The Archetypal Beggar

The Beggar
Article by Erel Shalit

Rainer Maria Rilke: The Song of the Beggar

I am always going from door to door,
whether in rain or heat,
and sometimes I will lay my right ear in
the palm of my right hand.
And as I speak my voice seems strange as if
it were alien to me,

for I’m not certain whose voice is crying:
mine or someone else’s.
I cry for a pittance to sustain me.
The poets cry for more.

In the end I conceal my entire face
and cover both my eyes;
there it lies in my hands with all its weight
and looks as if at rest,
so no one may think I had no place where-
upon to lay my head. (1)

Faceless Interiority
Far away in the shadow, behind the persona and one’s face of appearance, stands the beggar. He has no social face; he plays no game. Pretension is an aspect of the persona, though not every persona that we wear is necessarily either false or pretentious. Persona pertains to the social adaptation of our conscious identity. It takes courage, honesty and compassion to transcend one’s conscious experience of identity. On the road, one is forced to overcome obstacles and struggle with adversaries. Then, as well, one will have to bend down low and care for the wounded, embracing the weak. And traveling on, one will have to see without eyes, touch with empty hands, hear the unspoken words, and sense the sameness, identitas, in anonymity. A forty-five-year-old extraverted man, professionally successful and generally concerned with labels of accessories, dreamed:

I am in a very elegant house. It’s my house, and I’m having a party. Everyone “who’s-who” is there. Suddenly a bitchy old woman comes down the stairs, tells me that the house is hers, I have only rented it, and I have to leave. It is very embarrassing, I’m being thrown out, from what I thought was my house. Out there in the street I meet a beggar. He is homeless, crazy, doesn’t really know how to speak, and doesn’t know who he is – he is without identity. It’s frightening.

As a negative of our ego-ideal and the socially adjusted persona, the shadowy image of the beggar abides in our soul, as if without identity. Without a persona, there can be no pretension—which comes from Latin’s praetendere, to extend in front. We need to ‘extend in front’ of ourselves, to reach out and forwards. Thereby, some degree of falseness and pretension are inevitable and undeniable. In contrast to the persona, the beggar “huddle[s] in the shadows,” and unmasks those who come his way,(2) that is, everyone who ventures far away from the royal court of unquestioned convictions. Without the protection of a social façade, the image of the beggar expresses the Inner Voice or the Daemon. The beggar becomes the genuine persona, that is, he is an image of the means by which the Voice comes across; persona, per sonare, by means of voice. But since he lacks the appearance of an external persona, he is not easily seen and attended to, but must be heard and listened to, for us to grasp the meaning of his words.(4) In Dr. D’s dream (page 176), he attends to the voice of the old, shabby, hardly visible, wise man.

The image of the beggar entails a reversal of our attitude in consciousness. We may believe that we give him something, that we may contribute to his welfare. But the essence of his being is that he holds something for us to receive. He may hold in his hand, and whisper through his mouth, a wisdom free from conventional ethics, transcending our conscious distinction of good and evil.(4) Beyond the blushing face of shame, the beggar’s hand is full of emptiness—he holds nothing in his hand.

The beggar does not do, and we may so easily pass by without noticing him. Only by stopping for a moment may we see what he can give—an opportunity to feel and hear, to reflect and forget myself (my ego), and to know what not to forgo:

The crippled beggar cries.
His weeping masks the sun’s eye,
hides the flowers.
His weeping–
a smoldering barrier
between me and God.
The crippled beggar demands
that I thrust my whole life
into his hand–
that which is revealed
and that which is hidden,
all that could have happened
and all that yet will happen.
The crippled beggar demands
that I let him eat
from the Carmel in my soul
and from the sea,
from the risings of the sun
and from the depths within me.
The crippled beggar spits in my face
because I have not forgotten myself,
because I have not died.
His scorn is right.
To the quiet, inner core
that exists even in the heart of the lost,
to the axis of immortality
that exists even in the heart of the insane,
I have not given over
my whole self.
I have almost forgotten
that he, too, the impoverished one,
is a child of the sun,
that his soul, too,
will turn into a rose at twilight.(5)

When Gandhi after more than twenty years in South Africa stepped ashore in India, he spent a year of wandering, “his ears open but his mouth shut.” The notable poet Tagore called him “The Great Soul in Beggar’s Garb.” Soul is a perspective, perspective, by means of spection, looking, introspective and extraspective, which enables us not to just act and do. It is reflective between us and events, and makes us relate to our deeds,(6) thereby inducing what we do with life, with inspiration. Without soul we may constantly fight wars with an ever-more evil enemy, or we may fall into paralyzing crippleness. The voice that speaks through the image of the beggar is not formulated by his words, but by our listening in spite of there being nothing to see. The soul that the beggar brings is one of pure interiority, which brings life only if attended to. At the end of the Grimm brothers’ tale of The Golden Bird, for instance, the king’s (in some versions the gardener’s) youngest son arrives secretly at the king’s court, dressed in a poor man’s ragged clothes. As he arrives, scarcely within the doors, the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess left off weeping. The soul appears in the least of garments, secretly, invisibly, without known identity. The following was the final dream that a fifty-five-year-old man brought at the end of a seven-year analysis:

I am walking with a group of people in a field. It is rather dark. It is like walking along a wadi [dry river valley] at the slopes of a gray mountain. From somewhere high up I hear a voice telling me – and it seems he is calling just me – I have to get up on top of the mountain and read prayers from a book.

I then stand on a cliff high up on the mountain, with the man who had called me. He doesn’t look like the kind of prophet you would imagine – or perhaps you would! He is very unimpressive, small, ugly, hunchback, disgusting! No, sorry, not disgusting, but you’d hardly notice him, or, rather, if you met him in real life, one would try to avoid him, like those poor sick beggars you see more and more in the city.

He just hands me the book. Looks like a bunch of old papers. The prayers are a combination of Jewish and alchemical texts or prayers. I have to do this, supposedly because I am accused of some crime, possibly having assassinated someone. But before climbing higher on up the mountain, I go into a cave, supposedly my cave, where there are lots of wine glasses, kind of grails, some in glass, others in metals, that I have to serve to people, though I don’t really see the people; they will arrive later. The wine glasses are placed on an old wooden table, and the tin cups on an even more antique wooden table. Everything is semi-dark. I don’t know what kind of mixture or drink is in the glasses, especially in the tin cups – probably some alchemical tincture – just joking! But it has that kind of flavor, so I guess I have to accept that! Then the man, the beggar/prophet or whatever, his daughter comes running. She has been running very quickly, and I meet her at the entrance of the cave as I am on my way to depart to ascend the mountain. She is clearly taken by her long and quick run, breathes visibly, tells me that the whole accusation against me is a mistake. I feel relieved. I know that you [the analyst] won’t die from me leaving, even if you’ll be somewhat sad, just like I will be as well, but I still know that I have to carry out the task, even if you can’t help me any further, and I must go ahead and do it alone.

This man knew he had further work to do, but also felt that there always would be, and at some stage he needed to take it on himself. The need of a soulful attitude in this man’s further undertakings was unmistakable. His tendency not to remain serious, but to dismiss the hard work by joke and avoidance, had been prominent. A sense of lack of meaning in life had been the reason to come for analysis.

In his associations to the dream he said he had come to understand there were “layers of meaning” to “that Jungian stuff and all that alchemy,” using “alchemy” as a code word for his ambivalence to the process, but thereby for its potency as well.

The word alchemy had most likely not been mentioned during the years of analysis, but the meaning of the word warrants a brief comment: as is well known, Jung concluded that the alchemical process reflects the soul’s transformative journey through the shadow to the Self, from base metal to refined gold. There are various assumptions as to the etymological origin of the word alchemy. One possible origin is from the Greek chumeia, to pour together, to cast together, clearly reflecting the process of bringing seemingly opposite elements together. In this sense, alchemy replicates the process of the Self; symbolos, symbol-formation as a healing process that brings the opposites together (syn- together, ballein- to throw)—in contrast to the consciousness-raising process of diabolos (to throw apart).

Another possible origin is from the Arabic al-khimiya, where Khemia was an ancient name for Egypt, meaning ‘the land of the black earth,’ because of the mud that brought fertility to the land of the Nile. Most transformative activity in the alchemical laboratory of therapy and analysis probably takes place in the land of the black earth, the shadowy matter of the process.

Gershom Scholem writes, “Even more remarkable is the derivation of the word kimiya (chemistry) from the Hebrew, which carried over from Arabic sources.” He quotes several older Arabic and Jewish sources, and says, “The word for chemistry comes from ki miya,”(7) i.e., alchemy would mean for it is of God. It seems we might need to hear the voice of all three possible etymologies in order to appreciate the journey of the soul.

The previous article is an excerpt from Erel Shalit’s
Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path
(Fisher King Press 2008)

 available from:

Amazon.com  Amazon.co.uk

also available from:

C.G. Jung Institute of New York Foundation Bookstore (212) 697-6430
C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles (310) 556-1196
Pacifica Graduate Institute Bookstore (805) 969-3626 Ext. 327
Caversham Booksellers in Toronto (416) 944-0962

We Ship Worldwide! PHONE ORDERS WELCOMED, CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED, or VISIT US ONLINE AT www.fisherkingpress.com

1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US &  Canada, International +1-831-238-7799.

Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93922 / Phone: 831-238-7799 / orders@fisherkingpress.com www.fisherkingpress.com

Below are links to download the FKP newsletter, current catalog, and price list/order form:

Fisher King Press Newsletter
Fisher King Press Catalog of Publications
Fisher King Press Price List and Order Form

1.Selected Poems, Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming, p. 78.
2. Elie Wiesel, A Beggar in Jerusalem, p. 3
3. It is noteworthy that the root of the Hebrew word for meaning, maSHMAot, means to hear. Martin Buber claimed the Jews were inherently a people of the “ear,” “summoned to ‘hear,’ as in ‘Hear, Oh Israel’ ” (Elon, The Pity of it All, p. 262.)
4. Cf. Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, p. 39; The Hero and His Shadow, p. xvi
5. “The Crippled Beggar,” from The Spectacular Difference: Selected Poems of Zelda, p. 39-41. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Marcia Falk (Hebrew Union College Press, 2004). Copyright (c) 2004 by Marcia Lee Falk. Used by permission of the translator
6. James Hillman, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, pp. 6-10; Andrew Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians, p. 244.
7. Gershom Scholem, Alchemy and Kabbalah, p. 16f.

Psyche and the City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis

Forthcoming August 1, 2010

Psyche and the City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis

Editor: Thomas Singer
Preface: Thomas Kirsch

Psyche and The City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis, is a collection of depth-oriented articles about several of the great cities of the world. Its chapters explore each city’s unique identity in terms of such hard-to-define qualities as psyche, soul, and spirit through history, geography, and anecdotes from the authors’ personal experiences.

The following is excerpted from the beginning of Erel Shalit's chapter on Jerusalem:

Jerusalem
Human Ground, Archetypal Spirit

Unlike Rome, not all roads lead to Jerusalem, and those that do may all too easily lead the visitor astray in a labyrinth of divinity and madness. In the course of history, when Rome became the center of power, sanctity and glory, Jerusalem sank into spiritual ruin and peripheral oblivion. Thus, even those modern roads that bring you smoothly to the city may force the pilgrim to pass “through thorny hedges…” of his or her mind.

One may conveniently approach Jerusalem from the west, ascending the modern highway, which climbs eastward through the Judean Hills–like a Western mind moving toward the Orient. By approaching Jerusalem driving on the comfortable asphalt that smoothly covers the ground and softens the bumps, one may arrive only to find a noisy and neglected city, tired by too much spirit and worn out by too much poverty. Slowly winding upward through the hills, parallel to the highway, runs the dusty old donkey path, burdened by archetypal history. Arriving this way, one may find the sparks of illumination that shine from within the dry stones, as well as the strife and conflict that cut through the rocks of Jerusalem.

Alternatively, one may proceed toward Jerusalem on the Route of the Patriarchs, from the desert in the east. This is the path on which the ancient Hebrews arrived, as they crossed the river into the land of Canaan, thus gaining their name and reputation as Hebrews, which means “those that came from across the river.”

One may capture Jerusalem by drawing the sword against evil spells, as did King David from the Jebusites three millennia ago, or enter the city humbly on a donkey, like Jesus did and any future Messiah is supposed to do as well, or like the Caliph Omar majestically riding on a white camel. In whatever way one arrives, the visitor must be ready to overcome the obstacles of Earthly Jerusalem, which far from always mirrors her Heavenly Sister’s image of completeness and redemption.

“Crouched among its hills,” Jerusalem is immersed with mythological, religious, and symbolic significance. Yet, scarce in natural resources, the surrounding land is cultivated rather than fertile by nature, and the so-called Jerusalem stone, the pale limestone that characterizes many of the city houses, nearly cracks and shatters by carrying the burden of Heavenly Jerusalem. In its often shabby garb, terrestrial Jerusalem seems to want to shake off its Celestial Glory, releasing itself from the task of being “the gateway to heaven.” At other times, when the light from above is reflected in her harsh stones, Jerusalem seems to embrace the presence of the Shekhinah, the earthly dwelling of the divine. Especially at dawn and at dusk, the reflection of the light may bring that which is below and that which is above, earth and heaven, reality and imagination into play with each other–marble-like clouds weighing heavily above, and stones that radiate light.

Contents

Soul/City Luigi Zoja
Bangalore Kusum Dhar Prabhu
Berlin Jörg Rasche
Cairo Antonio Lanfranchi
Cape Town Astrid Berg
Jerusalem Erel Shalit
Kyoto Toshio Kawai
London Christopher Hauke
Los Angeles Nancy Furlotti
Mexico City Jackie Gerson
Montreal Tom Kelly
Moscow Elena Pourtova
New Orleans Charlotte Mathes
New York Beverley Zabriskie
Paris Viviane Thibaudier
San Francisco John Beebe
Sao Paulo Gustavo Barcello
Shanghai Heyong Shen
Sydney Craig san Roque
Zürich Murray Stein

Tom Singer (Ed.) Psyche and the City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis, Spring Journal Books.

Order Psyche and the City from Amazon, from Spring Journal and Books, or from Fisher King Press

Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $17.95 and Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press. Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted.1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799.

Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93922

Download the
Fisher King Press Newsletter
Fisher King Press Catalog of Publications
Fisher King Press Price List and Order Form

Ten Little Boxes

The Treasures of Brod and Kafka – in Ten Little Boxes

Will the mystery of the whereabouts of Kafka’s remaining, unknown writings soon be revealed? Ofer Aderet reports in Haaretz Newspaper that the first of ten boxes containing documents and writings of Brod and Kafka has finally been opened, but publication of the content has so far been withheld.

The following is a brief excerpt from Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return:

… Behind closed doors, Judge K. presided over the Brod-Hoppe-Kafka trial. Quite simply and very briefly, Brod’s secretary, some say mistress, had taken hold of his personal library and all the treasures … Paranoically, Mrs. Hoppe seemed to fulfill K’s will rather than Brod’s. True, she did not burn the library, she kept most of the treasures away from the public’s eye, in contrast to Brod, who had saved them for the world of literature and culture. She managed, as well, to capitalize on some of the manuscripts, shipping them abroad, earning a comfortable sum in exchange for the trials of Josef K. After her death, her already elderly daughters kept pythonian guard of the shrine, only letting the cats roam freely. Hardly anyone would know what remained hidden behind the castle gates, except for an expert from foreign lands, whom Max Brod had given brief and conditional permission to bring his looking glass into the judge’s private chamber. He may remain the only living person, who has read at least part of Kafka’s unpublished works. According to leaks, likely by this foreign expert, one story is about a rat, one among many rats in Prague’s sewage system. But this rat had a complex, golden mechanical device, a precise micro-cosmos built into its mind. When Eli Shimeoni tried to imagine it, he came to think of the exquisite Marie-Antoinette watch. It had taken the supreme watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet forty-four years to complete this masterpiece of all times. The Queen did not live to see this timeless tabernacle of time, ready to be presented to the world only in 1827, even after Breguet himself had ascended from this world. As Sir David Lionel Salomons, the last owner of the watch had claimed, to carry a Breguet watch is to have the brains of a genius in your pocket…

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $19.95 or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press.  You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press. Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316  toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799

Post-Graduate Studies in Jung's Analytical Psychology

We are pleased to announce the opening of a post-graduate program in

Jung's Analytical Psychology

Bar Ilan University, Continuing Education, Weisfeld School of Social Work

Dr. Erel Shalit, Director

For further details, please click here

Studies are conducted in Hebrew.

For Jungian studies in English, please contact Dr. Shalit, shalit@eshalit.com

הפסיכולוגיה האנליטית של יונג
מרכז אקדמי: ד"ר אראל שליט

אנו שמחים להודיע על פתיחת תוכנית חד שנתית של העמקה בפסיכולוגיה האנליטית של יונג, במסגרת היחידה ללימודי המשך, .של בית הספר לעבודה סוציאלית, ע"ש לואיס וגבי וייספלד, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן
מטרת התכנית היא להכיר את תורתו של יונג ואת הגישה הטיפולית הנגזרת ממנה. הגישה מרחיבה את הבנת נפש האדם במישור

.האישי, בסביבתו התרבותית והרוחנית, כפי שמשתקף הדבר באגדות, מיתוסים וחלומות

מלבד הכרת המושגים היונגיאנים, נעמיק בהבנת נפש האדם במעגל חייו, בתהליך האינדיבידואציה המתמשך שלו, בחלום

.וסמליו ובצל האדם

. התכנית מיועדת לאנשי מקצוע בתחומי הטיפול, השיקום והייעוץ החינוכי

.הלימודים יתקיימו בימי שני, בשעות 15:00 - 20:30, 30 מפגשים, סה"כ 180 שעות

ניתן לפנות לאראל שליט או אבי באומן

shalit@orange.net.il

yoavib@netvision.net.il

באתר של היחדה ללימודי המשך ניתן למצוא פרטים אודות התוכנית, ולהוריד טופס הרשמה

http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/sw/hemshech/b13.html

(טל. 03-5317265; cont.education@mail.biu.ac.il).

José María Aznar: If Israel goes down, we all go down

José María Aznar, Former Prime Minister of Spain, has written an important opinion piece in the Times, June 17, 2010. His position reflects truthfully how vulnerable and precarious the present situation is in Israel. While Israel possibly is equipped to deal with many of the threats the country presently encounters, the increasing demonization, which skillfully deconstructs its legitimacy, may provide the successful road to the final solution for those who seek it.

Following Aznar's opinion piece you will find an excerpt from my novella Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, which deals with this subject. The book is presently on sale at Fisher King Press, see details below.

If Israel goes down, we all go down
By José María Aznar

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down. To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.

José María Aznar was prime minister of Spain between 1996 and 2004.

During his daydream, Eliezer Shimeoni, the protagonist of Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, imagines the men and the women, the elderly and the infants, crowding the sandy shores, boarding the ships that set sail across the Sea. That very moment he understood why the passionate longing for home had anchored in the Jewish soul, and why the sense of the soul’s exile wandered like a shadow behind every Jew. Those shores he knew so well were no longer full of playing children or of smiling lads and teasing maidens and suntanned tourists. In his mind he saw, rather, the pushing and the screaming, the anxiety and the desperate clinging together for comfort, as the fate of dispersal lie in wait for the Jews of the Destroyed Temple, soon to board the ships of salvage for a future of pogroms and persecution.

Now, just like then, many had stayed behind, perhaps mostly those that had had no choice, scattered in little towns and villages around the country, under foreign rule. He imagined the day of upheaval, when Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai, youngest pupil of Hillel was smuggled out of Jerusalem in flames in a coffin during the Great Siege.

Yochanan understood that as Jerusalem was on fire and the Temple destroyed, a historical era had come to its end. He established the Council of Yavneh. While he himself still resided in the Land of the Fathers, this would be the beginning of Rabbinical Judaism, and millennia of Diaspora Judaism. For Eli S. this was the picture of a fugitive, of a refugee in the making. Exile and return had been wavering back and forth for centuries, even before the destruction of the Second Temple. But the year seventy of our common era was a moment close enough in time so that he could touch it, or that was recent enough to touch him. He could almost stretch out his hand across the short distance in history, and grab the side of the coffin, as if he himself carried Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai out of the burning Jerusalem, across the hills and the fields down to the coastal plain, for future wanderings to be drawn on the maps of the world.…

His tranquil ruminations about exile and return, rebirth and destruction, were suddenly interrupted when Professor Shimeoni felt his entire body flush, feeling as if he had been stripped of his clothes, to bare nudity. He recalled the words of the Norwegian philosopher Jostein Gaarder, of “Sophie’s World” fame, who in 2006 wrote, “We do no longer recognize the State of Israel. … We laugh at this people’s – the Jews – fancies and weep over its misdeeds.” Then, foreseeing the fulfillment of his wet dream he excels in triumphant compassion, exclaiming “Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells… Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!” Not a far cry from Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, whose diagnosis says, “Israel has no historical, religious, or cultural justification, and we will never establish relations with this cancer.”

Quickly, quickly, help get rid off the cancer! I accuse, I accuse you, Jostein Gaarder, and with you I accuse those European intellectuals, with whom I have always felt affinity, who collaborate with the grand deception, 21st Century Faux, in which the boundaries have been blurred between empathy of the heart and apocalyptic hell, between depth of mind and simplicity of thought, Shimeoni exclaimed to the absent audience.

…He recalled the words of Chaim Potok, who so poignantly gave voice to that collective concern, “To be a Jew in this century is to understand fully the possibility of the end of mankind, while at the same time believing with certain faith that we will survive.” Living in Israel was certainly living at life’s edge, at the edge of survival.

Bitter irony turned into sour cynicism, as Professor Shimeoni reflected on the word “certain.” He was convinced that an eloquent writer such as Potok had purposefully used the ambiguous word certain. “Is there a word more uncertain than certain?” he asked himself rhetorically. “Did Potok mean that we could be sure, could be certain in our faith that we will survive, or did he mean that we may have some, a bit, perhaps a certain bit of faith that we will survive?”

Dr. Erel Shalit is a psychoanalyst and author, and past President of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. Erel Shalit has served as officer in the IDF Medical Corps, has been on the council of Meretz, and is a member of The Council for Peace and Security. His latest book, the novella Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, is a fictitious account of a scenario played out in the mind of many Israelis, pertaining to existential reflections and apocalyptic fears, but then, as well, the hope and commitment that arise from the abyss of trepidation.

Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $17.95 and
Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95,
or
$30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press Online Bookstore.
You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press.

Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316 toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799.

Fisher King Press / PO Box 222321 / Carmel, CA 93922 / Phone: 831-238-7799 / orders@fisherkingpress.com / http://www.fisherkingpress.com/

Download the
Fisher King Press Newsletter
Fisher King Press Catalog of Publications
Fisher King Press Price List and Order Form

“Technology is rewiring our brains”

In a recent article in the New York Times, Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price, by Matt Richtel, June 6, 2010, Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and a leading brain scientists, claims that technology is changing our brains. As compared to fifty years ago, we consume three times as much information. We are constantly on the go, associatively moving from one site to another, whether in the cyberworld or in the world of non-locality, or non-places, as French philosopher Mark Augé calls the supermarkets, highways and airport lounges. While the brains of Internet users are more efficient at finding information, they have greater difficulty staying focused, and differentiating between relevant and the irrelevant. Not only is the brain affected and going through changes due to the features of the post-modern condition, but behavior and personality as well. The emphasis of ego-functions on motor coordination rather than creativity and depth of thought is not without consequences.In my recent paper ‘Destruction of the Image and the Worship of Transiency’ (Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, February 2010) I discuss aspects of the post-modern condition and the Transient Personality who emerges from and is him (or her-)self a manifestation of it. These features include speed without digestion, excessive association rather than staying centered, and the transient masks provided by cyber-pseudonymity.

With the benefits of technological and scientific progress, we also pay a price; spending twelve hours of media-time per day, may create the sense of being connected with the world, but may leave us alienated from ourselves. It may leave us, as well, with an utterly false understanding of the world, since we come to understand the recorded image of it, which, as Susan Sontag said already many years ago, “is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks.”The consequence may be that we banish our selves into exile.

I will have the opportunity to elaborate on these issues at the forthcoming Assisi conference, taking place July 20-27 on the Island of Procida, Italy in the Bay of Naples.
For further details, see The Assisi Conference.

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $19.95 or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press.  You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press. Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316  toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799
Download the
Fisher King Press Newsletter
Fisher King Press Catalog of Publications
Fisher King Press Price List and Order Form

Deconstructing Israel

The young men of the Israeli Navy commando that boarded the Mavi Marmara, should be commended for their exemplary conduct. In a complex and unexpectedly violent situation, they showed admirable restraint. They were attacked by a mob of hooligans with knives, batons and gunfire, some whom were Al-Qaida linked mercenaries - not the peace activists they had anticipated and prepared for.

Is Israel entitled to prevent ships from entering Gaza?

The Hamas regime, having taken power by force, calls for the destruction of Israel, does whatever it can, including the firing of thousands of rockets, kidnappings and bombings, to achieve this goal. Yet, over the last 18 months more than a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel – nearly a ton per person.

The decision to divert the convoy at sea, rather than await its arrival at Gaza coast, with the prepared manifestations and provocations, seems to be legally justified and tactically reasonable.

Is the blockade itself an immoral act of collective punishment, as for instance author Amos Oz says?

Considering the fact that the Hamas regime is more intent on destroying Israel than caring for the welfare of its own population (including the killing of 600 Palestinians, and wounding 2000 of their opponents by shooting them in the leg or knee), Israel’s insisting on examining the shiploads for ammunition and weaponry flowing into the Hamas terror-state may well be a legitimate act of self-defense. There is a similar sea blockade of Lebanon, upheld by other countries. However, that blockade is not put to a test, since the land road from Iran to Hezbollah is open via Syria.

While there are moral and political issues to contemplate as regards Israel’s and Egypt’s blockade, the two countries may be justified in preventing attacks from Gaza.

If all is so right, how come that it turns out so wrong?

How come that maintaining a blockade against an illegitimate, extremist terror regime, becomes a critical leap in the delegitimization of Israel, rather than delegitimizing those, whose intent it is to destroy the Jewish State?

Israel has not grasped well-enough the principles of post-modern warfare, in contrast to its enemies. Thus, an unholy alliance of evil and innocence stretches from Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, to NGO’s and peace-activists, on to the UN and many Western regimes.

In the post-modern era, the emphasis is not on truth and value, but narrative and image. Thus, the open-minded and well-meaning become collaborators to fundamentalists and reactionaries in the creation of a narrative of innocence and victimization, vs. Israeli militarism and oppression.

Israel should not follow the lead of its enemies in constructing false images, such as the false accusations against Israel about the so-called Jenin massacre and an ever-increasing list of lies, but present an honest and consistent narrative, preferably the desire for peace by two states for two peoples. If the narrative is sincere, based on inner conviction, then truth will stand on firmer legs than slander and lies.

Furthermore, the ratio between physical and virtual warfare has changed. While combat at the physical battlefield once constituted the essence, the ease and access of images nowadays reverses the ratio. The unscrupulous use made by the Free Gaza Movement of a compote of terror-linked organizations and well-meaning solidarity movements, creates a façade of Palestinian innocence and victimization, and condemnation and delegitimization of Israel.

Besides an honest and consistent narrative, Israel needs to utilize the means of the post-modern era. Thus, for example, as regards the Marmara, Israel should not be reluctantly drawn into an international investigation, but initiate and demand the affair be interrogated. There is place to look into Israel’s blockade – morally, politically and militarily; the legal and military conduct when taking command of the ship; the extent of humanitarian aid that reaches or does not reach Gaza, and who is responsible – this may be an arena for Israel to present its case.

But no less, there is a need to look into the legal aspects of breaking a possibly legitimate blockade; what is the civilian/military status of those who violently reject and oppose enforcement of such a blockade; what is truly the terror-affiliation of some of the organizers; what is the involvement of the Turkish government with the IHH and the flotilla (if so, and if the blockade is legal, does that possibly indicate even an act of warfare by Turkey against Israel?).

Please take a look at the two pictures above – they explain how the transition from Jihad militant to peace activist takes place.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet has released photos from the Marmara ship, showing beaten Israelis commando soldiers (see photo on top). In the Turkish narrative, humiliation of Israelis is important, and therefore the photos can be shown authentically, without any need of hiding or distorting. If the Israelis are weak, they can be overcome and cleansed from the country, which is the aim of both the PLO and the Hamas, as expressed in their respective charters.

However, in a Western narrative, peace and solidarity are vital. Thus, now look at the picture below, as released by Reuters. Notice how the knife, low right, in the hand of one of the men, has been cropped. The photo may, in fact, be interpreted as if the 'peace activists' actually are lending a helping hand to the poor soldier.

The subtle change of the picture is hardly noticeable, yet has dramatic accumulated consequences. Over the last decade, this has been repeated over and over again, until even the well-meaning have become convinced of Israel's evil.

History does repeat itself, even if the means are post-modern. Without adequate understanding of the post-modern condition, demonization and delegitimization may eventually ‘succeed,’ whereby Israel will be dismantled and replaced by an Islamic State of Palestine. The West will most likely, then, kindly request it to commemorate the people and the culture that preceded it.

To change history’s course of disaster, Israel needs to find ways to terminate occupation, to deal with Palestinian double-talk of peace, on the one hand, and ongoing incitement, on the other, and to be more creative in facilitating the awakening from the odd, delusional partnership between Western open-mindedness and Islamic fundamentalism.

Dr. Erel Shalit is a psychoanalyst and author, and past President of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology. Erel Shalit has served as officer in the IDF Medical Corps, has been on the council of Meretz, and is a member of The Council for Peace and Security. His latest book, the novella Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return, is a fictitious account of a scenario played out in the mind of many Israelis, pertaining to existential reflections and apocalyptic fears, but then, as well, the hope and commitment that arise from the abyss of trepidation.

Requiem: A Tale of Exile and Return is on sale now for $14.95, and Enemy, Cripple, Beggar is on sale now for $17.95 or $30.00 for the pair when ordered directly from the Fisher King Press.  You can also order The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitcal Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel directly from Fisher King Press. Phone orders welcomed, Credit Cards accepted. 1-800-228-9316  toll free in the US & Canada, International +1-831-238-7799

Download the

Fisher King Press Newsletter

Fisher King Press Catalog of Publications

Fisher King Press Price List and Order Form