Introduction PDF

# Introduction If you ask most people to tell you their earliest memories, they will recount a story about their childhood that, if carefully studied, bears great symbolic meaning. The conscious memory is not very accurate, but it is nevertheless of profound importance for understanding the teller'...

# Introduction If you ask most people to tell you their earliest memories, they will recount a story about their childhood that, if carefully studied, bears great symbolic meaning. The conscious memory is not very accurate, but it is nevertheless of profound importance for understanding the teller's psyche. The story is remembered out of many events of childhood because it had and still holds some very deep meaning. For example, a person with a continuing fear of abandonment might remember being separated from parents in a department store. A compulsively person might remember an old summer cottage with a malodorous bathroom and buzzing flies. One who recalls the warmth and kindness of attentive and loving grandparents might later take great pleasure in being attentive to children. Such memories are termed foundation or master stories. As individuals have foundation stories, so do nations, cultures, and religions. A nation's story of its beginning tells much about its self-concept. The pessimism of ancient Mesopotamian society is expressed in its creation myth, the Enuma Elish, which describes the chaos and bitterness of a war between gods and monsters and then, as an afterthought, mentions the creation of man as a puppet to wait upon the victorious gods. Likewise, patterns of gender hostility, family triangulation, and violence are reflected in the Olympian creation stories of ancient Greece. The greater optimism of the biblical religions is reflected in their own foundation story of a loving God who created the world and man as an act of love and in a mood of harmony, not foreboding and conflict. Yet modern psychology and psychiatry seem dominated by the ancient Greek rather than the biblical experience. Fifty years ago, Eric Wellisch, medical director of Grayford Child Guidance Clinic in England, called for a biblical psychology, arguing: - The very word "psyche" is Greek. The central psychoanalytic concept of the formation of character and neurosis is shaped after the Greek Oedipus myth. It is undoubtedly true that the Greek thinkers possessed an understanding of the human mind which, in some respects, is unsurpassed to the present day, and that the trilogy of Sophocles still presents us with the most challenging problems. But stirring as these problems are, they were not solved in the tragedy of Oedipus. In ancient Greek philosophy, only a heroic fight for the solution but no real solution is possible. Ancient Greek philosophy has not the vision of salvation. - No positive use has been made, so far, of the leading ideas of Biblical belief in the attempts of modern psychology to formulate basic findings and theories. But there is no reason why the Bible should not prove at least _if not more fruitful_ than the concepts of Greek or Eastern religious experience... Psychology and theology are at the crossroads. The atheistic and pantheistic aspects of modern psychology lead to dangerous conclusions. The non-biological aspect of theology is doomed to lead to frustration... There is need for a Biblical psychology. # The Greek Bias in Medicine Throughout their history, Jews have been greatly involved in medical science. In his article "Medicine in Ancient Israel," Sussman Muntner, professor of the history of medicine at Hebrew University, sees the Hebrew Bible as showing knowledge in areas such as etiology of disease, anatomy, communicable and infectious diseases, visiting the sick, and doctor-patient relations. Another observation of Muntner's is very disturbing: - It is surprising to note that talmudic pathology seems to have had no impact on medieval medicine, not even on the great Jewish physicians of the Middle Ages, such as Moses Maimonides and Isaac ben Solomon Israeli, (I. Judaeus) who were thoroughly familiar with the Talmud. Medieval medicine was so completely under the spell of (the Greek physician) Galen that anything he ever said about medicine was accepted as infallible, while the health rules of the Talmud were ignored... The Talmud was regarded as a purely religious code and not as a medical treatise of any kind. It was not until 1911 that Julius Preuss, the renowned physician and Judaic scholar, published his _Biblisch-Talmudische Medizin_ as an alternative view of medicine to that emerging from Greek civilization. Preuss's work presents the great amount of medical knowledge in biblical and rabbinic literature with regard to anatomy, epidemiology, surgery, dentistry, and otology, neurological disorders, mental disease, obstetrics, and more. Perhaps the single most important distinction between a Greek and a biblical approach to medicine lies in their different views on treating a disease versus treating a whole person. This difference is dramatically illustrated in the contrast between the Hippocratic oath and the physician's prayer attributed to Maimonides. Hippocrates view can be summarized as follows: 1. The physician is the servant of the "art" or "nature." 2. The "art" consists of three parties: the disease, the patient, and the physician. 3. The disease is the enemy, something to be combated by the patient along with the physician. 4. With regard to the disease, the physician is exhorted to do good or to do no harm. 5. In the Hippocratic oath, the physician swears to “give no deadly medicine to any one, if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.” The physician's prayer attributed to Maimonides is fundamentally different: 1. The physician has been chosen by God, in his mercy, to watch over the life, health, and death of his creatures. 2. The physician prays for inspiration from God for love for his art and for God’s creatures. There are three involved parties: God, the physician, and God’s creature (the patient). 3. The disease is a beneficent messenger sent by God to foretell approaching danger and to urge the patient to avert it. 4. The physician specifically prays to remove from the patients "all charlatans and the whole host of officious relatives and know-all nurses, cruel people who arrogantly frustrate the wisest purposes of our art and often lead Thy creatures to their death." Perhaps the most important distinction for our purposes is the contrasting view of disease. In the Hippocratic oath, the disease is the enemy and the fight of the physician is to eradicate the disease or to cure the symptom. The patient seems secondary to this. In the prayer attributed to Maimonides, in contrast, the physician must treat the person (God's creature), and the symptom can be seen as an ally warning the physician of danger to the patient and as a signal to avert it. This latter view resonates quite well with more modern views of disease, especially with regard to disorders of the immune system. Nevertheless, biblical and rabbinic views of healing have received little attention in general medical literature. # The Greek Bias in Psychology and Psychiatry A Greek bias also exists today in the field of mental health. The Hebrew Bible is filled with rich, psychological stories involving relations between parents and children, husbands and wives, and the individual and God. Nevertheless, modern psychology and psychiatry have made very little use of these materials, basing therapies instead only on a classical view of mental life. Bennett Simon (1978) points out this dependence in _Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece: The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry_. Despite the prominence and number of Jews in the fields of psychology and psychiatry, they too seemed to be under the spell of Hellas. Yosef Yerushalmi (1991) argues that Freud himself carried the Greek cyclical view of history and sense of hopelessness into psychoanalysis. Most psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, and even pastoral counselors learn a psychology based on the Freudian system-psychosexual stages, Oedipus complex, narcissism, and the like. However, as brilliant and as penetrating as Freud's insights are, they are limited in the sense that Freud relied heavily on Greek myth and literature for his models and ideas. His view of man was in many ways that of the Greeks--a view that concentrated on the pathological underside of man and on the bedrock of his developmental problems. The Greeks could never really shake the sense of doom, the foreboding, and the fatalism that led so many great figures in Greek literature and in actual Greek history to depression and in a surprising number of cases to suicide. The long list of Greek and Roman suicides includes generals, philosophers, statesmen, and warriors-Lycurgus of Sparta, Zeno the Stoic, Marc Antony, Nero. To delve deeply into the Greek themes means, in a sense, to accept the premises of uncertainty and pessimism that they preach. In contrast, in the Hebrew Bible, depression can be successfully managed, and suicide is a sad error that should be and usually can be avoided. The focus of the Bible is far more optimistic. It encourages people to hope (an important word) and teaches that day-to-day human effort has a purpose and meaning and that heroism is not a fair or useful aim for people to set themselves. There is no doom or fatalism. The Bible teaches that God created the world in a spirit of harmony and kindness, and this spirit has not changed. Also far more than in most Greek and in Freudian thought, the Hebrew Bible recognizes the human yearning for true greatness of character and for closeness to a caring God. The Bible offers the hope (again that word) of filling every moment of human life with greater meaning and feeling. People can work with their problems (all people have them) and can make their own lives and world better. Recently, several books have attempted to delineate a specific Hebrew vision of psychology and psychotherapy. The Norwegian clergyman Thorlief Boman (1960) has attempted to differentiate Hebrew and Greek ways of thinking. While Greek thinking emphasizes "seeing," the static, the logical, and the nomothetic, Hebrew thought stresses "hearing," the dynamic, the psychological, and the ideographic. Kaplan, Schwartz, and Markus-Kaplan (1984) and Kaplan and Schwartz (1993) compare Greek and Hebrew approaches to families, stressing the dysfunctional oscillation between isolation and enmeshment in Greek family life and the healthy Hebrew integration of self and other. Yet modern psychology and psychotherapy largely continue to ignore Hebrew ideas. Psychiatric medicine too has "been under the spell of Galen.” The treatment of the "psyche”, the fetishization of "freedom," the fixation on the Oedipus complex, and the lack of emphasis on sibling rivalry and its resolution are four profound examples of the Hellenistic bias in contemporary psychology and psychotherapy. # Body and Soul The earliest mention of the psyche in Greek literature is Homer’s morbid picture of the unhappy shadowy existence of the Trojan War heroes in Hades. Homeric souls disappear like smoke, in the manner of ghosts, if someone attempts to touch them. They dwell in Hades and can only regain their vitality and memory by drinking blood. Centuries later, Plato wrote of the soul as lofty and sacred with the body being merely its earthly prison. The soul was "elevated" from a materialistic double to a dematerialized divine being, of a nature totally different from the body (soma). Plato, following the Orphics teachings, called the body a prison of the soul, and others with comparable ideas called it a tomb. In Plato's thinking, the relationship between body and soul is conflictual and unfortunate. The soul is a helpless prisoner chained hand and foot in the body, compelled to view reality not directly but only through its prison bars, and wallowing in their ignorance. In Hebrew thought, the human body and soul are both sacred, both created by God. They can and must function in harmony to fulfill God’s purposes in the world. Emotion, intellect, and body are all integral components of a human being and there is no opposition between body and soul or flesh and spirit. The contrasts between Greek and biblical views regarding _the body-soul relationship_ are exemplified in the following talmudic passage, which contains a discussion between the Roman Emperor Antoninus (perhaps Marcus Aurelius) and Rabbi Judah the Prince, the author of the Mishnah. - Antoninus said to the Rabbi: "The body and the soul can both free themselves from judgment. Thus, the body can plead: The soul has sinned, [the proof being] that from the day it left me I lie like a dumb stone in the grave [powerless to do aught]. Whilst the soul can say: The body has sinned, [the proof beings] that from the day I departed from it I fly about in the air like a bird [and commit no sin]." He replied, “I will tell thee a parable. To what may this be compared? To a human king who owned a beautiful orchard which contained splendid figs. Now, he appointed two watchmen therein, one lame and the other blind. [One day] the lame man said to the blind, 'I see beautiful figs in the orchard. Come and take me upon thy shoulder, that we may procure and eat them.' So the lame bestrode the blind, procured and ate them. Some time after, the owner of the orchard came and inquired of them, 'Where are those beautiful figs?' The lame man replied, 'Have I then feet to walk with?' The blind man replied, 'Have I eyes to see with? What did he do? He placed the lame upon the blind and judged them together. So will the Holy One, blessed be He, bring the soul, [re]place it in the body, and judge them together, as it is written, He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people: He shall call to the heavens from above--this refers to the soul; and to the earth, that he may judge his people--to the body." The difference between the Greek and biblical views has direct implications for issues of psychological freedom and attitudes toward life, death, and suicide. This inevitably will produce different orientations in the process of psychotherapy. # Freedom and Suicide Freedom is a central and fundamental idea in the literature and thought of both the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, but the way in which the two cultures understand freedom is very different. To the Greeks, freedom is a struggle against the control of others and an effort to establish some sense of control over one's own life. The highest form of control over one's self is the freedom to decide whether to continue to live or to die, i.e., suicide. Jews, in contrast, see freedom as a central feature of their foundation stories, and the issue of control is resolved in a direct manner. Freedom can be achieved only in the acceptance of the realities of man's relationship with God. This sets the stage for a striking psychological contrast. For Greeks and Romans, suicide represents a very high form of creativity. In Judaism, life itself is the essence of creativity, and suicide only destroys this opportunity. For Plato, the evil acts of the body pollute the soul and prevent it from achieving a complete and clean separation and returning to the world of Ideal Forms. Only the soul can perceive Ideal Truth but it cannot do so as long as it must perceive Reality by use of the five bodily senses. Thus, the real attainment of truth can come only in the higher world when souls can perceive directly without interference of the body. This idealizing of a state of existence after life is not necessarily a direct call to suicide, yet the philosopher is encouraged to believe that separation from earthly life is the only road to the ideal human existence. Plato calls philosophy “preparation for death,” and indeed argues that death frees the soul. While awaiting his execution, Socrates maintains in an argument to Simmias and Cebes: - Other people are likely not to be aware that those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead. Now if this is true, it would be absurd to be eager for nothing but this all their lives, and then to be troubled when that came for which they had all along been eagerly practicing. In a subsequent passage, Socrates again emphasizes that philosophers desire death, though he leaves the reasons vague. "And they would be speaking the truth Simmias, except in the [matter of] knowing very well. For they do not know in what way the real philosophers desire death, nor in what way they deserve death." Later in this dialogue, Socrates further explains the linkage between philosophy and death--death frees the soul! - For, if pure knowledge is impossible while the body is with us, one of two things must follow; either it cannot be acquired at all or only when we are dead; for then the soul will be by itself apart from the body, but not before. Socrates goes on to argue, "The true philosophers practice dying, and death is less terrible to them than to any other men." His argument continues along the line that unlike the ordinary man, only the philosopher understands death is not a great evil. “You know, do you not that all other men count death among the great evils?" Given the preference for death over life; it seems only a short step for Socrates to be asked “then why not suicide?” Socrates responds with his famous guard-post allegory as an argument against suicide. Life is a sorry business but we must not leave our guard-post unless we are relieved. - The allegory which the mystics tell us that we men are put in a sort of guard-post; from which one must not release one's self or run away-seems to me to be a high doctrine with difficult implications. "All the same, Cebes, I believe that this is true; that the gods are our keepers, and we men are one of their possessions... If one of your possessions were to destroy itself without intimation from you that you wanted it to die, wouldn't you be angry with it and punish it, if you had any means of doing so? so if you look at it this way I suppose it is not unreasonable to say that we must not put an end to ourselves until God sends some compulsion like the one which we are facing now. The equation of freedom with suicide is given more precise expression in the writings of the Greek and Roman Stoics. The Stoics attempt to conquer death by choosing it on their own terms. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, defined the goal of life as living in accordance with nature. If this does not occur, suicide becomes the wise choice. Zeno was said to have committed suicide over sheer irritation when he wrenched his toe upon stumbling on his way home from school. According to Diogenes, Zeno held his breath until he died. His successor, Cleanthes, fasted initially to cure a gumboil but ultimately "as he had advanced so far on his journey toward death, he would not retreat,” and he starved himself to death. Cicero argues in De Finibus that suicide is no great evil: - When a man's circumstances contain a preponderance of things in accordance with nature, it is appropriate for him to remain alive; when he possesses or sees in prospect a majority of the contrary things, it is appropriate for the wise man to quit life, although he is happy, and also of the foolish man to remain in life although he is miserable. In the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero depicts death as freeing man from chains. The gods in their benevolence prepare for man a haven and refuge after he departs from worldly life. Some philosophers, he notes, disagree with this and some Stoics even feel that the soul is not immortal. Indeed, earthly life is not wholly evil; however, the afterlife holds far more joy. Suicide also was a major topic in the letters of Lucius Anneaus Seneca, the brilliant Roman writer and statesman. The events of early existence are insignificant, not worth any emotional involvement. Who wins the Battle of Pharsalus or who wins an election is insignificant. People may leave the world if they feel that they have overstayed their welcome. The human body is an unpleasantness to be endured only as long as one wishes, and when one thinks fit, let one dissolve the partnership with this puny clay. The Stoic feels bound by necessity and seeks a sense of freedom and release. One should escape from this life whenever one chooses; to die when one wishes is in one's hand. “Choose any part of nature and tell it to let you out" (Epistle 117:23-24). One should pick the means by which to quit life. The option of suicide leaves open the road to freedom. To grumble at life is pointless for it holds no one fast. "Do you like life, then live on. Do you dislike it? Then you're free to return to the place you came from" (Epistle 70:15). The philosopher may choose a mode of death just as one chooses a ship or a house. Leave life as one would a banquet-when it is time (Epistle 70:11; Plotinus, 1918, On Suicide, 1, 9). Seneca (and his wife Paulina) put these thoughts into action, calmly cutting their wrists at the order of Seneca's former pupil, the emperor Nero. Hebrew thought provides quite a different view of the relationship between freedom and life. From the rabbinical point of view, body and soul should function together harmoniously in their joint service of God. There is none of the Platonic sense that the body must die to liberate the soul. Body and soul need not be in conflict. Man must keep his body both physically and morally clean. Hillel described the soul as a guest in the body; the body should keep itself fit in order to offer hospitality to so distinguished a guest. To Hillel, the body was neither an evil to be repressed nor a bastion of heroism to be glorified by Olympic victories. For him, both physical and spiritual activities were part of man's fulfillment of his obligation to God. Just as a king appoints someone to keep his statue clean, humans, created in the divine image, must certainly keep their bodies clean (Avot, 2.33). In Rabbinic thought the choice between life and death is not one to mull over daily, as talk of suicide so fills the letters of Seneca and other writings of classical philosophers. Suicide is forbidden in the Hebrew scriptures. It was a choice made once: "See I have put before you today life and death, blessing and curse and you shall choose life so that you and your seed shall live." The Stoics saw fate as a powerful force controlling human destinies, typically in a capricious manner. Indeed necessity was so strong that they sought to escape it, and in particular they sought to escape from the inevitability of death in the illusion of gaining control over death through suicide. Knowing that he could bring death by slitting his wrist gave Seneca the "feeling of freedom in every vein" of his body (De Ira, 3.15, 3­­-4). The option of bringing death seems to give Seneca the sense of preventing death from striking by chance. Biblical thought is not concerned with fate, and real freedom always exists in the human realm, i.e., the freedom to act righteously. However, there is no illusion of freedom or choice in matters beyond human control. In this way the rabbis are the polar opposites of the Stoics. Where the Stoics felt overwhelmed by necessity or fate in all things _except_ in the time and manner of death, the rabbis argued that in _such_ matters as death _no_ choice exists. "Against your will you are born, against your will you live, against your will you die, against your will you shall in the future give account before the King of Kings." The Stoics desperately seek a feeling of freedom that offers them at least a temporary illusion of control. The rabbis accepted that God controls these matters of life and death. Feeling no need to take these impossibly difficult decisions from the hands of the one omnipotent and benevolent deity, the human beings then gain the freedom to devote their attention wholly to those tasks which are peculiarly theirs, i.e., loving God and studying and fulfilling his commandments. The Mishnah goes on to offer its own statement on freedom. The Ten Commandments were carved (harut) on stone. “Read not harut but herut (freedom). One is not free unless he devotes himself to study of the Torah”. Freedom here means freedom of the human spirit from fears and desires. When one’s fears and desires run wanton then the person is dominated by them and there is no freedom. The Stoics seek freedom from the terror of death by choosing their own means of exit. The rabbinic Jews acknowledge God’s total power over birth, life, and death. In so doing, they accept the responsibility of their freedom to make moral choices. Birth and death are events beyond human understanding that God alone will handle. The individual is given freedom in terms of following God’s commandments. The Stoic comparison of life to a banquet from which one may depart at will meets a striking antithesis in a second century Mishnaic statement: “This world is like a portico before the world to come. Prepare yourself in the portico so that you may enter into the banquet hall” (Avot, section 4). That is, prepare yourself in the world by living righteously so that you may merit the rewards of the next world. The two worlds are dissimilar in function. In this world, good deeds and repentance are appropriate ends more beautiful than all the rewards of the next world. At the same time, the peace of spirit attainable in the next world is preferable to all the joys of this world. Earthly life is thus not a banquet, which must inevitably end. It is a time for work and preparation. The contrast with Stoic views carries on to the second point. One must not assume that the next world is some sort of refuge from this one. There is still awareness, and one must come before the King of Kings for a final judgment that will be beyond anything earthly man can comprehend. Both earth and heaven are thus important---each in its own way. # The Oedipus Complex and The Akedah The body-soul unity and harmony reflected in the biblical tradition expresses itself in concrete narratives, which may be employed in psychotherapy. This approach is specifically contrasted with the dualistic conception emerging in classical Greek narrative and in psychotherapies, which employ these narratives, either literally or metaphorically. We will focus here on Wellisch’s previously mentioned contrast between Oedipus and Isaac. Wellisch offered the story of the _akedah_­-Abraham’s binding of Isaac-as a biblical alternative to the Greek legend of Oedipus and as a “new approach to psychiatry.” The core of his argument is that the _akedah_ narrative suggests an unambivalent resolution of the father-son relationship that is unavailable in the story of Oedipus. He suggests that the moral relationship of parents to their children can be conceptualized in three stages. 1. Intense aggression and possessiveness of the parents characterize the first and most primitive stage. The aggression is particularly severe in the father and directed mainly to his sons and frequently culminated in infanticide. 2. The second stage is caused by a reaction of guilt about aggressive and possessive tendencies and, especially, about committed infanticide. It results in a compromise solution between the opposing tendencies of the wish to possess the child completely or even to kill him and the desire not to do so (i.e., Freud's Oedipus Complex). These mental sufferings can only be overcome when the third stage of moral development of a parent-child relationship is reached. 3. It consists in the entire or almost entire abandonment of possessive, aggressive and, especially, infanticidal tendencies and their replacement [by] a covenant of love and affection between parent and child. ## The Story of Oedipus To better examine Wellisch’s arguments, let us examine the actual legend of Oedipus as it emerges in Greek writings. The _most widely known sources_ of the Oedipus myth are the _three Theban plays_ by Sophocles (_Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone_), although Aeschylus and Euripides treated the topic as well. The myth of Oedipus has been nicely summarized by Gayley (1893). - King Laius of Thebes was warned by an oracle that there was danger to his throne and life if his son, new-born, should reach man’s estate. He, therefore, committed the child to a herdsman with orders for its destruction. The herdsman, after piercing the infant’s feet, gave him to a fellow-shepherd, who carried him to King Polybus of Corinth and his queen, by whom he was adopted and called Oedipus, or swollen-foot. - Many years later, Oedipus, learning from an Oracle that he was destined to be the death of his father, left the realm of his reputed sire, Polybus. It happened, however, that Laius was then traveling to Delphi, accompanied only by one attendant. In a narrow road he met Oedipus. A quarrel broke out, and Oedipus slew both Laius and his attendant. Shortly after this event, Oedipus saved Thebes from the sphinx, a monster, part woman, part lion and part eagle, who had been devouring all who could not guess her riddle…. In gratitude for their deliverance, the Thebans made Oedipus their King, giving him the queen in marriage. He had already become the slayer of his father; in marrying the queen, he became the husband of his mother. Several additional points about Laius’ behavior are stressed by Wellisch: 1. Laius had earlier killed the father of his wife, Jocasta. 2. Laius may have been a pederast who refrained from sexual intercourse with his wife. Thus good grounds exist to believe Laius’ marriage to Jocasta _was not a happy one_. The Oedipus legend can be seen as fitting into a primary type of Greek worldview which subordinates God to nature. The Olympian theogony (story of the creation of the gods) provides examples of all three themes. 1. Sky (the father) and Earth (the mother) precede the gods. 2. Mother Earth helps her son cut off the genitals of Father Sky. - Grieved at the loss of the children who were thrown (by Sky) into Tartarus, Earth persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Cronus a steel sickle…. Cronus cut off his father’s genitals and threw them into the sea. Having thus eliminated their father, the Titans brought back their brothers who had been hurled to Tartarus and gave the rule to Cronus. (Apollodorus, 1, 1, 4; Hesiod, 1914b, 116f) The elements of this type of myth pattern are as follows: 1. The father is afraid that his son will attempt to displace him. 2. The son typically enlists the aid of his mother in attempting this displacement. 3. The mother is predisposed to provide this assistance because of her husband’s ill treatment of her. 4. To retain his position, the father attempts to destroy his son and; sometimes, his own wife as well. This pattern is reflected in the very first sentence in the Oedipus myth presented previously. "King Laius of Thebes was warned by an oracle that there was danger to his throne and life if his son, new-born, should reach man’s estate.'' ## The Story of Isaac The narrative of the _akedah_—Abraham’s binding of Isaac—can be found in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. There are several significant elements to the story. 1. God calls upon Abraham to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice: "And he (God) said: ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee to the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee" (Genesis 22:2). 2. Abraham prepared to go through with the sacrifice. 3. Isaac trusts his father: - And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said: "My father." And he said: "Here am I, my son.” And he said: "Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" And Abraham said: "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering." So they went both of them together. (Genesis 22:6-8) God sent an angel at the last moment to command Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac. - And they came to the place whereof God had told him; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said: "Abraham, Abraham.” And he said: "Here am I.” And he said: "Lay not thine hand upon the lad; neither do thou anything unto him; for now that thou fearest God, seeing thou has not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” (Genesis 22:9-12) Wellisch argues that this akedah experience produced a modification [of] instincts. A fundamental effect of Abraham's change of outlook was the realization that God demanded life and not death. Abraham realized that the meaning of the commanded sacrifice was not to kill his son but to dedicate himself and his son to life-long service to God. He completely rejected the former dominance of his death instinct and entirely abandoned his aggressive tendencies against Isaac. His life instinct was tremendously promoted and with it a new love emerged in him for Isaac which became the crowning experience of his religion. However, Wellisch’s analysis fails to explain the concrete mechanism by which the “instinct modification” may come about. Our own approach is to read slightly earlier in the biblical text. - And God said unto Abraham: "And as for thee, thou shalt keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which ye 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 token of a covenant betwixt me and you.” (Genesis 17:9-11) The merging of the physical and spiritual domains provides the dynamic for the biblical transformation of the father-son relationship described in the story of the akedah. The father knows that the son is not motivated to displace him because the son knows he will inherit from him. The father's identity is not threatened by the son. Indeed, he wants to see his son develop and surpass him. Circumcision of the son’s foreskin addresses directly the son’s fear of castration by representing a sanctified, noninjurious substitute. Covenantal circumcision actually transforms the primordial fear on [the] part of the son into his assurance that the father’s own interests lie in the son’s being fit to carry on the covenant. The father willingly passes down the covenant, making displacement by the son unnecessary. The son, in turn, becomes increasingly aware that the father could have castrated him but chose not to, and offered, instead, a sanctified noninjurious substitute as the symbol of his (the father’s) love and assent to the son's right to succession. The two generations have a vested interest in each other’s well-being. The son wants a teacher; the father wants an heir. It is a concrete physical act, circumcision, which internalizes this spiritual transformation. # Jacob’s Blessing and The Curse of Oedipus Another major difference between biblical and Greek writings follows from the differing views of sibling rivalry and its resolution. Both the Hebrew Bible and the literature of ancient Greece present stories of family conflict. However, several basic differences between these literatures can be quickly noted. 1. The stories of Genesis abound with sibling conflict, beginning with Cain slaying Abel, and continuing with the rivalries of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph’s brothers. Many of these stories involve sons vying for their father’s blessing or favor. The earliest myths of ancient Greece are very different, portraying conflict between father and son rather than between brothers, with the brothers often banding together, joined by the mother (see Freud, 1912­­­-1913) to kill or castrate the menacing father. Hesiod’s _Theogony_ begins significantly not with God but with nature polarized into Sky father (Uranus) and Earth mother (Gaea). They marry and produce children. - Uranus, however, was angry over [the] birth of the offspring and he shoved them back into Gaea as they were born. Groaning with pains, Gaea instigated their son Cronus to castrate Uranus and overthrow his rule. Cronus repeats his father’s pattern, imprisoning his brothers, the Titans, in Tartarus. He then marries his sister, Rhea, and, fearful of the prophecy of Earth and Sky (his parents) that he would lose the rule to his own son, he devours his offspring as they are born. The second basic difference between the literatures is even more striking. The Hebrew Bible offers a plan to resolve family conflict by employing the father’s blessing. Originally the source of the sibling conflict, the blessing may work to achieve some level of reconciliation between the sons. As the father becomes more involved with his family, his blessing becomes more potent. This blessing from [the] father, in turn, reduces the degree of sibling rivalry. Greek literature offers no such balm. The father represents an obstacle and a threat, not a blessing or a teacher, and the sons remain united against him for survival. As the power of the father diminishes, he curses the sons, leaving them to turn their enmity on one another. # The Biblical Pattern In the Genesis story of the biblical patriarchs, the succession of generations is accompanied by blessings of the father to the sons, and by some level of reconciliation, or at least cooperation, among the sons. The practice of the father blessing his children is introduced in the Hebrew Bible with the patriarchs. The blessing formally registers the father’s recognition of the son and his confidence and hope that the son will find fulfillment in his natural gifts. It is not a magical formula designed to bring good fortune. Although the father formally administered the blessing, the mother also played an important part in deciding what blessing would be given to each son. The Scriptures make no mention of fathers blessing sons before Abraham. However, the blessing became increasingly important with each generation of the patriarchs, until Jacob was able with his blessing both to affirm the unity of his twelve sons as the basis of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel and to recognize and encourage the unique individual qualities of each. Consider the stories of (1) Adam, (2) Abraham, (3) Isaac, and (4) Jacob. They indicate an increase in the father’s involvement across these four generations, a greater degree of blessing, and ultimately a resolution of sibling rivalry. - **Adam and his sons. **God