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| Joseph Reconciles with His Brothers |
In his drash this week on Vayiggash, Rabbi Lord Sacks points out
that almost all the pioneers and important figures in the development of the
field of psychology were – and still are – Jews. This fact is very familiar to me, because I
spent the year before I came to Australia, studying psychology full-time in
graduate school. When interviewed by a faculty
member to see if the program would be suitable for me, I only jokingly told the
teacher that I’d been struggling with the art of counseling during the 15 years
of my rabbinate, and I wanted to take some time out to ‘finally learn to do it
right.’ I was actually only half-joking. When one is entrusted with souls, one should
feel in awe of the sacred responsibility.
If one is serious about fulfilling one’s calling, one cannot be glib
about it and think that it’s simple – that it’s all just ‘common sense.’ So I wanted to learn the theories about
therapy, in order to better care for the souls that come to me for help.
None of the teachers
in my program was Jewish, and only one other student was. But I found that almost every one of the
great thinkers of the field was a Jew. Thinkers
whose contributions developed our understanding of how and why people feel,
think and behave the ways they do. One
of my fellow students also noticed it.
One night, chatting on our way to the car park, he asked me if I’d
notice that many of the names and personal stories behind the theories and
techniques we’d been studying in our survey course, were Jews. “Actually,
they’re virtually all Jews,” I pointed out.
Of the figures whom we studied that semester, only one was not.
It was therefore not
surprising, as Rabbi Sacks points out, that the Nazis had a particular contempt
for psychology. They called it ‘Jewish
Science’ and refuted its premises with a particular vigour. But the question that arises from the fact that
it was almost exclusively Jews who ‘invented’ psychology is, Why?
The question can
surely be answered, in part, by the Jews’ non-acceptance in established
fields. From the late 19th
century, the modern pseudo-science known as Anti-Semitism replaced the more
traditional religion-based contempt for Judaism and Jews. Jews found themselves unwelcome in various traditional
and established academic fields. They
therefore ‘invented’ psychology as an outlet for their talents and their desire
to grasp at new theories and knowledge.
In the same way, the entertainment industry was driven by Jews who
sought new fields, not closed to them, for an outlet for their creative
energies. Jews, shunned in opera,
ballet, and other traditional art forms, in effect ‘invented’ Tin pan Alley,
Broadway, and Hollywood.
But this need to
find, and even invent outlets to guide their original thinking does not fully
explain the Jewish embrace of psychology.
I think it reflects in a deeper way the Jewish sense of a higher purpose
to our very being. That even when we wallow
in misery, that too has meaning apart from the misery we might feel at the
moment. Other religious systems also
teach that there is more to life than what we might be feeling at any given
moment. But none seems to frame the
issues quite like the sages who wrestle with the Torah generation after
generation.
Sacks points to
Victor Frankl, a name that may be familiar.
Frankl, as an inmate in Auschwitz, conceived Logotherapy. At its heart, Logotherapy posits that, no
matter what some force outside yourself has taken from you, they cannot take
from you the essence of your humanity.
You retain the latter – and allow it to give you victory over your
circumstances – by identifying and understanding what it is that gives your
life its essential meaning. This is
going to be different for each individual.
One person’s meaning might be to raise their child. One person’s meaning might be to write a book
that nobody else can write. And so
on. Almost anybody who has studied
Frankl’s theory, find that it resonates deeply.
Rick Warren, a prominent Evangelical pastor in California, re-framed
Frankl’s ideas into Christian terms when he wrote The Purpose-driven
Life: What on Earth am I Here for? His book has sold tens of millions of
copies and so propelled Warren into superstardom that, in 2008, he famously
interviewed, separately, both candidates for President of the USA: John McCain and Barak Obama. In those interviews, he pointedly asked each
candidate when they thought life begins.
Senator McCain responded unambiguously, “Life begins at
Conception.” And if you know anything about
McCain’s life, you know he wasn’t just parroting some church’s doctrine. Then-Senator Obama answered the question
quite differently. Maybe you remember
it. “To answer that question with specificity, is above my pay grade.” It’s no
wonder that Evangelicals voted heavily for McCain. In retrospect, I wish there had been a few
thousand more Evangelicals, concentrated in different states. But I digress…
So Victor Frankl, Rick Warren and
others who have advocated the psychology of meaning, tapped into a very basic
human need and therefore made a huge contribution to our knowledge of how to
overcome adversity. Perhaps the gist of
this form of psychology is, I think, therefore I feel, and therefore I behave. After all, its goal is to help us find
within us the means to overcome adversity.
When we look at this week’s Torah
reading, we can fully understand why all of this – the quest to understand the
human mind and guide human behavior – is such a quintessentially Jewish
enterprise. Joseph, the protagonist of
the narrative at this point, could have been a lifelong patient of
psychotherapy. He had tsurres like
nobody hearing or reading my words today could imagine. His brothers were so jealous of their
father’s favouring of Joseph, and of Joseph’s resulting sense of superiority,
that they came to hate him with a passion.
So much so, that they almost murdered him in cold blood – and then
‘relented’ when instead they sold him to slavers. In Egypt, Joseph endured incredible adversity
until his talents come to the attention of the Pharaoh. Then he was propelled into stardom,
specifically as the Pharaoh’s chief counselor.
He saved Egypt from disaster and was therefore positioned to save his
family when the same disaster – a regional drought and famine – threatened to
wipe them out.
And now, in today’s reading, he
faces his brothers. The narrative is
laconic as Torah tends to be, but through the lacunae one sees glimpses of the
swirling emotions as Joseph toys with his brothers, making them pay for the way
they treated him years back. But he
experiences a change of heart. And that
change of heart comes only when he realises the purpose, for his success in
Egypt. Joseph comes to understand that
the very purpose for his suffering, is to ensure that his family will live and
prosper. This lesson in the Psychology
of Meaning, changes Joseph’s behavior.
He relents from his quest to make his brothers suffer. And he welcomes them into his home, into his
adopted country.
Joseph found transformation when he
realised the purpose of his life. When
it became clear to him, what on earth he was here for. That clarity, that realisation gave him a new
perspective. And from that perspective,
he was able to forgive, and embrace his brothers.
There are certainly other forms of
psychotherapy that work. Ask me some day
about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, another Jewish invention, which is
helping people with PTSD right and left.
But it is clear that the Psychology of Meaning, Logotherapy, resonates
deeply with the human mind and with basic human needs. As Joseph modelled for us so long ago, as
Frankl learned in a different kind of adversity so many centuries later. When we can see the meaning of our lives, we
can overcome. Shabbat shalom.
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