Appendix. Jung’s correction of Neumann’s New Ethic (JA).
[LETTER TO THE JÜDISCHE RUNDSCHAU REGARDING “DIE JUDENFRAGE IN DER PSYCHOTHERAPIE,” JÜDISCHE RUNDSCHAU, 48, 15 JUNE 1934, P. 5:]
WE TAKE THE FOLLOWING (ABRIDGED) EXCERPTS FROM A FURTHER LETTER ON THE SAME THEME.
Jung maintains that the Jew has a particular tendency to recognize the negative, the shadow, and he even believes that while the Aryan man requires more illusions, the Jew is more capable of living with a negative perception. Kirsch appeals against this observation behind which no negative evaluation of any sort is concealed. However, Jewish psychology does in fact demonstrate a characteristic—nothing more than this was asserted by Jung—a strong tendency to see the negative and to raise it to consciousness. On a small scale, this is symptomatic of the all too familiar “Jewish” manner of grumbling, but at the highest level this trait permeates Jewish awareness of history. Even in the Bible, the Jewish people knows its history as a history of ever repeated falling into sin, and in the prophets, who really were connected to the original source, this motif reaches its creative incarnation. Over and over again they raised the people’s consciousness of the negative, the shadow side, and if one misconstrues this fundamental fact as a trait of Galut psychology, one is not doing Judaism any favors, as one robs it of the fundamental fact of its moral instinct that extends even as far as the one-sidedness of Freudian psychology.
The objection levied against Jung that he has “not reached the genotype of the actual Jew from the phenotype of the Jew living in exile from the shekinah” is also misguided. Jung, as a psychologist, is adhering to the experiences arising from his work with Jewish people, and we all belong to “the phenotype of the Jew living in exile from the shekinah,” i.e., of the Jew as he is, but we also do not need to take flight into the image of a nonexistent “real” “actual” Jew. It is a false path to emphasize “a special link between the Jew and the eternal source,” even if it may once have existed. Jung is not disputing that the Jews of the Bible saw and lived the “greater aspect of the human soul,” but his work with the contemporary Jewish person has allowed him to see a clear and fateful tendency to repress this greater aspect, and this is what the issue is today.
Jung wrote in 1918 when Judaism had barely become aware of Zionism: “The Jew is domesticated to a high degree, but is sorely perplexed about that something in man that touches the earth, which receives new strength from below…. The Jew does not have enough of this—where does he make contact with his earth? The secret of the earth is no joke and no paradox.” This is exactly the recognition and formulation of Zionism, and also, in his tendency to make the Jew aware of this, Jung is “more Zionist” than the Jews and Zionists who want to gloss over it.
We believe that Jungian Psychology will be crucial in the striving of the Jews to reach their foundation; it is precisely the so-called “Zionist” character of his perceptions that, just like Zionism does, incorporate the irrational of the creative human source, which will be groundbreaking here. But just as it is only the making conscious of the shadow side, of the personal unconscious, which is a prerequisite for the individual to reconnect with the foundation, in precisely the same way, Zionism will have to go along a hard path of making conscious the negative. Only then will an ultimate and deeply grounded development of Erez-Israel and a rebirth of the Jew that emerges from his creative foundation be possible.
Dr. Erich Neumann, Tel Aviv.
[“Zur jüdischen Religionsgeschichte,” Jüdische Rundschau, 60, 27 July 1934, p. 10:]
ON THE JEWISH HISTORY OF RELIGION
An essay by Hugo Rosenthal bestowed with the title Opposing Types in the Jewish History of Religion is included in the recently published collection The Reality of the Soul by C. G. Jung (Rascher Press, Zurich), alongside essays by Jung, the highly significant works of the famous psychologist. Rosenthal will be well known to readers of the Jüdische Rundschau for his numerous contributions.
Rosenthal takes as his starting point the two main types of Jungian psychology, namely, the extravert and the introvert. Both are fundamentally different in their distinct ways of relating to the world. While the extravert is orientated “outward,” toward his objects, his interests are located there and he also experiences his fate there; for the introvert the emphasis is with the subject, he is orientated toward the “inner world.” However, this does not mean, as is often misconstrued, that he only makes “subjective” judgments, or only behaves in a “subjective” way. The inner world is something equally as universal and objective as the external world. The extravert is directed toward the one part of the “world,” to the general structure of the external world, the introvert to the other part, to the general structure of the human being. Both parts together are required before a complete image of the world is achieved, but every partial stance that suppresses and excludes one side of the world leads to a danger. But it is precisely this one-sidedness that characterizes the psychological type.
In the first part of his essay Rosenthal explores the Jew–non-Jew opposition. The most striking characteristic of the Jewish people is its awareness of being a “chosen people,” i.e., being in opposition to the world and all other peoples, not being like the other peoples of the earth. However, psychologically speaking, this stance is a hallmark of introversion, for “the introvert locates himself in opposition to the world.” However, Rosenthal does not pursue this fundamental insight to its very important conclusions; rather, the emphasis of his work lies in the exploration of the contrasting types as an “inner-Jewish” problem.
Tracing the contrast of types in Jewish spiritual history is exceptionally illuminating. The ever-repeating duality in Jewish development with its constant inner battle acquires quite a different face when one recognizes it as an unavoidable contest between the two warring basic types. The opposition between extravert-introvert can be traced throughout all basic Jewish opposites, from the polarity of “priest-prophet,” “Halacha-Aggada” as far as the battle of Rabbinism against kabbalah and Hasidism and right into the present day. All this is only hinted at in Rosenthal’s essay, but from now on, no emollient confrontation with Judaism will be able to disregard this way of thinking that is capable of clarifying some misunderstandings and illuminating some duality.
Starting from the problem of types, Rosenthal applies almost the entire framework of analytical psychology to analyze two very different biblical texts. On the one hand, he examines the figure of Saul in its contrast to that of David by which he achieves a comprehensive understanding of the personality and the destiny of this king; however, of greater importance than this part—against which some basic methodological objections can be raised—is the other section of the work which explores the Jacob-Esau opposition.
Qualms about the adequacy of a psychological exploration of texts such as the Bible are no longer appropriate today, for through Jung’s discovery of the “collective unconscious” as the general foundation upon which human culture is constructed, an adequate conception of mythical material and religious phenomena became possible. The narrative of Jacob’s battle with the angel, which according to received wisdom is Jacob’s guardian angel, portrays, in the sense of myth, “a dream of the people.” Rosenthal makes him an object of analysis which reveals the deepest layers of the national character by demonstrating that, in this battle, the battle of Judaism with itself, with its inferior side, it is “Esau” who is portrayed. The interweaving of the forefathers’ narrative with the universal-mythical event which affects the entire people is traceable right into the details of the text, and it can be deduced precisely from the symbolic-mythical reality of the events just how the battle between the opposing types develops via the battle with its own inferiority toward the holy militancy of Israel.
This elaboration of the content is naturally meager and unsatisfactory, but it is also not intended to be a substitute for the reading of Rosenthal’s work, which contains a plethora of important findings, even if some objections can be raised against it.
The application of analytical psychology to the study of religion—of which the Rosenthal work is a first beginning—imparts not only new answers and questions, but it can also provide a decisive contribution to the regrounding of the Jew in Judaism by facilitating for the modern man a personal access to the religious and general basics of Jewish scripture.
Dr. Erich Neumann, Tel Aviv.