Glossery

Introduction to Terms

Psychology - A New Jewish Approach

Is Psychology a Science?

The traditional and popular sense of psychology as a scientific discipline needs examination and clarification. A scientific framework, as such, is assumed to be fixed, containing defined components, with clear and established dynamics, excluding involvement of any factors not part of the pre-defined framework. The operative question that should be asked is: Can the key factors driving human behavior be captured in such a framework?

Attempts to reduce human behavior to scientific models are inevitably self-contradictory. Psychology as a discipline emerged with the diagnosis of bodily pain, generally referred to today as clinical pain, whose physical causes were not clear or identifiable. Those symptoms, which we refer to today as "psychosomatic", are believed to originate in some undefined area hovering between the physical and the mental/spiritual. There is little consensus or clarity here. There are those who attribute psychosomatic phenomena to neurological changes in the brain, those who insist on purely physical explanations, and others see mental/spiritual components. However, there is no school of thought which attributes purely spiritual origins to psychosomatic symptoms.

As generally viewed, mind exists as an expression in the realm of consciousness and its components, and is formed and fixed by external factors. And it is here where much confusion lies in providing mental/spiritual explanations to behavior. Analyses done examining the efficiency of various therapeutic approaches show no difference in success between somatic, spiritual, and social scientific methodologies. The respective results are more indicative of the population treated rather than in technique used. That is, the best results can be expected with children, impressionable personalities, weak dependent populations lacking confidence in their ability to solves their own life problems with a relatively undeveloped sense of free choice. Psychology patients are victims of a technological culture that is only capable of addressing "how" questions, and futilely tries to reduce values and ideals that address the "what for" questions of life to technique.

Human behavior, from the point of view of Judaism, is complex and multifaceted. It has a material component, which gives expression to the legitimate physical requirements of the meaningful life, and also has a "dimension of height", whose source is a continuum of values which originates and derives authority from the divine above and whose base sits in the realm of human morality. There is also a "dimension of depth", whose source is in the human soul, at the center of which is the spark of the divine, through which is transmitted human originality, talent, and personality.

Individual Uniqueness - That Which Distinguishes Each Individual

Free choice is the factor residing at the center of discriminating behavior, and its basis is the individual's sense of confidence in his ability to choose his way, to improve or impair, and to be an equal partner, with concomitant rights and responsibilities, in his own micro- world and in the micro- world at large. Completion of self, understood as a high level of qualitative perfection, enables the individual to deviate from the circle of his personal micro-world and influence the macro-world at large. Such self-completion may be understood as a complementary balancing between the spirit, matter, and the self.

It is here we make the distinction between the ego and the self, between material and spiritual needs, and we begin to understand the creative impulse as the challenge to bring to realization the uniqueness of each individual. Self-realization of this nature goes beyond survival as an existential objective and becomes the creative expression and crystallization of the unique and original quality hidden within each individual.

According to this approach, there exists a behavioral dynamic that integrates the natural contradictory and opposing forces of the microcosm and creates a complete and original unity.

Summary: Principles of Jewish Psychology

Psychology, as popularly understood, defines human behavior as driven by the principle of survival, or alternatively, the instinct for self preservation. Human behavior from a Jewish perspective is seen as a creative axis giving rise to expression to the unique original quality of the human being.

Values - Human behavior should be understood as the individual unique expression of goals rooted in the divine. The value-driven goal drives and is expressed through the realization of original quality.

The material and the spiritual converge and the focus and concentrate around human reality.

The value of man - Free choice is of central importance in defining the ability and value of the individual. It reflects the status of man as an equal partner in creation with his Creator, and his ability to repair and impair himself and the world at large. Through free choice we also understand the importance of conscience and how it can be used as a vehicle for constructive goals.

Man needs guidance as opposed to "care." The notion "care" implies that the individual does not have the ability to take responsibility and solve his own problems. Guidance, however, assumes that the individual is indeed capable of solving his own problems but needs objective guidance in identifying his unique qualities. The individual is not capable in alone identifying these qualities, following the talmudic principle "A prisoner cannot release himself from prison."

Clarification and identification of such qualities must come from outside. The individual, working alone, has access only to those parts of himself that are rooted in the ego and driven toward the objective of self-preservation.

Judaism rejects any approach that views human reality within a superficial and two dimensional construct of good and bad. The distinction between the self and the ego does not imply nor instruct that one should focus on one's self and do battle with one's ego. The "self" in our sense is the good inclination or drive. The "ego" is the evil inclination or drive. Rather, the ego, the evil inclination, is the vehicle through which the self is given tangibility and brought to sensory actuality. Thus the directive: "And that shalt love the Lord they G-d with all thy heart" - that is, with both your drives, good and evil.

Reward and punishment, that occupies a central role in most religions, plays a far more marginal role in Judaism. Reward and punishment, as generally understood, conceives of a distant and superior role to the Creator which stems from a primitive, two-dimensional, and inherently materialistic construct of strong versus weak. Judaism, in contrast to this, is built on the notion of reciprocity between men. The reciprocal relationship as such also exists between Man and his Creator. This understanding points to the need for the individual to look inward in search for his uniqueness and to appreciate the interaction between those aspects of it derived from the "on-high" and their basis below. Psychology in its popular and traditional sense, constructed in the famework of science, ignores internal human quality and looks only to the material outside for influencing and causative factors.

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THE NEED FOR DEFINITION

A list of definitions is essential if we wish to communicate our understanding of Jewish psychology to the western reader. Not every term that is accepted by western perception is compatible in its meaning with our perception. The term self for example does not differentiate between the self that is the source of quality, and the ego. This distinction is critical to our attempt to describe human activity. The distinction between mechanical activity and qualitative activity is somewhat foreign to the western conception, whereas for us it serves as a key and a cornerstone.

Another point is categorization: Dividing personalities according to type – an approach that we apply extensively in order to describe behavior based on the differentness inherent in individual human qualities. It is superfluous to point out that the western perspective, built as it is upon the quantitative and the mechanical, attempts to ignore differentness among human beings, limiting itself to a quantitative grading of the relationships between personality components.

Differentness in Intelligence Quotient is purely quantitative, while a qualitative perception would attempt to define differentness in the qualities that determine behavior. It would define quality of talent and not merely level of talent – rather, the level of the character and the personality.

Our qualitative perception strives to define the uniquely original as a determiner of differentness, and we grant the uniquely original a legitimate and even ideal status, whereas for the quantitative perception, being different constitutes an ethical problem, in that the quantitative perception strives for a definition of the common denominator among all human creatures. It is forced to buttress its position by calling upon liberalism, in order to justify the reality of differentness; it is called the inevitable exception. We have no problem at all with differentness, in that it is a trait of uniquely original quality and thus an ideal, first choice state.

Furthermore, we relate qualitative behavior to certain traits of character. We view these traits as the identifying feature that will aid us in defining the category of personality. We are not alarmed by the prohibition that liberalism has decreed against categorizing personality types.[1]

Superficiality and broad generalization have never been the indicators of the scientific approach. One must not mix social/political perceptions with scientific inquiry, which strives for an objective truth that is free of fear or prejudice. We therefore maintain that one person may be more endowed than another with any one of the qualities of which the human structure is comprised, just as knowing how the relationship between the qualities is different from one individual to another will make it easier for us understand an individual’s behavior and an individual’s response to self and to environment. Along with each quality, we note the category derived from it: May it afford pleasure to the open and curious reader.

An Explanation of the Structure of the Worlds

A Human Being's Place

The Jewish perspective deals with a human being’s place in the cosmos. The Kabala deals with the human placement in the universe and with the relations of reciprocity that inhere between human beings and the cosmos.

The human being is perceived as a microcosm whose presence embodies the essence not only of the entire cosmos, but of the Godly Presence Itself in all Its glory.

Here we derive the exclusive importance of the human being in the universe, and from this importance is derived human responsibility for the creation, and human ability to create rather than merely to flow with creation. Hence the capacity for choice, which obligates, and which also grants reward and punishment, and above all the capacity and the privilege of being an ally to the Creator of the universe – an ally whose influence over the creation weighs - if such were possible - on a scale with the Creator’s own power.

This fundamental perspective characterizes Judaism, and sets it apart from all other religious perspectives, which give man a modest place in the creation, and capabilities that are not substantively different from those of any other creature.

The mystical belief systems, needless to say, decree an insulting and humiliating reduction of stature upon the human being. They view him as the victim of cosmic powers; their influence decides his fate.

In the Jewish perspective, a human being possesses powers that surpass every existing power in the created universe, without exception. Only the Creator is greater than the human being. Only to one’s Creator may one feel bondage and obligation.

Here we derive the obligation to view – and to relate to – existence through the Divine prism. To this end, God endowed human beings with Torah and mitsvah. "Let all your deeds be for the sake of heaven." By way of heaven, one contemplates one’s existence, and rules over it, and over all of creation.

If a human being were to try to relate directly to existence – that is to say, not through the Divine prism, “the mosquito preceded you" God rebukes the suffering Job. One loses one’s Godly power – one’s quality - the moment one presumes to throw off the yoke of obligation to one’s Creator.

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Or HaHaim, in his commentary on the Torah (Vayikra 22) captures the essence of the Kabalistic perspective with succinct and methodical clarity: (The Kabalistic perspective has become an established element of the Jewish worldview, including its differing factions who have adopted it with no objection.) “And I have seen fit to awaken human hearts to the great mystery alluded to in this portion: Know, that Hazal have said (Sanhedrin 93A) that the nation of b’nei Yisrael – their rank is above the rank of the angels. And they have said further that God created four worlds, one above the other. And they are listed (hinted at) in the pasuk in Yeshayahu (43:7): ‘All that is called, by My name and for My glory – I have created it, I have formed it, I have even made it.’ ‘For My glory’; the supreme world, which is called atsilut, nobility. ‘I have created it’; which is called olam habria, the world of creation. ‘I have creatively formed it’, yetsira, ‘creative forming’. ‘I have done it’, asiya, doing.”

Or HaHaim adds that a parallel exists between the structure of the worlds and the structure of a human being. In a human being the levels are physical/emotional life force - spirit - soul.

Just as the worlds are one above the other, and a dynamic vector exists that binds and unites them according to a fixed order, from the lower world to the one above it, so a dynamic vector exists in a human being, which binds the purely physical needs to the material/emotional needs, binding these in turn to the spiritual needs, and these to the needs of the soul.

(Incidentally, this dynamic vector has nothing in common with Abraham Maslow’s humanistic theory. Maslow too ranks human needs from basic to higher – and even to “peak experience”. According to Maslow, a higher need cancels the needs below it, whereas in the gradation of naran: nefesh, ruah, neshama – physical/emotional of life force - spirit - soul, all of the stages unite into one texture, with each component having its own well-defined, active role within the whole structure.

Human beings are found only in olam hayetsira, “the world of creative forming”. (See section on creativity.) In the world of yetsira, a human being is sole ruler. Within a human being’s own boundaries only, a human being is omnipotent. Human influence is decisive; the human being determines the state of affairs, and their meaning and their value. Human activity is qualitative rather than mechanical. We mean by quality the ability to create meaning, and to grant new and ever-changing validity and value to that which exists.

We should note that the world of yetsira is one’s own private world, tailored to one's own size, and bearing the unique features of one’s own authentic personality.

Human creative activity is expressed in one’s ability to use the raw materials found in olam ha’asiya, “the world of doing” which is the world of physical matter, and which includes all the components of the survival instinct that are found in existential reality.

According to this perspective, there is no significance – neither positive nor negative – to what transpires in olam ha’asiya. A human being alone determines their function for good or for evil. In relation to a human being, “the world of doing”, the world of physical matter serves as a reservoir of raw materials, which lack any feature or capacity of their own.

From olam habria, “the world of creation” which is the world of ideas – the world of spirituality, values, and quality – human beings draw values, ideas and qualities, which they then process, and fit to their own existential conditions according to the levels of nefesh, ruah, and neshama, physical/emotional life force, spirit, and soul. The use one makes of these qualities finds practical expression in giving meaning to the existential reality in which one is immersed and which is subject to one’s control.

The self belongs to the world of yetsira. Ego is subject to the world of asiya. According to the rules that characterize these values (ego, self) ego is subjugated by self when one activates one’s creative will. Alternatively, self is subjugated by ego when one does not make one’s presence felt in the creative world, when one is found doing (creating) nothing – merely immersed in the material level of one’s existence that is found in the world of asiya.

The moment a human being activates the self, a union is formed between the three worlds. In the cover diagram one can see clearly the connection of ego with its subjugation to “the world of doing”, and the self, with its close attachment to olam habria, “the world of creation”, of ideas and spirituality. On the other hand, we point as well to the connection that exists between ego and one’s subjugation to “the world of doing”.

When a human being activates olam hayetsira, all the other worlds unite around it. One bestows the raw materials, as mentioned, and the other the spiritual meaning. As they merge together, an encounter takes place in the world of creativity. This is the moment of grace.

When a human being neglects his duty in olam hayetsira, a rupture forms that is potentially disastrous, dividing the worlds from one another – a consequence of the absolute antagonism that exists between them. As the Or HaHaim writes: “...You must know that materialism opposes the spiritual connection more than fire opposes water.”

Hence the split, the terrible ripping apart that one experiences who does not fulfill his role as a creator, who does not activate his self’s uniquely authentic quality. Such a rupture finds expression not only in one’s body and physical/emotional life force, but in all of creation as well, in cosmic clash and natural disaster, in that the entire reason nature was created by the Creator of the worlds was to serve the human being, God’s servant. When one neglects one’s role, the very nature of creation’s functioning is affected.

Hence, the polar distance that separates the Jewish perspective from the other religions, which grant the Creator a central-exclusive role, with man filling a passive, docile, powerless role; self-nullification sustains his existence opposite the Lord.

This opposition is sharpened further in comparison with the Far Eastern religions, which see in man’s final and absolute merging into the cosmic vastness, the ultimate goal of his existence. Opposite these views of God and universe stands the Jew, as the leader who bears the burden of creation on his shoulder, and whose influence is felt throughout the worlds. “Everything is beneath his feet.”

Actualizing and consolidating the self and its authentic quality is nothing less than actualizing God's presence in the universe.

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1. Self and Ego

Human activity unfolds within two cycles – a vicious cycle and a virtuous cycle – that are opposite in character and that interact with one another. The self is defined as the authentically original expression of those qualities that characterize an individual as an autonomous and unique entity. The self includes talents and features of character such as personal affinities and tendencies. These include will, human sensitivity, intellectual sensitivity, creative talent, creative imagination, originality of approach, etc.

From a Jewish perspective, the self is an expression of the “Godly spark” that is unique to one as an individual. This spark expresses itself in the root of the soul of that individual.

The self is the sum total of the unique by which a man differs from his fellow. The self does not accept outside orders. Its activities are not dictated by the external stimulations of the environment. Rather, the self is activated by an inner dynamic born of its Godly element, which aspires to be actualized in the real existential world, through the human being who has been given the mandate to actualize it, within the framework of his role in the universe, for it was to fulfill this role that his soul came down to the universe, by force of a law that says that all talent, or any other feature of quality whose source is in God, aspires to move from potential to actual, from inner to outer.

The self possesses an energy that in principle subjugates every existing force of nature found in man and in his environment – to the extent that this energy is activated by will. The capacity for free choice, for balanced judgment, for arriving at a verdict and for making a decision, has its source in the self. Discerning truth from falsehood and good from evil, accepting personal responsibility, and all the rest of moral considerations belong to the territory of the self.

From the distinction between self and ego, a category for a leader personality is derived: A leader is distinguished by a self that is strong, original, qualitative, and powerful, that takes initiative, and that takes control of the mechanical system, as we have mentioned. This is also true of all true artists, and of all those blessed with a uniquely original quality, in their talents, and in their characters.

Ego

Ego belongs to the mechanical system that inheres in the nature of the universe. Ego is activated from without, by the law of brute force; strong versus weak, where the stronger vector activates or controls the weaker.

An additional feature of ego derives from this, which represents the system of the world of matter. It is comprised of the needs of matter, which are a survival or self-preservation mechanism.

These needs divide into three elementary components: Kina, ta’ava, vekavod. Envy – possessiveness, lust – the body’s needs, and honor – social needs; a mechanical system devoid of the abilities that characterize the self. It is devoid of will, decision, determination, moral/spiritual judgment, free choice, or personal responsibility. This is a blind system that is not autonomous and that is not self-activating, just as a machine is not self-activating, but is activated by an outside force.

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An interaction exists between the self system and the ego system, which follows the classic prescription for relations between Yaakov and Esav: “When ‘the voice is the voice of Yaakov,’ then ‘the hands, [which] are the hands of Esav,’ do not rule.”

In principle, originally, the self was meant to activate ego, as a tool giving material realness and expression to the self. Therefore, when the self takes initiative and control, ego yields and is subject to the self.

When the self (Yaakov) is inactive, then ego (Esav) is activated by stimulations that originate from the external environment. Therefore, our distinction must necessarily catalogue every egoist as a prisoner of his environment, as a weak character, rather than as a leader with a big ego, as a western perception would view him.

2. Creativity / Self-Preservation

Unlike Western psychology, which views the self-preservation instinct as the sole basis and root of motivation for all human actions, we find that creativity is born of a pair of opposites that work to express the functional aspect of the pair – self/ego – as two opposite sources of energy.

Creativity has an internal source of energy, which urges the expression of creating: The self’s authentic quality.

Creativity moves along a vertical axis. At its base lies the self. At its summit are gathered the values that belong to the “dimension of height” in the structure of reality. “Dimension of height” is the “third scripture” defined in section seven, which deals with the structure of the “two scriptures that contradict each other until the third scripture comes and resolves them”.

It is important to emphasize the difference between the prevailing notion of creativity and what we define as creativity. In the common understanding of the term, creativity is anything that deviates from predictable action or that deviates from a structure of routine activity. Creativity in our understanding is a feeling, insight, or action that has its source in the uniquely original quality of a self that is specific to a particular private individual, and that differs from person to person.

Creativity is not a response to an external stimulus as is its opposite partner, the self-preservation mechanism. Creativity is original talent as it aspires to move from potential to actualization, to direct and mold action in accordance with its own original way, unique to itself. The ambition towards self-actualization characterizes every force that is in a state of dormant potential. This ambition does not depend only on stimulations that come from the external environmental system, as Western psychology believes, for they may not be compatible with the original uniqueness of the talent that aspires towards expression. Originality recoils from external directives, for they are the result of external stimulations that do not suit - that are not amenable to – the inner need to express that talent unique to the self.

The dimension of height is the source of those values that provide creativity with direction and goal, and that answer the question:

Is this activity justified?

To What Purpose?

Creativity does not confine itself to art, music, and other minor actions. Every human activity is accompanied by a creative indicator if that activity is adequate to express one’s unique talent, and if it has a value-oriented goal that is compatible with one’s authentic quality. Thus, an activity in the field of business or social organization or even political activity can join the creative aristocracy as long as it is tailored to the unique size of the one involved in it, and as long as it expresses character, talents, and the values that endow that particular activity with meaning, content, and justification. When this is the case, creativity wins the yetser tov’s seal of approval.

Self-Preservation

Self-preservation is the action opposed to creativity. Its source is a technical mechanism that attaches to the structure of materialism/brute force. This structure contains a mechanism that is blind and that is devoid of qualities, values, or originality. It cannot answer the need for expression that the qualities of the self have, such as will, free choice, balanced judgment, and talent.

The need for survival is what exists at the bottom of the self-preservation system. It does not differ, in man, from the instinctual system that characterizes every animal. It belongs to the material nature of creation. It has no workings of awareness, balanced judgment, or will, but is activated, like every mechanical system, by an external vector that exerts force on it. The name of the game in every material/mechanical system is brute force.

The Torah denies self-preservation as a fundamental perspective or as an approach to understanding existence, accepting neither the disappointments and fears that derive from this approach, nor even the “positive” view found in its achievements. It sees these as temptation, the aim of which is to repress and to distance the influence of an existentialism that can be found only in the cycle of creativity.

The Torah sees creativity in the symbol of Yaakov, and self-preservation in Esav. Just as Yaakov’s hand grasps Esav’s heel, so did creativity and self-preservation come down to this world joined together. According to the Godly plan for the creation of man, survival is required to minister to and to obey creativity’s needs and will, and to serve as the tool that gives substance to creativity, which in turn gives meaning to human existence.

“And nation from nation will grow mighty, and the greater will serve the younger.” “When ‘the voice is Yaakov ‘s voice’, then ‘the hands that are Esav’s hands’ cannot rule [Ya’akov].” We see here that a constant tension rules between these two opposites: Who will dominate whom?

When creativity rules self-preservation--the yetser hatov (the ‘good-creating urge’) rules the yetser hara (the ‘evil-creating urge’) and thus is fulfilled a cardinal rule of God’s service: “‘You shall love God, your Lord, with all of your hearts.’ [The sages explain:] with both of your creating urges.” The yetser hara, against its will, replies ‘amen’ to the yetser hatov, and serves it humbly.

When creative activity grows weak, the survival mechanism prevails over it, and drafts it into its own service. Thus a creative thief is possible, and a uniquely original murderer – though their ultimate purpose is civilization’s destruction.

This is because survival was not created in order to ensure its own continued existence, despite its name, but rather to bestow realness and substance on and to serve as the tool of the yetser hatov, as a means only. When survival becomes the goal of existence, it becomes a vicious cycle that destroys itself and everything in its path.

Behavior based on creativity will be remarkable for its innovativeness and its courage, and for its intellectual and artistic achievements. It will preserve its own uniqueness. It will be capable of dealing with pressures and confrontations, which the war of existence saves for those who are faint-hearted and weak in character, who draw their sustenance and courage from the self-preservation mechanism: The more they drink from this false source, the weaker they grow, and the more they succumb to the environmental pressures that surround them in a vicious cycle – reminiscent of a thirsty man attempting to relieve his thirst with salt water.

3. “BEING” and “DOING”

These two opposites can complement each other, or interfere with each other and even destroy each other, depending on specific circumstances that we will describe:

“Being” and “doing” are concepts that derive from the very sense of existence. A form of existence exists that can be defined as ‘being,’ and as opposed to this, or alternatively, man can live with a sense that expresses itself in activity, in “doing”.

The sense of being is controversial. Some maintain that every sense of existence is attached to a practical view, to an action that expresses it. As far as they are concerned, there is no existence – and mainly no sense of existence – without activity. On the other hand it appears to us that no activity has a chance of becoming a sense of existence if it lacks a dimension of “being”, an experience that penetrates into or derives from the inner space of the self.

This means that the self has forms of expression that endow its existence with substance, and these are not necessarily dependent on being attached to activities that take up space in the dynamic world of mechanical “doing”.

Lovers’ very experience of ‘being together’ is a “love is not dependent on something else”, and it is sustained even when no sign of external communication passes between them, nor any practical cooperation. ‘They’re just happy being together,’ without utterance or sound. This experience of existence is one of deep and unifying silence.

The experience of “being” is built on an intimate contact that takes place within the depths of the self; between the self’s need for expression and actualization and the environmental conditions that respond to this need. Any other happening that merely passes through the environment, that is not absorbed by the senses, that does not exist in the “being” dimension, lacks all significance for that person’s existence.

We must note that the need for a “being” experience becomes more vital and necessary the more the component of the self takes central place in an individual’s personality. An individual with a richly original personality cannot drown it in forgetfulness among the riotous noises of “doing” that are happening in the environment. The self that is in one must receive its appropriate attention, directed toward one’s qualitatively unique needs and sensitivities. Small talk is not to one’s liking, nor is following the crowd one’s habit. One can never finish reading a book just because it is fashionable, or join the “in” crowd, or fit the style of one’s existence to external directives. One’s “doing” is attached by a direct bond to the self’s expression of inner being, and takes orders to action only from the headquarters of one’s own specific personality.

“Doing”

“Doing” that is not bound to “being” is that activity which takes its directive from the external mechanical system: From fashion, from the pressure of the crowd, from the intrusion of the public sphere into the Holy of Holies of the private space. Such “doing” is not necessarily opposed to “being”, as long as it does not substantively contradict the needs of the self. Only the “doing” that is capable of interfering with those life needs that characterize uniqueness of personality – the “doing” that does not serve as an expression for the self’s sensitivity and need for creativity – such “doing” does as it pleases, makes up its own rules, and threatens one’s very sense of existence.

It should be noted that in a world that seethes like a madly bubbling cauldron due to a multitude of artificial stimulations that is nearly infinite, which peep out of every corner every day anew, one who possesses a rich and authentically original personality feels that he is floundering in deep waters; there are no fish.

Whereas a meager personality – a person of paltry uniqueness – on finding himself in the mad cauldron, feels quite like a fish in water. Because of his lack of inner experiences and sources of stimulation, he is in need of stimulation from the outside. He is like that extrovert who requires deafening thunder, extracted from a grotesque system of amplifiers and drums, in order to conceal his absence of any experience with the inner happiness of existence, and his lack of ability to convey the minimal experience he has. There is no need to speak when deafening noise rules the atmosphere, and serves as a substitute for the void, emptiness, and lack of experiences that derive from the source of the self.

This explains the increase in the external/competitive element: Grades and tests serve as a substitute for study for its own sake, the indicator of creativity.

This explains the constant and desperate search for a system that will boost work activity in business and industry, instead of awareness of the need to fit “the right person to the right job” or, as we would put it, the need for a “doing” that fits and expresses the “being” – the needs of the self.

It is important to note that excessive emphasis on “doing” can choke the self, by turning the personality into a machine devoid of human sensitivity. “A break in the fence calls for a thief”, calls for a cruel harshness toward human needs, and calls for the declaration of every liberal, humanistic theory, as lip service and as an empty vessel.

The human element that flowers around the inner kernel of the self is responsible for behavior that overflows with tact, and for the balance between emotion, mind, and “doing”. A deficiency in the human element causes a destructive clash between mind and emotion, and is a prime cause of personality deterioration and mental illness.

4. Pleasure – Duty

The various perspectives in western psychology share in common a view that the distinction-making that is the basis of human behavior is the distinction between pleasure and duty. As similar to the distinctions made by every primitive animal that distinguishes between pleasure and pain, human beings distinguish too between pleasure and duty. One is drawn after an activity that promises pleasure, and one flees a situation that threatens pain. Common to both of these is that they are both stimulations from the outside. Like the carrot and stick method, they determine the character of human behavior, just as they determine the behavior of all the other creatures. The Jewish perspective views both pleasure and duty as intrinsically legitimate goals.

Unlike Catholics, who see sin in pleasure and virtue in duty, Judaism relates to both affirmatively when they work as complementary opposites, and negatively the moment they are separated from one another.

Precisely the same negative attitude is given to duty severed from pleasure as to pleasure severed from duty.

Pleasure does not draw its resources only from the self-preservation instinct, as they believe in the mechanical-materialistic west. Pleasure is the result of the self’s own fulfillment, having succeeded in expressing and actualizing its own uniqueness. Such pleasure has no quarrel with the sense of duty. On the contrary, duty supports it, and celebrates its victory with it.

The self cannot move from dormant potential to actualization except along an axis of creativity, which is supported at its upper end, as mentioned, by the values of the “dimension of height”. From these values, duty draws its strength. According to this introduction, pleasure would be the expression of creativity in its perfect state.

Pleasure is comprised – and embraces – the merging of all emotions, intuition, imagination, and desire. With their help, it becomes an excitingly dynamic vector, opening – for the one experiencing pleasure – the vastness of the horizon, enabling one to embrace the sensation of one’s own existence.

This is a sensation that allows one control over it. One governs it according to one’s own will and aspirations, out of happiness and the soaring vision of free choice made tangibly real.

Duty

Action done out of duty that belongs to the survival instinct, coerces man into compulsive behavior, enslaving and strangling every power of imagination, excitement, and joy of creation that were in him.

There does indeed exist a duty that is not related to the survival instinct, but rather draws justification for its existence from the great umbrella of values that shelters over the entire vastness of existence, and that includes both pleasure and duty in its scope.

This being so, we view duty as the fulfillment of a creative need: It is meant to support and to fortify the value of the self, and to build the foundations of positive and negative self-image.

Duty is an expression of responsibility. The feeling of duty is not caused as a result of fear of punishment, but rather from the will to experience and to explore one’s capabilities.

Thus is duty tied to feeling, and to the will to bear responsibility – because responsibility is an expression of the self’s ability to take control of reality, to get things moving, to determine, to decide, and to lead.

This is the most tangibly real expression of the power of the self, as opposed to ego, which is directed by the self-preservation instinct, which is made up of nothing more than existential fears.

The act of taking control requires fuel. Duty’s energy is drawn from pleasure, and its components are joy and excitement, as pavers of the emotional path. Through this path flow creative imagination and intuition, and all other central components of creativity, pouring meaning and quality into the activity by which the self takes control of the existential system.

Thus pleasure and duty join together in mutual complementarity, along the self’s creative route, whereas on the plane of the survival mechanism, both are left behind, mutually hostile and mutually exclusive: Duty source lies in existential fear, while pleasure is the compensation for that fear.

Balance between duty and pleasure is created through the “third scripture”, which is the value-based “dimension of height” that makes possible the impossible: To enjoy duty, and to relate responsibly to pleasure.

Judaism thus rejects the compulsive moralist no less than the wanton hedonist who takes no responsibility for his actions.

Judaism does not view either side as offering a solution for a perfect human being, unless both unite together under the “dimension of height”. Introducing the “dimension of height” gives perspective to duty and pleasure, enabling these two opposites to cooperate and pursue a common goal.

An ideal requires, in order to be realized, the soaring momentum of pleasure ignited by the fire of the ideal, and in order to take a stable and serious course, the element of duty, while both of these are motivated by an elemental motivating force, the power of will.[2]

This enables them to break free of the self-preservation mechanism, which merely revolves around itself.

5. Belonging – Freedom

This pair of opposites is found where the private space and the public space intersect. Its function is to regulate one’s relationship to the other, to the environment, and to oneself. The various perspectives in western psychology encounter complications when determining the relationship between belonging and freedom.

On the one hand, belonging is a goal, the heart’s desire. Happy is one whom everybody likes. Quantitative evaluation of the measure of popularity decrees the fate of a candidate’s achievements: To life or to death – and not only politically, but professionally as well, and even academically. Here we derive a criterion of the similar and accepted one as the positive one, and the dissimilar one as negative, or at least as strange.

Yet on the other hand, psychology sees the march of human development as a march along an axis that opens with dependency and concludes in independence. What guides society in its search for an appropriate punishment for the deviant, if not the removal of his freedom for a given period of time.

Individual rights parallel individual liberties, and are built around the principle of the right to freedom: Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and the freedom to belong!

Absurdity arises out of this: An individual’s willingness to renounce a considerable portion of the right to freedom, in order to choose belonging: To a spouse, to family, or to some other social, religious, or cultural framework. These are frameworks that impose strict conditions on those who seek to belong to them, the common factor in all of which is a renunciation of personal freedom for the sake of belonging to that specific, demanding framework.

This paradox confounds even the proper procedures of democracy, because liberalism, which calls civil freedom sacred, and raises it to the top of the scale of values, falls from grace the moment it gets into government and must put on garments of flesh and blood like ordinary people.

This ordinary person of flesh and blood loses his liberal patience the moment he is forced to relate to another ordinary person whose bad luck it is that he does not belong to the accepted and enlightened camp. To this fellow, the principles of liberalism and social justice do not apply at all. One may persecute him and slander him until he is torn out by the roots and eliminated from th