTRUCTION (DEATH) Creation From the
biological point of view, a man (male energy) and a woman (female energy)
create a child. The child represents the third element, the fruit of the
sexual union, of love and sex. In the Bible, however, the creator is God, a
male subject, the Father. "In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth" (Gen. 1:1). The
female element is not present. What we have is a patriarchal vision: God, the
male, the Father, is the unique creator, the Goddess, the female, the Mother
is missing. But this is the mystery of creation in patriarchal monotheism. Genesis If we
compare these two versions, we can see that they represent two very different
conceptions of the woman's position. In one version the woman is formed from
one of the man's ribs, while in the other God creates her in exactly the same
way as the man, at exactly the same level. The fact that both man and woman
are created in God's image implies that God is a being, which is both male and female, not simply male. This is the
interpretation given also in the Kabbalah: Male and female created he them. From this we
learn that every figure which does not comprise male and female elements is
not a true and proper [higher] figure ... (18) In his
comment on this portion of Genesis,
Kaplan states: "This clearly implies that male and female together form
the image of God", (19) and adds that the reason for this is clear since
a man and a woman are able to do that which is closest to God, that is,
create a life. "The power to conceive a child is so God-like that the
Talmud states that when a man and a woman create a child, God himself is
their third partner". It is
interesting to note that the Kabbalists interpretation and the Jungian
interpretation are here very similar, if not quite identical. The divine
image proposed by Kaplan is clearly that of God-the Father/Mother. By calling
God the third partner in the creation of a child, Kaplan alludes to the
mystery inherent in the creation of a child. This image
of a male/female divine being finds no expression in normative Judaism, but
many traces of it remain in Kabalistic sources. In Tiqqune Zohar, for
example, we can find this comment on Gen.
1:27: In His own image: It is concerning the soul that the Bible states, And God created
man in His own image, which means in the likeness of the Shekinah.
Moreover, it is with reference to man's soul that we read, Only because of
that image does man walk (Ps. 39,7), (20) for when the soul departs from man,
he can move no more.(21) A midrashic
tradition is also interesting in this context. A legend tells that "Man
and wife were at the beginning one flesh and two faces; then God sawed the
body into two bodies and made to each of them a back.(22) Moshe Idel
considers the concept of “du partzufim"-
the dual nature of the primordial man (Adam
Qadmon), the “higher” man to whom the first man, Adam ha-rishon, is the earthly
correspondent - with respect to a text by Rabad, (23) and emphasizes the
frequent presence of esoteric and sexual motifs in the theosophical Kabbalah.
Like Hurwitz,(25) Idel draws attention to the original bisexual nature of the
primordial man, who was later divided into two separate beings.(26) It seems
that the two divine attributes are regarded as corresponding to the bisexual
nature of primordial man. He was later divided into masculine and feminine
entities ... The first androgynous stage is obvious in the biblical story;
these two attributes seem to have existed on a higher level or on the divine
level prior to their separation. (27) What Idel
says is particularly significant from a psychological point of view, since
his affirmation of the bisexuality of Adam
Qadmon, the primordial man, logically implies the bisexuality of
the divine figure. (28) From a
different point of view, Jung writes: Mercurius is
the hermaphrodite par excellence. From all this it may be gathered that the
queen stands for the body and the King for the spirit, but that both are
unrelated without the soul, since this is the vinculum (bond) which holds them together. If no bond of
love exists, they have no soul. (29) Only the
bond between King and Queen, between God and Shekhinah, the vinculum that is also love and soul, can
create the hermaphrodite, a symbol of the integrated personality. Love and
soul are therefore the principle beyond God, or, in other words, God is love
and soul. God and the Shekhinah are linked by love and create the world and
human beings (male and female) at the archetypal level, while at the human
level, love creates the inner child and, of course, also the
"outer" child. Another
Jewish legend tells how "When Adam got up, his wife was still grown to
him, and the holy soul, which he had, was both his and his wife's. Then God
sawed the man into two parts and completed the wife and brought her complete
and well-built to Adam, just how one brings the bride to the
bridegroom". (30) Hoffman
speaks of the union of opposites when he writes, "the Kabbalists tell us
that the world is ultimately composed of a unity of apparent opposites".
(31) Qualities such as active-passive, male-female, light dark do in fact
seem separate and mutually exclusive in our normal sense of awareness.
However, the Kabbalah states that these qualities actually constitute a
unity. The Zohar provides us with an acute observation here: "Up to this
point the male principle was represented by light and the female by darkness;
subsequently they were joined together and made one. The difference by which
light is distinguished from darkness is by degree only; both are one in kind,
as there is no light without darkness and no darkness without
light."(32) According to another passage in the Zohar, which Jung
quotes, there may be distinguished in God (himself) both a male principle and
a female principle. (33) Here it is
essential to remember the important contribution given by Jung to our
understanding of the changes in the divine image, above all with respect to
the inclusion of the Goddess - the female archetype - into the image of an
all-inclusive God. Some scholars feel that the establishment of a male image
for the divinity can be explained in terms of resistance to the dominance of
the Great Mother: the male image for God was necessary for the development of
the conscious, given that the male God was identified with light. However, Jung
firmly recommends the need to reintegrate into the divinity the female
principle, which has been lost, in order to re-establish a divine image which
is both male and female. Destruction or Death Those of us
whom I would define as "modern individuals", who do not identify
themselves in a traditional religion and do not have an unconditioned
religious belief or faith, nonetheless need to find their own personal way of
coming to terms with death. None of us,
after all, can know what death is, but from the very beginning of recorded
history death has been a constant preoccupation of the human soul and
continues to be so even today. The mystery of death figures in all
mythologies of all peoples, in religion and in mysticism and in all forms of
art. It is precisely because death is an experience which goes beyond human
understanding that it is in myth and art that we find forms of expression of
death which are able to transcend simple rational explanation. Death
according to Jewish conception and Jungian psychology. In ancient Her house is
the way to the nether world, going down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7:27) The idea of She'ol was further elaborated until it
came to be seen as a sort of final resting place for the whole human race, as
may be seen from various passages in Ezechiel
(32), Isaiah (14)
and Job (30:32). It was
thought that the dead possessed a certain degree of self-awareness, the power
of speech and movement and a supernatural knowledge. The
prophetic vision later made a more careful distinction between the living and
the dead. Chapter 2 of Genesis seems
to be the basis for later ideas in which the soul continued to exist even after
death. Since Gen. 2:7 states
that "God breathed in his (man's) nostrils the breath of life, and he
became a living soul", in the same way it was believed that when breath
left the body, the soul continued to exist. The idea of an immortal soul gave
rise to various different ways of imagining the so-called "world to
come". Post-biblical Rabbinical literature connects this world sometimes
to the coming of the Messiah, to the final Redemption, to immortality or to
the Resurrection. At the
psychological level, therefore, even in Judaism the archetype of death and of
rebirth lies behind the belief in an immortal soul. There seems to be
something in the human individual, which cannot accept that death is the end
of life or that the death of the body is also the death of the soul. No
traveler has yet returned from to tell us what lies after death. Thus myths
and popular beliefs abound. Myths are
the way in which the soul formulates what cannot be rationally explained. The
imagination weaves a story around a mystery. However, when a myth is believed
in, it becomes "reality" and no longer a mere product of the
imagination. When many people believe in a myth, that myth becomes an
integral part of a religion. From the
psychological point of view, myths are archetypal images or motifs. Coming
into contact with physical death can be a highly painful process, but coming
to terms with the idea of death can reawaken the awareness of both our own
finiteness and the values of life. For Jung,
the archetype of death is both collective (eternal) and individual (temporal)
- this is the paradox of the archetype. Wherever there is life, there is also
death. When we try to understand the mystery of death we must also take into
consideration its opposite, life. We are dealing with the archetype of death
and of life, of death and of re-birth. This archetype inspires all fantasies
and beliefs in an immortal soul and in a life beyond death: eternal life of
the soul after the death of the body, metempsychosis or migration of souls, reincarnation
(Karma), re-birth, resurrection in messianic time, etc. There are
certain periods during our existence in which we go through the experience of
death (depression) and of the renewal of life. In his Psychology of Transference, Jung shows
how in the analytical process of transformation (individuation) there always
occurs a symbolic experience of death. The old personality, the old
attitudes, the infantile wishes die and give way to a new personality. This
kind of death which occurs during the process of inner growth is connected to
re-birth, that is, to the becoming a different individual. In this process we
experience the archetype of death and re-birth which forms the base for the
overcoming of fear of death in all religious faiths. The meeting
with the archetype of death can achieve a feeling of eternity,
it can connect us with the irrational side, with the immortality of the soul. Like life,
death is a mystery. The soul enters a child at birth and leaves the body at
the moment of death: the soul comes from the unknown, from God, and it is to
the unknown, to God, that it returns. The return
of the soul to its source at the moment of death is described by Jung as a
marriage, the wedding of the lamb.(34) In the `aqedah (the binding of Isaac), Isaac
himself represents the lamb and Abraham prepares the altar as though he were
preparing a wedding feast. While
Abraham was building the altar, Isaac kept handing him the wood and the
stones. Abraham was like to a man who builds the wedding house for his son,
and Isaac... was like to a man getting ready for the wedding feast, which he
does with joy. (35) In her Aurora Consurgens,(36) Marie-Louise Von
Franz relates how also in the Kabbalah death is sometimes described as an
experience of mystical marriage, and quotes from the Zohar that at the
funeral of Rabbi Shim'on bar Yohai, his disciples heard a voice saying:
"Come and assemble for the wedding of Rabbi Shim'on. May peace come and
may they rest on their encampments".(37) Jung
also refers to this episode when he discusses the idea that death can be seen
as a joyous event: "In the light of eternity, it is a wedding, a
mysterium coniunctionis",(38) for "basic to the antique
mysteries... is the identity of marriage and death on the one hand, and of
birth and of the eternal resurrection of life from death on the
other."(39) The
sensation of death is present at every significant passage of life. The
material event of death thus becomes a symbol of the real event of life, of
becoming, of transformation. Herzog states that the wedding aspect of death
in myth and legend is to be found above all in individuals who have reached a
high level of life-fulfillment and power, as though it were a kind of
exuberance into which the accomplishment of love is transformed.(40) Kaplan, quoting Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, recounts how
when the great saints felt their time coming, they would start to meditate so
deeply that they became one with God. They simply let their souls be carried
away from their bodies and died in a state of ecstasy that was called Neshikah, "death by the ‘Kiss of
God'."(41) The A poem by
the contemporary Israeli poet Mati Meged, "Song without
Consolation", stands as an example of how the archetype of death and
rebirth can be manifested in the ancient myth of the The Bird Hol arising ever anew from its
ashes knows neither
father nor mother. It only remembers the great fire that wiped out
all of its past. It has no consoler. Tonight I heard its voice once again as it broke open
its egg in pain. Naked it rose to heaven the flames
already scorching its wings. The Bird Hol bequeathed its offspring
nothing only the memory
of that cry. And the ashes. And the broken shell of the egg. But they will live forever with the fire
of its eyes rising to heaven again and again naked and returning with scorched hearts and
feathers. ( In
"Davar", 24th April 1974, trans. by Hanna Hoffmann) This is a
poem, which reflects the general mood of depression that overhung The Bird Hol
(`of ha-hol) is the Hebrew
equivalent of the classical Greek According to
the myth, when the phoenix feels the end of its life approaching, it builds a
nest of cinnamon twigs, sets fire to it and lets
itself be consumed by the flames. From its ashes a new phoenix arises, which
assumes different forms according to the various myths. According to one
version, the new phoenix is a fully formed bird,
according to another it has the form of a white worm. Once this new creature
becomes big and strong enough, it takes the corpse of its father, impregnated
with perfumes, and flies with it to Eliopolis, in There are
various Hebrew sources which mention the `of
ha-hol: Then I shall die with my nest and I shall
multiply my days as the (Job.
29:18) It lives a
thousand years, at the end of which a fire issues from its nest and burns it
up, yet as much as an egg is left, and it grows new limbs and lives again. R. Judan b.
R. Simon said: It lives a thousand years, at the end of which its body is
consumed and its wings drop off, yet as much as an egg is left, whereupon it
grows new limbs and lives again. (Bereshith Rabbah 54:9) Another
legend tells how all the animals accepted Eve's offer to them of the fruit of
the Tree of Knowledge, except one bird called Hol.(42) For this reason the bird
was not included in the verdict of death and mortality applied to all the
other animals and thus every thousand years the phoenix is renewed and
regains its youth. All the
different versions are linked by the basic theme of the phoenix which dies
and is renewed at long but regular intervals. At the
individual level, the phoenix can be seen as the immortal element of the
human soul; at the collective level, it corresponds to the Netzah Israel, an eternal element of the
soul of the Jewish people and of the human race which represents the idea of
the divinity. The images in which these elements of the soul are manifested
change with the historical development of awareness: each new stage of
development, both in the individual and in the collective soul, implies
crisis and suffering. As a male
bird linked to the Sun God, the phoenix forms part of the male principle,
that is, it belongs to the patriarchal world. It stands as a symbol of
immortality and eternal rejuvenation. The theme of
rebirth appears in the first lines of Mati Meged's poem. The tremendous
devastation on the The second
line, "knows neither father nor mother", shows that the phoenix is
alone, with neither parents nor family love, with no human relationships: it
is a Trans-human being. The third
line states "It remembers only the great fire". It is the fire,
which cancels the dimension of time and its past and collocates
it in an extra-temporal realm. The loss of memory indicates an event transcending
both the human and the temporal. The great fire is the war. Out of death
comes a new time which has no apparent relationship with the old one. It is a
new beginning, or a rebirth. The line
"It has no consoler" indicates the lack of the human dimension in
that terrible event, in other words, it reveals the God hidden in the Measure
of Judgement (middath ha-din)
rather then in the Measure of Mercy (middath
ha-rahamin). War is an event so powerful and overwhelming that it
tears from us our human relationships and brings us a vision of Trans-human
nature. "Tonight I heard its voice again/as it
broke open its egg in pain". The symbol
of the phoenix resurfaces in the poet's imagination; symbols appear when
reason is unable to grasp the events happening around us. Even the lines
"The Bird Hol bequeathed its offspring nothing/only the memory of that
cry" reveal the numinous, archetypal, nature of an event which
transcends human understanding. Nonetheless, something remains,
the memory of the cry, the great, indelible cry of pain which gives
expression to the sense of impotence and confusion which humans feel in the
face of strokes of ill fortune. The final
section of the poem tells us that death and destruction may continue to be
repeated, but that we shall continue to live forever, even though naked and
helpless. Mati Meged's
poem presents us with a blend of personal and impersonal reactions and
feelings set in motion by the catastrophe of October 1973. In it, the war is
seen as a numinous event, which evokes the image of the phoenix, thus
expressing the idea that the war signifies the end of an epoch and the
beginning of another. The message the phoenix leaves to its descendants -
humanity - is that every renewal implies suffering and destruction and that
humankind must continually be aware of this cruel reality. Each new stage of
consciousness brings with it the seeds of destruction, the scorching "of
heart and feathers". The PART III SEXUALITY AND LOVE The Spiritual Dimension
of Sexuality Sexuality
seems to have become a central concern of our present society, as may be seen
from films, literature, pornographic magazines and video films and the
proliferation of "sex shops". This would seem to be a reaction
against the centuries-long regression, which has characterized the Western
Christian world with regard to sex and the consequent association of sex and
sin. In such a context, the body is considered to be inferior to the spirit
and sexuality is associated only with physical pleasure and lust. Sex is
therefore seen “only” as an instinct, as a kind of involuntary drive towards
sexual activity as in the animal world. However, according to Jung's
perspective, (43) instinct is similar to transcendental-origin archetypes and
therefore sex contains a spiritual dimension, even if the participants remain
totally unaware of this. It may be stated that, usually, sexuality is
experienced unconsciously and there is very little awareness of its spiritual
or symbolic significance. According to
Liliane Frey-Rohn, "Sexuality could become the material for
transformation, the starting point of a renewal of the personality, provided
that the individual recognized its value in connection with the depth of the
psyche ...".(44) When we talk about sexuality
we must not forget certain basic human needs such as physical closeness,
warmth, being emotionally close to someone and thus no longer isolated,
feeling and touching another person and being touched. Both eroticism and
human contact created also through speech make up part of a complete sexual
experience, and it is by no means necessary that both partners be of opposite
sexes in order to achieve complete satisfaction. Both body and soul are
involved in sexuality and both elements have their origins in God, in the
transpersonal, and we can thus say that they are essentially a single entity.
Almost all heterosexual and very many homosexual relationships are built
around the creative principle, but I shall limit my analysis to the
heterosexual relationship since it is this with which I feel I am personally
most familiar. Eros and Logos Love and
spirit correspond to the Greek terms eros
and logos.(45)
In Hebrew, the two terms are, respectively, ahavah
and ruah. However,
in Hebrew Logos corresponds to a male principle (higgaion, mahshavah, da`at), while Eros corresponds to a
female principle (ahavah, kesher rigshi). Love is
female connecting principle that unites opposites, which cannot rationally be
united. An archetypal image of love, of the "God of love" in
Judaism is the image of Shekhinah. Yehuda Abravanel, a neo-platonic
philosopher of the late 16th century also known as Leone Ebreo, wrote
"Love keeps the whole universe together". (46) Spirit is a
male principle, which dissects and separates, analyzes and distinguishes. An
archetypal image of spirit is God. Love and
Spirit are both active in both men and women. During the process of
individuation, the different parts, or complexes, of the psyche are brought
to awareness (male principle), but they still need to be constantly united (female
principle). The integration of the various complexes brings the individual
close to the Self, and it is the connecting female principle which makes it
possible to accept one's own complexes and put them to profitable use in the
Self. The Sexual Act as a Coniunctio oppositorum There occurs
a union of the male-female opposites in the sexual act; the two become one
and this is a mystic, numinous experience. The
opposites can appear under different personifications. According to Jung,
"The factors which come together in the coniunctio are conceived as
opposites, either confronting one another in enmity or attracting one another
in love."(47) In an
attempt to express this mysterious polarity of love, I can do no better than
to cite a fine passage from Jung in which he is seeking a definition of Eros,
yet he confesses that the "meaning” of love which generates the union of
opposites is something which "transcends the power of the human
imagination":(48) I falter
before the task of finding the language, which might adequately express the
incalculable paradoxes of love ... Eros is a kosmogonas,
a creator and father-mother of all higher consciousness ... 'God is love',
the words affirm the complexio oppositorum
of the Godhead. (...) I have again and again faced the mystery of love, and
have never been able to explain what it is. (49) Even though
he dedicated a large part of his work to dealing with opposites and with the
mystery of their union, when faced with the mystery of the numinosity of the
sexual experience, Jung is unable to find an adequate definition. It is not
possible to talk about the sexual experience just as it is not possible to
talk about the mystic experience. Language is inadequate. During the sexual
act, just as is meditation, the eyes are usually closed as though merging
oneself into the unconscious, into the imaginary and spiritual realm of the
psyche. Body, soul and spirit are all involved in the experience. Sexuality
is a rite in which variously prolonged preliminaries (courtship) prepare the
partners for the union, which then takes place at all three levels: at the
level of the body, at the level of the soul and at the level of the spirit. According to
the teachings of the Kabbalah, at the very moment when a man and a woman make
love, the Holy Marriage (Zivvug haqadosh
or heiros gamos) takes place in
the divine Kingdom. Then God and the Shekhinah, God's female partner or
female counterpart also unites, thus giving the earthly union its spiritual
and transpersonal significance. This archetypal, transpersonal aspect of sex
is always present, even though almost always at an unconscious level. God and
Shekhinah are the archetypal representatives of man and woman and are
"present" in the sexual union. At the moment of sexual climax, the
experience of the union of opposites, where everything becomes one, is a
mystic moment, an experience of ecstasy and of psychic wholeness. God and
Shekhinah correspond, in their union, to the union of Yang and Yin in the Tao
and of Animus and Anima in Jungian psychology. Male and female energy become
equal, their union forms a creative process which produces life, the birth of
a child, either materially or symbolically. This union may be experienced at
the symbolic level while in an altered state of consciousness, for instance,
in dreams, or in the active imagination or in mystic trance. We could almost
say that when orgasm occurs, the man and the woman are indeed God, the
archetype of the Animus, and the Goddess, or Shekhinah, the archetype of the
Anima. Two energies
merge into one in the sexual act; this is the mystery of creation, of life.
Each of the partners is in some way the creator: heaven and earth, man and
woman unite in the creative act of sex. The man with his erect penis and the
woman with her open, receiving vagina are actually living and reliving the
act of creation which takes place continuously throughout the universe. This is the
meaning of the symbolism of conjunction: that opposites,
in their various aspects, can be united by love, by union. It is a process
which is beyond the bounds of rational comprehension, but which can
nonetheless be experienced when the opposites, for a brief instant, become
one. We are
inclined to think of this (the relationship between male and female)
primarily as the power of love, of passion, which drives the two opposite
poles together, forgetting that such a vehement attraction is needed only
when an equally strong resistance keeps them apart. (50) From the
psychological point of view, sexuality is the experience of becoming one
through the conjunction with the opposite sex, at both the subjective and the
objective level. This union of opposites is linked to the process of
individuation, since it brings the counter-sexual part of the soul to
awareness. Sexual union is thus the external acting out of the internal union
of the male-female opposites; or, to put it another way, the union of the
conscious Ego with its unconscious part (Animus and Anima). As Marie-Louise
Von Franz puts it: If we take
the conjunctio as a purely inner level, it can be said that when the
conscious and the unconscious personalities approach each other, then there
are two possibilities: either the unconscious swallows consciousness when
there is psychosis, or the conscious destroys the unconscious with its
theories, which means a conscious inflation...Always, when conscious and
unconscious meet, instead of love there might be destruction.(51) Becoming
aware of the existence of the counter-sexual part in the individual's psyche
involves the sacrifice of projections. However, the projective element in the
psyche is very strong and thus the projection tends to return many times. Love is the
strongest projection of all and is responsible for sexual attraction between
a man and a woman. In the form
of love, it (sexuality) is the cause of the stormiest emotions, the wildest
longings, the profoundest despairs, the most sorrows, and, altogether, of the
most painful experiences ... Freud ... very often means "love" when
he speaks of sexuality. (52) Such an
enormous quantity of energy is released in sexuality that there is a risk of
being overcome by it. This overwhelming nature of love finds expression even
in the terms like "to fall in love" and in the iconography of the
God of Love, Eros, with his bow and arrows. With regard
to the passion and the perils of love, Jung states: There are
age-old situations whose nature it is to stir us to the depths. One such
situation is love, its passion and its danger. Love may summon
forth-unsuspected powers in the soul for which we had better be prepared.
"Religio" is the sense of a "careful consideration" of
unknown dangers and agencies - that is what is in question here. From a
simple projection love may become upon (one) with all its fatal power ...(53) Falling in
love means that there exists a God, a power, a demon, which in some way
eliminates the Ego. When we fall in love, it is as though we are
"possessed" by love and by sex, we are in
a sort of blessed state which usually ends when we "wake up". The same
idea of being overwhelmed by archetypal energies is to be found also in the
usual phrase for the end of this special state, "to fall out of
love". This use of the verb "to fall" (in or out) shows that
being in love and no longer being in love are states which happen to us, not
something we voluntary choose to do. When we fall
out of love, we are faced with the problem of whether it is possible for love
to develop as a more conscious and voluntary behavior. Can it be looked upon
as an act of will directed towards the acceptance of the other with his or
her shadow, in just the same way that we must learn to accept our own shadow. This kind of love, which demands depth and loyalty
of feeling as well as the capacity for sacrifice, is perhaps the necessary condition
for mutual “compassion". Images of Conjunction in the Kabbalistic Theory of the Sephiroth In the
Bible, the male-female opposites are given their poetic expression in the
Song of Songs, and it is particularly from the Song of Songs that the Kabbalah
draws the images it uses to form its vision of the opposites. Kabbalistic
writings are full of female symbols. In the Sefer
Bahir, Scholem has identified four main symbols: The Bride, the
King's Daughter, the Shekhinah and the Congregation of Israel. The are joined by the symbols of the earth (which
conceives) and of the moon, and those of the ethrog
(citron), the fruit of the tree of beauty, (54) and of the date, which is the
image of the female sex/genitals. Whereas
Christian culture elaborated its idea of the union of opposites within the
framework of alchemy, the Kabbalah formulated its ideas within the system of
the Sephiroth, which Jung defined as "a highly differentiated
conjunctio-symbol"(55) The union takes place within the tree of life, the
mystic tree of divine powers with branches made up of the ten Sephiroth,(56)
which we could define as a sort of non-figurative archetypal constellations
which could thus be seen also as stages, aspects, attributes, hypostases,
principles, emanations, names, lights, and powers (energies) - that is,
dynamic aspects of the divine being, or, in psychological terms, of the Self.
The right side of the tree is male, the left side, female. The central column
represents the union (zivvug).
Each Sephira represents a branch and their common root is unknown and
unknowable. Here below,
in schematic form, is the plan of the ten Sephiroth, which make up the Tree
of Life: Keter (Crown) Binah
Chokhmah (Understanding,(Wisdom) Intelligence) Gevurah or
DinGedullah or Hesed (Power,
Restraint or Judgement)(Magnanimity, Benevolence or Love) Tif'ereth or
Rahamin (Beauty,
Glory or Compassion) HodNetzah (Empathy,
Majesty)(Rule, Constancy) Yesod (Foundation) Malkhuth (Kingdom)(57) According to
the Kabbalah, the original unity is divided into two, into two energies
defined as Hassadim and Gevuroth (58) from the names of the two Sephiroth of
Benevolence and Restraint. They are to be found at all levels of the
Sephiroth tree and express the simultaneous presence and the opposition of
female and male energy. According to Lurianic thought, the theme of the union
of the male/female opposites is fundamental, and this occurs at various
levels. For example, Da`at (Knowledge) can be seen as the connecting
principle which unites Chokhmah (wisdom) and Binah (Understanding). Love and Knowledge From a
symbolic point of view, sexuality is closely linked to knowledge, as the
Bible puts it: “And Adam knew Eve his wife” (Gen.
4:1). The use of ther term "knew" relates love and sexuality to knowledge,
that is, to a higher level of consciousness. Knowledge may be seen as a
synonym of consciousness or awareness of the counter-sexual part of the soul
and of its transpersonal roots. In this context, to know means to bring
together two opposites and to unite them, to create a kind of synthesis. The
sexual relationship thus becomes a vehicle for individuation. If we think of
Eve as the bearer of the projection of the female side of Adam, then the
union with her becomes a symbol of wholeness. In the same way, if we consider
Adam to be the bearer of the projection of the male side of Eve, then the
union with him becomes a symbol of wholeness. Since the Self is the archetype
of wholeness, the union of opposites in the sexual act leads to the
experience of Self. ... in every
deep love experience the experience of Self is involved, for the passion and
the overwhelming factor in it comes from the Self.(59) In the
Kabbalah, Da'at (knowledge) is a complementary Sephira which at the end of
the 13th century was included in the tree of the ten Sephiroth. It was
positioned in an intermediate space between Chokhmah and Binah, standing as a
kind of harmonizing agent between them, not so much making up a distinct,
separate Sephira, but rather representing the external aspect of Keter.(60)
This eleventh Sephira is almost the result of a tension between Chokhmah (the
right side) and Binah (the left side). In the parallelism with parts of the
body, Da'at occupies the middle position between the two parts of the brain.
Being in the middle, it unites the opposites and connects the paradox.
Together, Chokhmah, Binah and Da'at make up the mental base which underlies
any creative expression. The basic ability to communicate and to construct an
intelligent relationship with the outside world makes up the specific
function of the "quasi-Sephira" Da`at. Again, in terms of the relationship between
man and woman, Chokhmah-Wisdom must join Binah-Understanding. As the
confluence of Chokhmah and Binah, Da`at-Knowledge is equivalent to the idea
of a complete union of opposites. The only way that man and woman can love
each other, not only physically but mentally and spiritually as well, is to
remove all the barriers that separate them. In essence, a man and woman in
love can get close in a way no other two human beings can. This might be the
reason why the Torah makes use of the concept of Da`at-Knowledge especially
for Adam and Eve ...(61) The Human Individual as a Vessel An extremely
important element of Jewish thought which distinguishes it from the other
major religions needs to be stressed. Whereas Christianity and Islam
recognize the mystic union between God and the human soul, Judaism,
especially the Kabbalah, sees human individuals as a means (an instrument or
a container) by which such a union takes place. We are the vessels, the
laboratory. Infinite unions take place, for there is an endless unification
in humankind, which corresponds to the endless unification in the sphere of
the Sephiroth. Hurwitz sees in this feature of the Kabbalah, the inclusion of
the human individual in the process of unification within the divine realm.
It is an indication that the image of God present in the Kabbalah is no
longer a primordial, indifferent, paradoxical image, but rather a reflected image
of God, an image which is differentiated and more conscious. (66) The mystery
of love and creation causes the simultaneous union of God and the Shekhinah
at the moment of the union of man and wife in the sexual act: the two parts,
male and female, are united in the divine essence. There thus exists a
relationship between God and the Shekhinah, which is parallel to the
relationship between a man and a woman. Together these four components form a
totality - a quaternity which is a symbol of the Self. This simultaneous
participation gives the partners in the earthly union the sensation of
"another" reality, a reality in which souls unite. Goodenough
states that for the Jewish mystic tradition, a man in his union with a woman
is an image of his union with the Shekhinah who "is as vividly and truly
present during human intercourse as when a man is having intercourse with her
in solitary mysticism”. A man needs a heavenly mother as much as an earthly
mother and he may find "not only the earthly bride, but also the
heavenly mother in his intercourse with his wife. He finds the celestial
female, (...) whether mother or wife, in his sexual union.”(63) The same applies, I would hasten to add, for a woman with respect
to her need for a bridegroom and a father. We could
formulate this differently by saying that the partners in the sexual act
enter into an energy field which paradoxically contains all the opposites,
the nucleus of all beginnings, the mystery of all creation. The creation myth
is symbolically re-enacted in every sexual union, even without an actual
fertilization. Sexual
climax or orgasm is experienced subjectively, that is, the two partners
experience it separately, even though it is a union of two entities. The two
partners are momentarily transferred to a transpersonal archetypal reality.
The Ego is overcome by the unconscious, by the Self, though paradoxically
both the Ego and the Self are present. In this way, the sexual act is a rite,
a "coupling ritual", which brings about the experience of the two
opposites and of their union. At the moment of orgasm, there is a momentary
death of the Ego in which the reality of the soul and the spirit is
experienced. Neither erection in the male nor orgasm in the male and the
female are directly subject to the will or to a voluntary, conscious
proposition. In order to reach orgasm, the Ego has to die so that the spirit
can manifest itself. Something
similar occurs in the mystic experience, which at the psychological level
represents a momentary death of the Ego. For the Kabbalists, the 'swaying',
which accompanies prayer, has its sense as a movement which assists in the
reaching of an altered state of consciousness. Then all the psychic powers
and the movement of all parts of the devotee's limbs, muscles, bones, sinews,
are involved, so that everything moves "to awaken the supernal power,
the power of En Sof that is contained in the letters of the
prayers."(64) The physical movement of the body helps to prevent the
intrusion of "strange thoughts" - the "shells"
(Kelippoth) of the Lurianic Kabbalah (65) - which tend
to direct concentration back to self-interest and way from God. It can
happen that during the sexual act, the fear of the loss of control on the
part of the Ego, which masks a fear of death (the "death" of the
Ego), prevents the reaching of orgasm. Certain sexual cults such as the
worship of the lingam, may be seen as a
crystallization of the human need to ritualize the mystery of reproduction
and creation. Sexuality is thus an unconscious encounter with the creative
spirit, which for many people can find expression only in this way. When
discussing the Eleusinian mysteries, Neumann pointed out the difference
between the male mysteries and the female mysteries in these terms: ... the patriarchal
mysteries are upper and heavenly, while those of the feminine seem lower and
cthonian; in the patriarchal mysteries the accent is on the generative
numinosity of the invisible. These two are complementary, and it is only
taken together that they yield an approach to the whole truth of the
mystery.(66) In the
present context, this could mean that the experience of sexuality is
different for men and women, yet paradoxically it is identical since it can
lead to the experience of the union of the two. Neumann writes with respect
to the archetype of the psyche: It is no
accident that we speak of the ‘soul' of man as well as woman; and it is no
accident that analytical psychology defines the totality of consciousness and
the unconscious as the 'psyche'.(67)
Men and
women have a conscious and an unconscious, a psyche. Even though Neumann is
writing from a patriarchal point of view, he seems to transcend the gender
bias with the remark quoted above. Male and Female Principles in the Kabbalistic Myth of the Partzufim Four hundred
years ago, in Safed, Luria introduced a new Kabbalistic doctrine which
described the process within the Godhead, which he termed
"Partzufim" (countenances), which, in psychological terms, we might
describe as archetypal images in human form. Whereas the
ten Sephiroth, which make up the earlier system of
divine emanations or attributes, were seen as being abstract concepts, the
five Partzufim are personalized. Their interaction constitutes a myth and is
therefore closer to psychology. What
characterizes speculations on the Partzufim in contrast to the Sephiroth is
the humanization of the archetypes apparent in the concept of the Partzufim.
In other words, the Partzufim, as human archetypes, are closer to the soul
than are the Sephiroth, which are abstract, spiritual entities. According to
Scholem,(68) the idea of the Partzufim, already
present in the mythical sections of the Zohar, represents the greatest
victory of anthropomorphic thought in the history of Jewish mysticism. The
symbolism of the Partzufim is dense with images of a startling, stark
concreteness, which reflect "highly developed mystical meditations ...
almost impenetrable to rational thought".(69) As Scholem points out, the
symbols of the Mother, the Father, the Son and the Daughter in the myth of
the Partzufim are extremely concrete when compared with the abstract concepts
of the Sephiroth.(70) The five major Partzufim are: 1. Arikh
Anpin, "the Long-Suffering", who comprises pure mercy
and divine love. The name also means "long of anger", that is,
"patience" (from the Aramaic anap
and from the Hebrew ap, which
means nose, or, anger). In the Zohar, Arikh Anpin is also called Attika
Kadisha, "the Holy Ancient One". He corresponds to the highest
Sephira, Keter, and is also known as the Grandfather. 2-3. Abba and
Imma. These are the Partzufim
of the Father and the Mother, who correspond to the Sephiroth Binah and
Chokhmah. They are separate, but joined in eternal union (Zivvug) 4. Ze`ir
Anpin, "the short face" or "short nose", corresponds
to the six lower Sephiroth. He is the son of Arikh
Anpin and in contrast to him, impatient and quick to anger. 5. Nukvah,
"the female", corresponds to the tenth Sephira, Malkhuth. She is
the daughter and the wife of the Son. With respect
to the system of the Sephiroth, the system of the Partzufim is as follows: Arikh
Anpin - Keter (Grandfather) Imma – Binah Abba –
Chokhmah (Mother)(Father) Nukvah –
Malkhuth Ze`ir Anpin
- Hesed, Din, (Daughter) Tifereth
Netzah, Hod, Yesod (Son) From the
psychological point of view, the Partzufim Father and Mother are the primal
images of the "Great Father" and the "Great Mother"; the
Partzufim Son and Daughter correspond to the transformative character of the
archetypes. The Grandfather would correspond to the creative principle or
creative energy. The ten
Sephiroth and the five Partzufim constitute a unity in diversity. They are
all emanations of the En Sof, the one God, the
unknowable. This paradox of multiplicity in unity (ribbui ha'ahaduti)(71) is present both in the Sephiroth
and in the Partzufim, which all represent the different aspects of God, but
which are all nonetheless a single thing.(72) The first
and highest of the Sephiroth, to which the first of the Partzufim
corresponds, Keter, is also called Ain,(73) which means Nothingness, and this “nothingness”
refers to that which cannot be known. I would suggest that this is the
essence of the secret of creation, the unknown, the mystery. Scholem defines
Keter as "the abyss which becomes invisible in the gaps of
existence".(74) Kaplan states that "Keter
is the interface between the Infinite = Ain Sof and the creation. It is
completely hidden and incomprehensible and partakes of the very quality of
infinity that makes it impossible to speak about Ain Sof itself. Like a crown
that rests on top of the head, it is not a part of the 'body'. Indeed, it is
for this very reason that Keter is sometimes not included among the ten
Sephiroth."(75) Keter can be experienced only on very rare occasions of
deep, numinous, mystical submersion. In the
process of individuation described by Jung, Keter may be paralleled with the
experience of the Self. It is difficult for the modern individual to accept
that there is a transcendent reality which goes beyond what can be formulated
in rational terms. The urge to know where we come from and where we go to is
the basis for human development. However, within this urge for knowledge lies
the risk of hubris, the belief that it is merely a question of time before we
learn all the answers to the secrets of life and creation. Hubris leads to
the loss of the numinous feeling that there exists a reality beyond the
bounds of intellectual knowledge, the mystical experience of the Self. The theory
of the Partzufim shows that the Kabalistic tradition gives more weight to the
female element than does normative Judaism, even though the image of
God-the-Father nonetheless remains prevalent. The very fact that the second
and third Partzufim are called Father and Mother, and the fourth and fifth,
Son and Daughter, reveals the importance of female elements. This certainly
affords satisfaction to the contemporary consciousness, which sees here for
the first time the "female" aspect of the Godhead stressed. In order to
investigate the relationship between the female and the male figures in the
system of the Partzufim, I shall draw heavily on Kaplan's writings in Innerspace.(76)
Kaplan talks about the relationship between Abba
and Imma (Father and Mother)
and between Ze`ir Anpin and Nukvah (Son and Daughter) and states
that a survey of the kabalistic texts, such as the Idroth, of the Etz
Hayyim of Hayyim Vital, clearly shows their highly sexual
connotations. The
connection between Abba and Imma is referred to as Zivvug, which literally means sexual
union or attachment: this is a symbolism that we will find throughout the
discussion of the Partzufim.(77) According to
the description given by the Ari, (78) the process which leads to the birth
of Ze`ir Anpin begins with a kiss between Abba
and Imma, which then leads to a
Zivvug. These relationships
have a deep symbolic meaning: kisses are the preliminary foreplay, which
leads to a sexual union which may in turn lead to pregnancy and birth. The
kiss is a symbol of love. Even the Song of Songs, the love poem of the Bible,
begins with the verse “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy
love is better than wine.” For the kabbalists, a kiss symbolizes the meeting
of minds, whereas the Zivvug
symbolizes the meeting and melting together of bodies, of total essence. (79) A kiss is a
meeting of lips, mouths and tongues, which implies the meeting of heads,
minds, souls. The fusion of bodies is the total
essence, that is, the mystic experience of becoming one at orgasm. The
numinosity of this experience is explained by the analogy between the sexual
intercourse between man and wife and that of Ze`ir
Anpin and Nukvah,
his female counterpart. This analogy provides a transcendental significance
for the human sexual act. In the
divine realm, the union of Abba
and Imma results in a double
pregnancy: Abba and Imma come together and Imma becomes
pregnant with Ze`ir Anpin; she
carries him, gives birth to him and nurses him. She then becomes pregnant a
second time, the second pregnancy being not a physical but rather a mental
pregnancy which develops Ze`ir Anpin's
Mochin, his personality, and Nuvkah de Ze`ir Anpin, who is his
sister.(80) Here we have
two pregnancies for Imma, one physical and one mental or
psychic. The first pregnancy brings forth the child, the son, whereas the
second pregnancy is a sort of addition to the first, which also brings forth
his sister, his soul. At the subjective level, in order to be able to become
a spiritual being, a man has to integrate his female side. Ze`ir Anpin and Nuvkah are thus brother and sister but
their relationship culminates in their becoming bride and groom as well. This
is the concept of Ahoti Kallah
(“my sister, my bride”) that we find throughout the Song of Songs. It
represents the highest level of Zivvug-Attachment
that can exist between a man and a woman, because among other things, Ze`ir Anpin and Nuvkah are paradigmatic human beings.(81) Thus the
sister and brother become bride and groom, a clear indication of incest.
According to Jung, incest occurs in the collective unconscious as the union (Zivvug) of the archetypal male and
female images (Animus and Anima).(82) A dream of
incest which occurs during the development of a personality (individuation
process) is extremely significant since it demonstrates the tendency of the
psyche to integrate its counter-sexual part, to bring about the union of the
male and female to create a new whole. However, in an early stage of
development, an incest will be interpreted
reductively: the male Ego remains bound to the mother and is thus impeded in
its development into a mature being. The only
difference is that on the level of the Atzilut
[the domain of the Sephiroth and the Partzufim] the Zivvug of Ahoti Kallah is permitted, while for human beings it is
strictly forbidden. Thus in Derekh
Mitzvotekha from the Tzemach Tzedek,(83)
we find that the reason the Torah prohibits this brother-sister relationship
is because it is so holy that human beings dare not do it. (84) The
prohibition is here given a new explanation. If the Atziluth represents one level of the
collective unconscious, we can see the Song of Songs, at a deep level, as a
symbolic representation of brother-sister incest. Actual incest between human
beings is prohibited for anthropological and psychological reasons, and if it
does occur, it represents a serious pathological event. But at the symbolic
level, incest represents the utter union of opposites. When an image of
incest appears in a dream, there is a feeling of joy, for it is a numinous
experience which illuminates the sense of being on the road to
self-realization and wholeness. It is in this sense that the Kabbalists
interpret the use of the term “sister” by Abraham and Isaac when referring to
their wives. They use it in the sense of the Ahoti
Kallah, in the sense that their relationship with Sarah and
Rebecca is the exact counterpart to that referred to in the Song of Songs,
the relationship between Ze`ir Anpin
and Nuvkah. Abraham and Isaac
are talking about a spiritual reality, not a physical one. This explains the
incest of Abraham and Sarah, who were indeed half brother and half sister,
whereas Isaac, when he calls Rebecca his sister, is using a figure of speech. Seen in this
symbolic context, the deep significance of incest is revealed, for in the
realm of the Atziluth, the
Partzufim are seen as a holy family. It may be useful here to recall also a
passage from Proverbs, where
Wisdom is seen as a sister (7:4) and certain pages of the Gemarah where, in
commenting on this passage, it states “if one dreams he has intercourse with
his sister, he may expect to obtain wisdom.” (85) Conclusion The union of
opposites, of male and female, has been extensively dealt with by Jung,(86) who considered this to be a mystic experience with a
profound spiritual significance. Since it is
an “experience”, sexuality is not a symbol, it is
real, actual, material. From the point of view of the conscious Ego, a symbol
can serve as a bridge to the unconscious. Looked at in a different way, we
could also say that a symbol raises what amounts to
a wall between the Ego and the unconscious. It is only beyond this wall, in
the Self, that we can attain and exploit the perfect unity, which enables us
to achieve a higher level of awareness and a deeper understanding of the
mystery of creation. Just as in
nature, children are conceived by means of a sexual coming together, so, in
the same way, individuation, which is achieved by means of the integration of
the counter-sexual part (Animus or Anima), is often experienced as the fruit
of a sexual union. Different
people experience the sexual act in different ways, according to their
individual level of consciousness and their individual personality. Making
people aware of the ritual and spiritual aspect present in sexuality could
serve as a means of alleviating the all too frequent disturbances in the
sexual sphere. If the numinous quality of sexuality, which has been lost for
so many people, could be recovered at the general, collective level, then a
new attitude towards sexuality, creativity and spirituality could emerge. A
new “religio” could arise in which sex and sexuality could be seen as a
living symbol, which unites the human race beyond the barriers of gender,
religion, race or culture. PART IV APPENDIX 1.
Circumcision, sex and love In 1965 I
wrote an article on the symbolic meaning of circumcision, (87) a religious
ritual which by means of a small operation modifies the penis. Let us see
what this has to do with love and sex. The penis is
the organ through which the male expresses, in a non-verbal manner, his
sexual need and love for the female. Behind the act of circumcision there
lies a deep archetypal theme, which, for most people involved in this ritual,
remains unconscious. I would now like to look more closely at these hidden
layers of meaning. Originally,
circumcision was a pre-jahwistic ritual which consisted in the sacrifice of a
part of the male reproductive organ. It derives from an ancient belief that
fertility could only be assured by sacrificing the first born to the Great
Mother.(88) As time went on, this sacrifice was reduced to the offering of
only a small part of the male organ, the prepuce or foreskin (‘orlah in Hebrew). The Bible
presents circumcision as a covenant between humankind and God: This is my
covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after thee:
every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall be circumcised in the
flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and
you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male
throughout your generations... (Gen.17:
10-12) A Midrash
explains the practice of circumcision with the idea that nature never
produces things ready for use, but that it is the human task to improve or
complete the work of creation: “This applies also to a man's body, which
becomes perfect after its natural state has been improved upon by
circumcision”.(89) Here man is seen as a product of
nature which nonetheless has to correct nature according to the divine
commandment. We could take this to mean that sexuality acquires a spiritual
dimension once the divine commandment has been fulfilled. In this view,
sexual pleasure acquires a spiritual dimension and sex is no longer an act of
mere physical coupling with the scope of reproduction, but becomes instead a
way of serving God. Through Milah we remove the Orlah and guard the sanctity of the B'rith. Through Milah we rechannel human sexuality into
the realms of holiness. Milah
is thus equivalent to reciting a blessing before eating food that is
permitted. It elevates marital relations to a level that goes far beyond the
realm of the physical. It allows the sexual act to become a means for drawing
down very high and sensitive souls into the world.(90) An act of
correcting nature could have the psychological implication that human
individuals must be aware of
their actions and instincts, thus differentiating themselves from animals,
which live out their lives and destinies simply by existing as they are
created. It is
obvious that the simple, physical carrying out of circumcision without the
accompanying awareness of the meaning of this operation cannot be an act
which changes the human individual. The Bible comments on this situation. Deuteronomy
insists on the necessity of the (spiritual) circumcision of the heart.
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more
stiff-necked” ( From the
psychological point of view, the symbolic interpretation of the circumcision
of the penis and the heart is vitally important. The prophet Jeremiah, when
calling the people to order, also refers to the circumcision of the heart: Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, And take away the foreskin of your heart, Ye men of Lest My fury go forth like fire, And burn that none can quench it, Because of the evil of your doings. (Jer. 4:4) In contrast
to what happens with the circumcision of the penis, with the circumcision of
the heart there is no physical alteration to the body. Again, circumcision of
the penis is effected on a child of only a few days old, while circumcision
of the heart is demanded of a conscious adult. Circumcision, of both the
penis and the heart, has an effect on the actual behavior of both men and
women. Sexuality, which is imbued with meaning, can only be produced by the
sincere, true feelings that a man and a woman have for each other. In his
comment on the passage from Jeremiah
given above, Freedman paraphrases the reference to circumcision as follows:
“Remove the hard excrescence, which has grown over your heart and prevents
you from being influenced by God's exhortations.”(93) Circumcision is thus an
opening which makes the human individual more receptive to divine truth. As Hobson
rightly points out,(94) circumcision of the heart
implies an inner sacrifice which is not be carried out externally. The penis
can be, and is, circumcised in the flesh, whereas the heart is an inner organ
and cannot be physically but only spiritually circumcised. Thus circumcision
of the penis and circumcision of the heart are both strictly connected with
love for God, but love for God is equally connected to human love. We may
find in a passage from Leviticus
“thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord” ( Circumcision and the Kabbalah The
spiritual aspect of sexuality and the symbolic meaning of circumcision is
afforded great attention in the Kabbalah.(95) In
accordance with the conception that physical love between man and wife is a
figure of the union between the male and female on high, Kaplan states that
when a husband and wife engage in sexual intercourse they become the earthly
counterparts of the archetypes on high, they correspond to the divine
attribute Yesod which unites with Malkhuth. This statement is very close to
Jung's description of the union between the Animus and the Anima. Though
using different terms, in his description of the matrimonial quaternity and
the opposites,(96) Jung too stated that parallel to
a conscious male-female relation there is always a relation of the Animus and
the Anima in the unconscious. Kaplan goes
on to say that a husband and wife “can see their pleasure as a gift of God
and experience a deep sense of thankfulness.” When they become aware of the
divine spark present in the physical pleasure itself, they can elevate such
pleasure to its highest source: Ultimately,
the greatest aphrodisiac between man and woman is love. What creates the
greatest pleasure between spouses is a very deep emotional and spiritual love
between them. ... Yesod thus
represents one of the greatest human pleasures that exists.
It is a type of pleasure that deals with the deepest areas of a person's
psyche. (97) However, the
capacity that men and women have together of emulating the divine can reveal
the divine aim of creation yet equally well obscure it. This is the spiritual
significance of circumcision since Yesod contains in itself the concept of
the reciprocal relation of giving and receiving pleasure, the `orlah (the foreskin) at the symbolic
level represents a shell, a barrier (98) which is interposed between Yesod
(Foundation) and Malkhuth (Kingdom) and which impedes the fullness of
conjunction at both a physical and a spiritual level. A man must therefore be
spiritually circumcised as well as physically circumcised, since physical
circumcision does not in itself eliminate all the kelippoth (the shells); pleasure can be good or bad and
can lead towards good or evil. This by no
means implies that sex should be seen as something dirty or evil. Kaplan
states that Judaism views sex, within marriage, as something beautiful and
pleasurable: The Torah
views sexual relations between husband and wife as something normal,
desirable, and the one act that does the most to strengthen the bond between
them.(99) But at the same time, the Torah realizes that when misused, sex can
be a most destructive and debilitating force. ... The type of sex that the
Torah proscribes is that which is irresponsible, exploitative and
destructive. The commandment of Milah
was given as a safeguard against such activity.(100) In psychological
terms, this means that sex carries with it the risk of promiscuity and can be
the cause of pathologies both for the male and the female. In the
passages I have quoted from Kaplan, it is the pleasurable aspect of love and
sex within marriage, which is stressed. The pleasure, which lies in the union
of opposites, enables the perception of the mystery of union in both the
human and the archetypal realm. It gives to sex its spiritual value. As Hillman
writes, “Love is not a phenomenon of the person, love is a phenomenon of the
spirit and it stirs the soul and generates the imagination”. (101) In the
sexual act, men and women must be able to sacrifice the Ego in order to
become, for a moment, their respective transpersonal counterparts. At that moment,
the Animus and the Anima are joined and God-Yesod unites with the
Shekhinah-Malkhuth. The pleasure of the coniunctio is given a spiritual
dimension and a sense of wholeness is attained, a sense of being in the Self. 2. The Song of Songs Shir ha'shirim, the Song of Songs, is a poem of rare beauty
containing metaphorical descriptions of the mystery of the male female
relationship. It talks about romantic love and passion. It is musical poetry,
an expression of feelings, a mutual song of love between man and woman. It
must have been written by a sensitive poet. One is moved, because the images
of the poem stir the deepest layers of the soul. The partners describe each
other in wonderful metaphors: landscapes and towns, like Gilead, Lebanon,
Carmel, Jerusalem; flowers, like the rose of sharon, the lily of the valley;
animals, like the gazelle, the young hart, the dove. The use of symbols to
address one another points to the symbolic level of
the relationship, to a reality beyond the conscious relationship of the
partners. Something of the divine, of another realm, of the unspeakable
mystery is hinted at and is felt. Love in its archetypal dimension is a
fascinating secret, an enigma to all and no psychological interpretation is
sufficient to `explain' the mystery of love. Should we not just leave it at
that? Can an interpretation of any kind (religious, psychological) add
anything? Yet we wonder why we are touched by the poem. Being touched belongs
to the realm of feeling, of experiencing, and this experiencing is mystical. In a chapter
entitled `Erotic images for the ecstatic experience' Idel [102] states that Images
portraying the spiritual connection between the lover and his beloved, i.e.,
descriptions of such emotions as longing, submission, etc... are extremely common...these images appear alike in
mystical literature and among philosophers, religious poets, and exegetes of
the Song of Songs. In quoting
Abulafia, Idel [103] continues: the Song of Songs is seen as a love song which
describes the erotic contacts between bride and groom on the literal level,
and the character of prophecy or mystical experience, on the esoteric
level...It is worth noting that the
soul is understood as a woman, a very
widespread image in mysticism. In order to
understand a traditional, orthodox Jewish interpretation of the narrative of
the song, I want to quote Rabbi S.M. Lehrmann in his introduction to The Song
of Songs in the Soncino Bible, [104]: Despite
problems of authorship and interpretation, the story is briefly told. It
describes the trials of a beautiful peasant maiden from Shunem, or Shulem,
who was employed by her mother and brothers as shepherdess to their flock of
goats. She had fallen in love with a shepherd of the same village, but the
brothers did not look with approval on the union. They, accordingly, transferred her services
from the pasture to the vineyards, in the hope that her meetings with her
lover would not be possible. One day, as she was tending the vines,
she was seen by the servants of king
Solomon, [than] he chanced to pass
the village on his way to his summer resort in No sooner does the king behold her, when he,
too, falls violently in love with her. He sings her beauty and uses all his endeavors to induce
her to abandon her shepherd for the love and wealth he can shower upon Her.
The ladies of the court also join in trying to dislodge her love for her
humble swain. Her heart, however, belongs to him and she remains steadfast.
During her stay in the palace, she yearns for her lover and is tantalized by
the taunts of the ladies of the court that he has rejected her. In her agitated state of mind she speaks to him as
if he were in her presence, and even
dreams that he has come back to
rescue her and escort her back to her
mother's home. Awaking from her dream, she rushes out of her chamber
to seek him in the streets where the watchmen of the city roughly treat her,
who misjudge her character. When the
king is finally convinced of the constancy of her love for the shepherd, he
dismisses her from his presence and allows her to return home. She is now joined by
her lover and, leaning on his arm,
approaches Shunem where a warm welcome awaits her. They come upon the scenes so dear to them,
and she recounts
the vicissitudes through which she had lately passed. The story ends on a
triumphant note. Not only could her love not be extinguished by the
temptations offered by the king, but she also assures her brothers that their
solicitude for her virtue was unwarranted. She has proved that love is
capable of heroic endurance. The tale she tells to their assembled friends makes a strong
protest against the luxury and vice of the court, and pays testimony to the
beauty and dignity of pure love and fidelity. It seems to
me that this interpretation does harm to the book. It does not go into the
depth of the love relationship and tries to construct a story out of it, like
the contemporary rabbis discussed below. There are
different approaches to the Song of Songs. Is it a coherent story? Are there
different love stories? Is it a song of king Solomon, or is the authorship
just attributed to him? [105] What is the attitude of normative Judaism, of
Jewish Mysticism? Of Christianity? What can a psychological Jungian
understanding add to the understanding? How is the position of man and woman
in the Songs? Prior to attempting to answer these questions, I would like
first to look at how the Song of Songs has
been treated in art, music and literature. The Song of Songs in Art The Song of
Songs has been a source of inspiration for artists: composers, like Bruckner,
Buxtehude, Honegger, Palestrina and the contemporary Israeli composers
Ben-Haim, Boskovitch, Lavry; [106] painters like Chagall; poets like Goethe,
and so on. The list could be endless! The fact that the Song of Songs
inspired so many artists shows that the poem touches deep archetypal layers
of the soul, which are reformulated and recreated time and again in works of
art. With regard
to music, I want to give two examples of the text on which the works of
Palestrina and Lavry are based. Palestrina (sixteenth century) Palestrina's
composition is called Canticum Canticorum, the Latin name of The Song of
Songs. It consists of twenty-three motets and its complete title is:
Motettorum Liber Quartus Quinque Vocibus ex Canticis Canticorum. Turner [107]
writes that the composer wrote in his dedication of the work to Pope Gregor
XIII that he blushes and is sad at having once belonged to those who wasted
their musical art on love songs, which are alien to the Christian faith. He
continues that therefore he now writes `poems for the glorification of our
Lord Jesus Christ and his most holy mother, the Virgin Mary'. These poems
contain `the Godly love between Christ and his spouse, the soul'. Lavry and Brod (twentieth century) The English
text in the Libretto for `Song of Songs' Ä a Cantata for soloists, mixed
choir and orchestra by Marc Lavrie [108], first performed in Tel-Aviv in
1940, is a setting of Max Brod's re-arrangement of the Song of Songs [109].
Following this new sequence of verses, the work falls naturally into four
scenes, each having its own particular character. The first scene is pastoral
in nature, the second festive, with much ensemble work, the third - in the
King's Palace - features women's voices and is therefore more lyrical, and
the fourth - the Shulamite's dream - is in the form of a ballad and finale.
The composer has remained faithful to the patterns of the biblical text, but
the work has no religious associations whatsoever: it is simply a tender and
poetic love story, or as many think, a compilation of
different love stories. The poet, Max Brod, presents his work in these
terms: “It is, in
my opinion, impossible to adapt (i.e. modify) the `Song of Songs' as the
wonderful beauty and power of the work would be diminished by any addition or
alteration. I have taken an entirely different path: I have not added nor
omitted a single line. I have merely changed the sequence of lines and in
this respect I admit that I have been distinctly radical. But I believe that
I have restored the original form of the poem. `Song of Songs' is a peom of
pastoral character which sings of the ardent and true love of a shepherd and
shepherdess triumphing over all obstacles. The King and his court and his
harem appear as disturbing elements in this tale of love. The shepherdes is
abducted and taken into the King's harem. But she remains deaf to all his
pleading and eventually flees from the royal palace. In this way a picture,
very different from the traditional conception, is presented to us.” Brod also
refers to his book Paganism, Christianity
and Judaism [110], where he states in detail the reasons that
induced him to come to this new interpretation of the text. He continues by
saying that the biblical text as it has been handed down to us contains many
`lapses', even contradictions, and by his re-arrangement it is made into a
complete poetical unit, a small-scale lyrical drama in four acts. One
situation necessarily develops from the other and the consequent unity of the
artistic form indicates that we have before us the original shape of this
poem. Thus Max
Brod remodeled the text, and, after his artistic revision, he presumptuously
thinks that we now have the original form of the poem before us: Brod takes
artistic liberty to edit the biblical text! Goethe Goethe
(1819) describes the Song of Songs as follow (111) (my translation from the
German): "We now dwell with the Song of Songs for
a moment, the most delicate and inimitable of what has been passed on to us
as an expression of passionate, graceful love. Yet we regret that the
fragmentation and disorder of the poems don't guarantee a full, pure
enjoyment. Still we are delighted to imagine the bliss of the participants,
the wafting of the mild air of the loveliest region of Chagall Chagall painted 5 pictures, inspired by the
following verses: 1) 8/6: Set me as a seal upon thy heart, 2) 5/2: I sleep, but my heart waketh, 3) 3/11:In the day of his espousal, 4) 1/4: Draw me, we will run after thee; 5) 7/7: How fair and how pleasant art thou, o
love, for delights! The artist
takes the liberty to choose from the Song of Songs subjects he wants to deal
with. He stresses the transpersonal mystical aspects of the relationship
between the sexes, which expresses the love of God. According to Mayer, [115]
Chagall needed a principle of order for his cycle of 5 pictures. Mayer sees
intensification from picture to picture in the way the artist, with each
picture, penetrates deeper into the mystery of love which is grounded in God.
So he sees in the last picture the testimony that love evades the laws of
time and transcends time; it is eternal.
To put this in psychological terms, Chagall expresses the archetype of
love, or with other words the transcendental aspects of love. In his pictures
he circumambulates the mystery of love; he paints images of the secret of
love which cannot be expressed rationally, but only symbolically. The
dynamics of the figures and colors express so to speak the mystery. The Song of Songs in Judaism In the
biblical story, man and woman freely express their mutual feelings of human
love. This is extraordinary for a biblical text. If one considers the Bible
as a religious text of patriarchal Judaism, the Song of Songs could be
included only as a metaphor for the relationship of God to the people. Within
the context of Judaism, the relationship to God is mainly through the people,
through one's being a part of the people. The Jewish mystic however looks fo
a personal experience. The Jewish
and the Christian allegoric interpretations avoid seeing in the story the
love-relationship between man and woman, which the biblical text so clearly
deals with. Whereas in normative Judaism the Song of Songs is allegorically
interpreted as the love between God and His people, in Christianity it is
considered to express the love between Christ and the human soul, or between
Christ and the church. Further, the woman is not mentioned because of the
interpretation of woman as the human soul (Christianity) or as the people
(Judaism). In contrast
to what happens in mystical and deep psychological interpretations, Christian
exegesis allows no space for considerations of a sexual union between man and
woman. The more traditional Jewish
exegesis, based on a patriarchal collective consciousness, also prefers to
find an allegorical interpretation for the text to justify its inclusion in
the canon. Two
contemporary rabbis proposed structuring the biblical text in order to
clarify its meaning. Carlebach [116] classifies the text into 18 songs,
giving to each song a title, as follows: Song 1: I,2-8 The woman in disguise Song 2: I,9-II,3 The message of love Song 3: II,4-8 The love-potion Song 4: II,8-16 Betrothal Song 5: II,17-18 Time not ripe Song 6: III,1-5 Love-dream Song 7: III,6-11 Wedding-procession Song 8: IV,1-7 The delight of the bridegroom Song 9: IV,8-15 Wedding-poem on the day of entrance Song 10:
IV,16-V,1 Wedding feast Song 11:
V,2-VI,3 Love-song after renewed
separation Song 12:
VI,4-VII,13 New message as reward of
love Song 13:
VII,1-6 Enticement Song 14:
VII,7-14 Mutual longing Song 15:
VIII,1-4 Last inhibition Song 16:
VIII,5-8 The lovers united for
ever Song 17:
VIII,8-12 Once and now Song 18:
VIII,13-14 Finale De Sola Pool
[117] sees in the poem "a dramatic unity with an inherent consistency
and progressive development of thought, feeling and purpose". He
constructs a dialogue between the following characters: The Shulamite Maiden Her Shepherd Lover King Solomon Chorus of women from the Chorus of Shepherds Neither of
these attempts to bring order into the text are not
very convincing. As I will show below, the deeper meaning of the text lies
for me in the interplay of feminine and masculine energies and archetypes, in
the union of opposites. Another, earlier,
rabbi, Malbim [118] quoted by Carlebach [119], sees in the Song of Songs a
fight between spirit and sensuality, between the soul-demands of the higher
man and the desire of bodily lust. He further states that King Solomon learns
to differentiate between worldly and celestial love. It seems to me that
Malbim projects his ethical conviction onto the text in accordance with his
Jewish religion. He remains stuck in the opposition of spirit and instinct.
He lacks a symbolic attitude towards sexuality, and in consequence he has no
feeling for the unity of body, soul and spirit. In Jewish
tradition, there are four ways of interpreting a text, expressed in the
formula PaRDeS: 1.literal meaning, simple, superficial (peshat) 2.allegorical meaning, hinted, concealed
(remez) 3.homiletic meaning, interpreted, learned
(derash), metaphorical, philosophical,
ethical, psychological. 4.mystical meaning, esoteric,
transpersonal (sod) The Torah is
considered to be a living thing in which the peshat
is a type of interpretation appropriate to the waking state while the other
three levels belong more to some other state of
altered consciousness. As we have
seen above, any attempt to construct a single, literal meaning for the Song
of Songs can only be artificial and unproductive. According to the
traditional rabbinical interpretation, which is to be found principally in
the Targum to the Song, there is no peshat
of the Song which interprets it as a concrete erotic relationship. The Targum
offers interpretations only at the other three levels. Rabbi Akiva said that
the Song of Songs was the “Holy of Holies”, the most sacred thing ever given
to the Jewish people and whoever made any kind of profane use of it would
lose their place in the world to come. Reading the Song of Songs as an erotic
poem means taking the drama of the interaction between the Partzufim in the
realm of Atziluth and throwing
it into the mud of the world of Kelippoth.(120) Rashi
explains Shir ha’shirim as drasch, i.e. allegorically. Fi Verse l, 2 says
"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth-for thy love is better
than wine". As " drash" this means
Communicate your innermost wisdom again in loving closeness. It means further
that the exiled people of In
Kabalistic interpretation the drama or content of Shir ha'shirim is the
interplay of the Sephiroth, on the branches of the tree of life. One takes
every verse and interprets it. Then
the verses don't have to be connected as on the pschat level. One does not
need to follow the story. Each verse is a formula. Yet, there is a
connection, but a hidden one. There is a story behind it: According to the
"sod-interpretation" all verses circumambulate around ihud (union)
and Zivug (copulation) of God and the Shekinah. The
"Ari", Isaac Luria, Safed, 1534-1572, wrote a book on "Shir
ha'shirim" which together with the commentary of the "HAGRA",
the Vilna Gaon, 1720-1797, was published again in 1982. He comments that all
words of the Song of Songs are code words, which refer to the Sefiroth. Song,
(shir), is a code word for Tiferet.
And the "h" of Ha'shirim is Malkhut. Shirim is Yesod and
Da'at. Shir Ha'shirim asher (=Binah,Ima) le'shlomo
(=Hokma, The Song of Songs and Jungian Psychology Every
love-relationship has a personal and transpersonal aspect, the latter of
which the partners are mostly unaware. During the story the woman and the man
address each other as equals. Some names given to the man are personal like
beloved, friend and brother, others are more
archetypal like King and Salomon. The names given to the woman on the
personal level are: friend and beloved, on a more archetypal level: bride,
dove, sister, Shulamite (the peaceful, according to the Hebrew word
"shalom" for peace; also the root of the word Salomon is
"shalom"; Shulamite in Greek is Salome). The fact that there are
both personal and transpersonal names means that the relationship is at the
same time personal and transpersonal (archetypal, symbolic). This holds true
for every deep man-woman relationship: it is on a human and at the same time
on a godly level. The sacred union between God and the Shekhinah in the
Kabbalah corresponds to the union of the opposites as described by Jung
[123]. The
following explains what is meant: Level 1 (ego):
Man---------------Woman
Level 2
(unconscious): King---------------Queen
(God)------------(Shekhina) (Anima)-----------(Animus) Level 1 corresponds to the conscious
relationship between the partners and the mutual projection of the
countersexual part, Anima and Animus. In level 2, the partners are seen and
experienced unconsciously as archetypal images, as king and queen, and may
express this not only verbally, but also non-verbally by caressing, stroking,
kissing. When the partners are in level 2, the relationship becomes
transpersonal and symbolical. Non verbal expressions carry consciousness more
deeply into the archetypal realm. At the moment of climax, king and queen,
meaning God and the Shekhinah, copulate; the respective "Egos" are
so to speak non-existent, "dead", for a moment, thus giving
spiritual meaning to the sexual act. The man-woman relationship is
then the relationship of God and the Shekhinah. Cohabitation of man and woman
is cohabitation of God and the Shekhinah. The sexual act is the creation of
the world, a continuing process of creation. It can provide an experience of
the transpersonal reality of the soul or the repeated realization of the
transcendent roots of the human being. The union with the Animus or Anima, of
the soul with the "Self", can be experienced in a (sexual) dream.
At the climax, Ego consciousness is suspended for a moment; it is so to speak
dissolved into the unconscious and will evolve again after the climax. At
this moment, the all powerful aspect of God, the divine, the unconscious, the
archetype, is experienced. Jung has
extensively dealt with the symbolism of the union of masculine and feminine
archetypes in his book Mysterium
Coniunctionis (1957). From a psychological point of view, the
union of the archetypal images, of male and female is a symbol of the Self.
The two are paradoxically one! This is the paradox of the Self, which can
also be expressed by the following opposites: King and Queen, Adam and Eve,
Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, Brother and Sister. In the union of man and
woman the Self can be experienced in its wholeness, containing the opposites.
The union of opposites expresses symbolically on an inner level the
relationship of the Ego to the inner countersexual part, to Animus or Anima
in their numinous, transcendental meaning, which is a mystical experience of
the archetype of the Self. Jung [124] comments: "Mystics are people
who have a particularly vivid experience of the processes of the collective
unconscious. Mystical experience is experience of archetypes". Von Franz
has formulated this as follows (my translation): "In the
creations of the unconscious... it is a matter of a 'Unio mystica' with the
Self, which is experienced as a union of the cosmic opposites...One finds the
experience hinted at... in the words of the Song of Songs. It is an
experience which frees the human being into cosmic expanse...Only few human
beings today experience this level of individuation..." [125] The result
of the union can be a feeling of oneness, of peace with oneself. As seen
above, this correspondence between the upper and the lower world is expressed
in Chagall's paintings, especially those inspired by the Song of Songs. The union of
God and the Shekhinah also brings forth the birth of the Godly child. Von
Franz [125] writes (my translation): "If man does not grasp the eternal
which dwells in love, then the 'Godly child' of the transcendent pair cannot
be born, the child which is the symbol of achieved individuation". One
could add that every child born is a godly child, the numinous result of love
and sex of man and woman! The
analytical psychologist Edinger [126] divides the story into a sequence of
ten pictures "for the purpose of exposition", as follows: 1. The Shulamite, burned black by the sun,
labors in her brothers' vineyards and yearns for the Bridegroom. (1:1-2:7) 2. The Bridegroom comes to the Shulamite like
the coming of spring. (2:8-17) 3. The lonely Shulamite rises from her bed and
searches the street for her Beloved. (3:1-3) 4. The Shulamite finds the Bridegroom. He comes
like a royal procession of King Solomon. (3:4-11) 5. The Bride and Bridegroom meet in the garden.
The Bridegroom praises the Bride but is wounded by her. (4:1-5:1) 6. The Bridegroom knocks at the Shulamite's door
but she is slow in answering and he is gone. (5:2-5:6) 7. The Shulamite again goes in search of the
lost Bridegroom. (5:6) 8. The watchmen beat the Shulamite and steal her
cloak. (5:7) 9. Bride and Bridegroom find each other and
unite in the garden of pomegranates. (6:1-8:3) 10. The
united lovers are sealed to each other in eternal love. (8:5-7) He says that
"The Song of Songs" is a "coniunctio" poem, a love drama
expressing the union of opposites. His commentary is a classical Jungian
interpretation. He sees the climax of the Song in the consummation of the
coniunctio with the union of Bride and Bridegroom ( "The
coniunctio is consummated with the union of Bride and Bridegroom symbolizing
all pairs of opposites. Now is established the eternal alliance between
Yahweh and Discussion of some passages Blackness
and Beauty Verse 1:5 provides a phrase which offers an
opposition and leads to a reflection on the theme of the shadow: “I am black
yet comely...” The woman is black, dark-skinned and this is an allusion to
the shadow, yet inside she is comely, beautiful, attractive, white. With respect to the man, she represents the dark
Anima, but in her soul, in her “other part”, she is attractive and beautiful.
It seems to me that this could mean that a man may find his beautiful side
through his relationship with his individual dark Anima. In the
Kabbalah, Keter, the supreme aspect of the divine figure, is simultaneously
both absolutely black and absolutely white.(128) Keter does
not emanate anything, because it is completely hidden and invisible. It is
intimately unified with the En-Sof, the unknowable divine essence, and is
thus not perceptible or accessible to contemplation, for it is beyond the
human senses. We can only conceive of it as a black hole, because its essence
is Nothingness, En-Sof. But Keter also becomes blindingly white when it is
placed in relation to the creation and illuminates it. In this case, we can
imagine it as though covered in a white light, but from the point of view of
the En-Sof, Keter becomes Malkhuth (the last Sephirah) and thus is
black.(129) According to Cordovero, there are three types
of blackness:(130) the first aspect of darkness is
the absence of light (haser ha-'or),
and it is thus a relative darkness. We see it as light, but to the higher
spheres it appears black, it becomes Malkhuth, and is called “black” only
relative to white. The second aspect is an essential rather than a relative
darkness, since with respect to the higher Sephiroth, it is black. The third aspect of darkness
is the Malkhuth of Keter, which is female. This nekeivah (femininity) is black, that is to say, the aspect
which Keter assumes when it becomes perceptible in the last Sephirah, the
Sephirah most easily accessible to human contemplation, is female and
dark.(131) (It should perhaps be remembered that for an orthodox male Jew,
the female, woman, especially if not his wife, is essentially “black”). The paradox
of the Self is that, at the highest state, black and white are fused
together, since the lower Self (Malkhuth, the black) is fused with the higher
Self (Keter).(132) At the highest level of our
creativity, the tiqqun (restoration)
of the Ego to the infinite Nothingness, takes place; in Hebrew this
restoration is rendered through a form of word play: the Ego 'any becomes Nothingness 'ayn. When an individual achieves a
transpersonal level and is able to perceive the darkness, that darkness is
associated with Keter and is the black spot which opens onto a completely
other universe. What in
psychological terms is called the process of individuation, in the Kabbalah
is called teshuvah or return.
The whole of creation is in a state of return, in a continuous tension to
bring back the he - the divine
element lost and fallen under the domination of negative powers - to its
original source, by means of a process of cosmic restoration. (133) This is
therapy from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism. According to
Jung, the two Sephiroth Tiphereth and Malkhut correspond to the Bridegroom
and the Bride (Christ and the Church according to Christianity, God and the
Jewish people according to Judaism) and their union is the restoration (tiqqun) of the original unity. Jung was
interested most of all in the Christian Cabala and in alchemy, but
nonetheless we can find in his works many references to the kabalistic
symbology of conjunction. For example: The Cabala
develops an elaborate hieros-gamos fantasy, which expatiates on the union of
the soul with the Sefiroth of the worlds of light and darkness, ‘for the
desire for the upper world is, for the God-fearing man, as the loving desire
of a man for his wife, when he woos her.'(134) Jung
interprets the blackness of the Shulamite in terms of her representing a
shadow figure, the Anima in the unconscious state, desire.(135) The Shulamite
belongs to the same class as the other dark Goddesses, Isis, Artemis,
Parvati, the Black Madonna, whose name means “earth”.(136) In contrast,
the Kabbalah considers the image of the “black” Shulamite in connection with
that of the Queen of Sheba. Even though they are two distinct characters,
they are usually seen as a single figure. While the Queen of Sheba represents
the back (ahorayim) of Nukvah,
the Shulamite represents the front part (panim)
of Nukvah. The back part corresponds to the Sitrah
ahra, the ‘other part”, or the “emanation of the left”. (137) The
Shekhinah has various Partzufim, and different personalities. The Queen of
Sheba, who is black, is her back part, or her Shadow, to use psychological terms.
The Shulamite, another of the Shekhinah's personalities, is not always black,
she herself has more than one personality and the black personality is but
one of these. Like Kali, the Shulamite incarnates different types of female
energy. She can appear in the aspect of the Queen of Sheba in a certain
phase, when she is black, in a state of fall from grace and exile, since she
is separated from the male elements. This is why the Shulamite in the Song of
Songs says, “do not turn away from me because I am black”! Her movement
backward and forwards reflects a situation of cutting off and separation
which hints at redemption. There is a
Queen of Sheba in every woman, that is, a dark side, just as there is a
Samael in every man.(138) The Shulamite is black on
the outside, but inside she is beautiful. When he unites with her, King
Solomon - who represents Ze`ir Anpin,
or God himself, in his attribute of Tiphereth - enters into relation with her
inner whiteness, with the luminous side of Nukvah. Love
Sickness Verse 2:5
contains a clear reference to the strength of the archetype of love: “I am
faint with love”, as the Soncino Bible puts it, or, to use a slightly
stronger expression: “I am sick with love”. Love-sickness indicates a state
of mind in which a person suffers because they are in love and yearn to be
united with the loved one. Separation from the loved one is intolerable. We
could say that the love-sick individual has fallen victim to the archetype
and has lost control of the Ego; we could interpret the state in
psychological terms as being possessed by the counter-sexual archetype.
Nonetheless, behind this possession there lies an urge to unity, a need, be
it conscious or unconscious, to overcome the split of the female and the male
in order to unite with the Self; there is a search for the mystic experience
of the oneness of existence. Bride and
Bridegroom Verses 3:1-5
(and also 5:2-7) can be seen as a dream: “By night on my bed I sought him”
(3:1), and “I sleep but my heart waketh...” (5:2). From a psychological point
of view, it could be said that here an unconscious content breaks into the
conscious, whether this occurs in a dream or in a fantasy or in the
imagination. The Bride and Bridegroom unite in the garden of pomegranates ( Kaplan
recalls that in the Sefer Bahir,(140) the palm, a male symbol, is put in opposition to
the ethrog (citron), but also to the Bride of the Song.(141) The symbolism of
conjunction is quite clear here and becomes even more so in the kabalistic
interpretation of the rite of Lulav:
a palm branch and citron are two of the elements which go to make up the Lulav, the composition of four species
which is used at the Feast of Booths (Succoth).
Kaplan states that the mitzvah
of the four species (palm, myrtle, willow and citron), which are bound and
shaken in six directions, is an allusion to the six male Sephiroth of the Ze`ir Anpin and to the female Sephirah,
Nukvah. The three Hadasim represent Chesed,
Gevurah and Tiferet; the two Aravot are Netzach and Hod; the Lulav is Yesod,
and the Etrog is Malkuth. In binding the Hadasim and Aravot to the Lulav we
are pointing to the necessity of perfecting our ability to give through
Yesod. (142) The palm
tree itself recalls a male-female syzygìa,
in the way that the leaf, in an upright position, represents the male
element, while the pit of the date “cleft, the way females are” is the image
of the pudendum muliebre.(143) Sister and
Bride The sense of
having fallen in love is given in verse 4:9: “Thou hast ravished my heart, my
sister, my bride; Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes. With
one bead of thy necklace.” The beloved woman is called “sister and bride”,
which brings to mind once more the brother-sister incest motif which, in
psychological terms, corresponds to the union of the Animus with the Anima,
the inner counter-sexual part. Jung gave a
symbolic interpretation of incest in the process of individuation, (144) but
it has a deep significance as a mystery, and this is how it is treated in the
Kabbalah. (145) At verse
4:12, we find “A garden shut up is my sister, a spring shut up, a fountain
sealed”, which implies that the “sister” is still a virgin, not yet ready to
consummate the marriage. Both sister and bride are images of the Anima. The
description of the Shulamite in Chapter 7 is strikingly rich and poetic and
in the comparisons of the Shulamite with aspects of nature we can find an
allusion to the Shulamite's earth-linked symbolic and archetypal aspect. The Breaking
in of the Unconscious Before I was
aware, my soul set me upon the chariots of my princely people. ( Many
translators and commentators of The Song of Songs consider this to be one of
the most problematic verses. One has only to consider the various differing
translations, which have been made of it to find confirmation of its
difficulty. First of all, it has to be decided who is speaking here, the man
or the woman? According to the Soncino Bible translation, it is the woman,
whereas in my personal reading it is rather the man. “Before I was aware”
could be interpreted as an allusion to an eruption of the unconscious, due to
a projection of the Anima. The man is overcome by the Anima, by an as yet
unconscious content. He has fallen in love and is overcome by his emotions;
there is no possibility that he can be aware of what is happening to him.
This falling in love, which plays a considerable part in The Song of Songs,
leads the man to experience the feminine part he has within him. In this state
of being in love (infatuation?), he is as though “set upon the chariots”,
which I interpret as meaning carried away by the collective unconscious, into
the realm of the union of God and the Shekhinah. We could also perhaps find
here an allusion to the experience of orgasm, during which individual
consciousness evaporates for a moment. The “princely people” refers possibly
to the Jewish people as the chosen people of God, that is to say, the man is
linked to his roots in the spiritual history of his people. The Shulamite's
dance could also be interpreted as the continuation of his relationship with
the Anima, in that it emphasizes the relation to a level distinct from the
rational level. As we know from analytical practice, the
encounter with the Anima is a profoundly significant event for a man. It can
lead to the integration of the Anima, providing the Ego is strong enough and
that there exists a capacity for symbolic comprehension, but which can also
destroy the Ego and have serious consequences such as depression, inflation,
or divorce for a married man. When integration is accomplished, the encounter
with the Anima may be considered as a fundamental stage in the process of
individuation. In Thrall to
Love In 7:6 we
read: `The King is held captive in the tresses thereof' (of the woman, the
Anima, the queen, the Shulamite), which is a metaphor for the psychological
state of the lack of freedom of the Ego.
The archetype
of love represented by the union of Animus and Anima has
tremendous energy and can obsess the Ego (as in the case of Samson and
Delila). If this possession becomes an
addiction, we speak of Don Juanism and nymphomania. The
possession by love expresses itself also in suffering. Goethe (146) said: `only the one who knows
yearning understands my suffering' (`Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss was
ich leide'). This is only one example of the literature regarding
love and suffering. One yearns
and is longing for the partner with whom one cannot be together for some
reason. Yearning can also be
understood as a longing for union, whereby Animus and Anima are projected. Love and
Death The power of
the archetype of love is also expressed in 8:6: For love is strong as death, Jealousy is cruel as the grave; The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, A very flame of the Lord. By comparing love and death, this verse expresses a psychological truth: when one is caught by the archetypal energy o |