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Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition
"Dr. Bakan's book … is destined to become a landmark in the study of the historical origins of psychoanalysis." — American Journal of Psychiatry
In this pioneering work, David Bakan challenges the popular view of Freud as an entirely secular intellectual, schooled in modern culture rather than Jewish traditions. Bakan contends that the father of psychology was profoundly influenced by mystic lore about which he appeared to know very little — and which represents the antithesis of scientific method.
This work is based on the premise that Freudian psychoanalytic theory is largely rooted in the Jewish religion, particularly the mysticism of the kabbala. In a fascinating interpretation of the blend of personality and cultural history, Bakan explains how Freud's Jewish heritage contributed, either consciously or unconsciously, to his psychological theories. The author employs Freud's own distinction between being a Jew and the acceptance of Jewish doctrine to demonstrate the effect of Jewish mysticism in the formation of Freud's technical genius.
With its focus on the ways in which Freud was and was not Jewish, this study offers a model example of the problem of Jewish identity — as embodied by one of the giants of modern science, who professed to be both "infidel" and "Jew."
In this pioneering work, David Bakan challenges the popular view of Freud as an entirely secular intellectual, schooled in modern culture rather than Jewish traditions. Bakan contends that the father of psychology was profoundly influenced by mystic lore about which he appeared to know very little — and which represents the antithesis of scientific method.
This work is based on the premise that Freudian psychoanalytic theory is largely rooted in the Jewish religion, particularly the mysticism of the kabbala. In a fascinating interpretation of the blend of personality and cultural history, Bakan explains how Freud's Jewish heritage contributed, either consciously or unconsciously, to his psychological theories. The author employs Freud's own distinction between being a Jew and the acceptance of Jewish doctrine to demonstrate the effect of Jewish mysticism in the formation of Freud's technical genius.
With its focus on the ways in which Freud was and was not Jewish, this study offers a model example of the problem of Jewish identity — as embodied by one of the giants of modern science, who professed to be both "infidel" and "Jew."
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 3, 2016
Bakan starts this intriguing book with a quote from Freud "Everything new must have its roots in what was before." So what were the roots for Freud's revolutionary ideas?
Bakan presents an excellent argument that either consciously or unconsciously, Freud drew on the mystical Jewish tradition in formulating psychoanalysis. His preface to the New Edition adds additional information that was not available to him when he wrote the original in 1958, and is well worth reading.
Aside from its insights into psychoanalysis, this book provides a valuable history of Jewish mysticism, including some surprising detours. It also educated me on turn-of-the-century Vienna's virulent anti-Semitic environment -- something of which I had not been fully aware.
As with Richard Noll's "Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung" (also reviewed by me), it provides some unusual viewpoints on the psychoanalytic revolution and is well worth reading.
Bakan presents an excellent argument that either consciously or unconsciously, Freud drew on the mystical Jewish tradition in formulating psychoanalysis. His preface to the New Edition adds additional information that was not available to him when he wrote the original in 1958, and is well worth reading.
Aside from its insights into psychoanalysis, this book provides a valuable history of Jewish mysticism, including some surprising detours. It also educated me on turn-of-the-century Vienna's virulent anti-Semitic environment -- something of which I had not been fully aware.
As with Richard Noll's "Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung" (also reviewed by me), it provides some unusual viewpoints on the psychoanalytic revolution and is well worth reading.
December 2, 2013
Picked up this one when reading Bakan's Disease, Pain & Sacrifice for a class, but didn't read it until just now--decades later. Not knowing much about Kabbalism, but knowing Freud very well, I thought it might be a good entre to Jewish mysticism.
It isn't.
Nor is it a good introduction to Freud. Bakan assumes the reader knows Freud already.
The thesis about "the role played by Jewish mysticism in the development of psychoanalysis" is extremely weak. There are no hard facts indicating Freud drew on Kabbalism, just the bare possiblility that he had some exposure to it and might have read about it and occasionally talked about it. A stronger case could be made for Goebbel's National Socialism being an influence on me as I not only own books by and about it, but I've actually read them.
As regards Kabbalism, if you are as ignorant as I am about that literary-intellectual tradition, then you will know a little bit about it by having read Bakan. Surely, however, there are better ways.
It isn't.
Nor is it a good introduction to Freud. Bakan assumes the reader knows Freud already.
The thesis about "the role played by Jewish mysticism in the development of psychoanalysis" is extremely weak. There are no hard facts indicating Freud drew on Kabbalism, just the bare possiblility that he had some exposure to it and might have read about it and occasionally talked about it. A stronger case could be made for Goebbel's National Socialism being an influence on me as I not only own books by and about it, but I've actually read them.
As regards Kabbalism, if you are as ignorant as I am about that literary-intellectual tradition, then you will know a little bit about it by having read Bakan. Surely, however, there are better ways.
July 1, 2025
I disagree with another review which says that the links between Freud's psychoanalysis and the Jewish Mystical Tradition are tenuous.
To my mind it's actually ridiculous to suggest that Freud's Jewish background and identity and encounter with violent anti-Semitism in his life would not impact his work.
It's also a wild stretch to believe that Freud was utterly original (unique among geniuses), when his work is clearly (as this book demonstrates) built off of a mystical tradition he was living within.
The implications of this source for psychoanalysis are troublesome, especially for modern psychology and modern psychological thinking.
I'll add that I've always found Freud's ideas quasi-religious and off-putting. The argument presented here, that Freud mashed together the scientific tradition (acquired from his training as a medical researcher and clinician) and the Jewish mystical tradition (acquired from his family and milieu) in creating psychoanalysis, only makes common sense to me.
To my mind it's actually ridiculous to suggest that Freud's Jewish background and identity and encounter with violent anti-Semitism in his life would not impact his work.
It's also a wild stretch to believe that Freud was utterly original (unique among geniuses), when his work is clearly (as this book demonstrates) built off of a mystical tradition he was living within.
The implications of this source for psychoanalysis are troublesome, especially for modern psychology and modern psychological thinking.
I'll add that I've always found Freud's ideas quasi-religious and off-putting. The argument presented here, that Freud mashed together the scientific tradition (acquired from his training as a medical researcher and clinician) and the Jewish mystical tradition (acquired from his family and milieu) in creating psychoanalysis, only makes common sense to me.
August 16, 2025
“The Jewish mystics in the course of the development of a complex system of thought to extract the deeper, hidden and truer meaning of God’s word, developed a secret tradition which included the notion of a female counterpart of God, the Shekinah, who accompanied the Jews in their exile.”
Shekinah is identified with the whole body of Israel— the Jewish people themselves. The Shekinah is the wife of god who has been cast aside by her lord and the time will come when he will again look with favor upon her.”
Freud secularized Jewish mysticism and psychoanalysis can intelligently be viewed as such a secularization•
The political misfortune of the nation taught them to appreciate the only possession they had retained: their written records, at its true value.”
His works on religion are against the classical Judeo-Christian religious doctrines. Yet his sense of Jewish identity was so strong that we might consider his genetic conception of the Jew as the theoretical counterpart of his deep feeling of Jewish identity.”
Rabbi Isaac Bernays of Hamburg was called the leading monarch of the mind.
Three important kabbalistic elements: notion of bisexuality, extensive use of numerology, and the doctrine of predestination of the time of death- the doctrine of life portions.”
Jewish mysticism began 1st century AD by Jochanan Ben Zakkai. Kabbala appears in written form in 11th century AD in writings of Ibn Gabriol. Sefer Yetzirah the Book of Formation. Available 850 in France. Written by Abraham.
Modern Kabbala 1200
Golden Age or Kabbala: 13-14th centuries. The major document of Kabbalistic tradition, the Zohar, was made known by Moses de Leon at the end of the 13th century.
Abulafia: conviction that this kind of language product is not simply whimsical, but corresponds to another logic— the logic of God’s real world, which to Freud becomes the logic of the unconscious.”
Jumping and skipping-using associations were a way of meditation
The most important document in Kabbala is the Zohar- work of Simeon Ben Yohai in the first half of the second century.
Prior to the devastations which began in 1648, the Jews vigorously pursued the ways of life associated with the Torah, Talmud… With the seemingly endless persecutions from the outside, the hold of the Talmudic way of life weakened and the people turned to Kabbalah with its Messianic spirit as a source of hope.”
Sabbatianism was largely responsible for the creation of the atmosphere which eventually led to the Jewish reform movement in the 19th century.”
Sabbateanism encountering the emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century, passes into a rationalism which tends to conceal its Sabbatian origins.”
After the French Revolution it was the Sabbatian groups within the Jewish fold that fostered movements towards reform, liberalism, enlightenment.”
Sabbatian held to a doctrine of the necessity of the descent into evil in order to attain spiritual liberation, a doctrine which was to be endowed with specific sexual reference by the Frankists.” Sabbatianism encouraged concern with the forbidden areas of human experience.”
It would be more correct to say that Western enlightenment was seized by the Jews as an ally to one party of the desperate struggle within Judaism between Sabbatianism and orthodoxy.
Jacob Frank, psychopath. Regarded himself as the incarnation of Sabbatai-Zevi and restimulated the Sabbatian movement.”
The sexual is also a temptation which is ever-present and sometimes pressingly so; it offers the most accessible sins. The most important reason for the sexual excesses among the Frankists is to be found in the contribution of Freud himself; that sexuality is at the core of the human personality.”
The Frankists even charged that the Talmud made use of Christian blood obligatory and they lent testimony that the Jews engaged in ritual murder.”
1759: Members of the polish nobility acted as sponsors and the newly baptized Frankists Jews came into Polish nobility.
The Modern Period in Jewish history can be regarded as being about 250 years behind the development of the analogous modern period in general history.”
The early Sabbatianism transformed into the Jewish reform movement and liberalism.
Chassidism : joy in life was regarded as an ultimate blessing.
Freud participated in the historical continuity provided by Chassidism. Sabbatian elemwnts were still present in Chassidism even if in latent form. The encounter of the Jews with Western civilization tended to re-arouse those dim Sabbatian elements.“
Freud’s essay on Moses is a symbolic Sabbatian assertion of freedom against the severe restrictions of thought and action which had been the life strategy of the Eastern European Jews. In his interpretation the excess of the Mosaic-type Law made for neurosis and was generally inappropriate for modern living. He was echoing the message of Jacob Frank who asserted that the Law was useful only for an unredeemed world.
The devices for living adopted earlier by the Jews , the stern and forbidding adherence to every detail of the Law, was rendered inappropriate by the enlightenment and the new freedom of the Western World.
Sabbatianism shares with rationalism the conviction that the world of reality, all reality, may be apprehended by and encompassed in thought.”
The kabbalistic tradition has it that the secret teachings are to be transmitted orally to one person at a time, and even then only to selected minds and by hints. This aspect of the Kabbalistic tradition is still maintained in the education of the modern psychoanalyst.”
The Jewish mystical tradition translated itself from esoteric doctrine to large-scale socia movements in the culture of European Jewry
Psychoanalytic research is the subject of suspicious attention from Catholicism.”
The stricter the censorship, the more far-reaching will be the disguise and the more ingenious too may be the means employed for putting the reader on the scent of true meaning.“
The ability of the Jew to withstand opposition has historically been based in the Jewish community rather than in individual heroes.”
That he finally attained his goal, though by an extraordinary circuitous route, he rightly came to regard as the triumph of his life.”
The evidence provided by Freud’s psychoanalytic writings does not even begin to support the hypothesis that these writings are a reaction to the tradition with which he had been involved in his pre-psychoanalytic years. The psychoanalytic writings strike out in completely new directions.”
We know that genius is incomprehensible and unaccountable and it should therefore not be called upon as an explanation until every other solution has failed.”
Everything new must have its roots in what was before.
Few tasks as as appealing as inquiry into the laws that govern the psyche of exceptionally endowed individuals.”
Screen Memory: retention in memory of an everyday and indifferent event which could not produce any deep effects, but which in its recollection has over great clarity. It’s function is to cancel from consciousness some other, related, repressed material.”
The material suggests that Freud was unconscious of his sources and that exerting an effort to present an honest picture, he points, rather inadequately, to one or another incident which does come to mind as the possible source of his ideas.”
A system of thought such as was developed by Freud, made up of so many different propositions, so consistent in its mood, containing so many far-reaching implications, and with subject matter so diverse, could only be the result of a culture- the achievement of at least several generations.”
It is not attractive to be classed with the scholastics and Talmudists who are satisfied to exercise their ingenuity unconcerned how far removed their conclusions may be from the truth.”
He argues that in the average myth, the hero is born into a noble and royal family, but grows up in a humble and degraded family. Moses is born of the Jewish Levites but is raised in the Royal household.”
Freud felt very sensitive about the low social position to which his Jewishness held him.“
The distortion of a text is not unlike a murder.”
He was trying to remake and rework our conceptions of morality in a way which would make it possible for the individual to live a richer and less hampered existence, freed from the taboos which Judaism had imposed upon itself for its survival and which had been accepted by the Christian world as a way of life.”
Freud’s personality emerges as militant-Sabbatian.
The Devil is a Christian-legendary figure who can satisfy the Sabbatian tendencies toward apostasy. When Satan appears in Jewish legend his function is largely to tempt Jew to apostasy. The Devil stands opposed to the Mosaic features incorporated in Christianity.”
Frankists glorified sin as a way toward redemption. In the mystical dialectic the opposition of evil to good would result in a world in which sin would no longer exist. A conception of evil as a manifestation of the Divine was never to be completely rejected.”
A major psychological feature of black magic is that it provides immediate gains without immediate payment. The deferred and excessive payment for immediate gain is characteristically associated with pacts with the Devil. Ursury is exactly a social expression of the essential features of the Satanic pact, immediate gains and excessive deferred payment”
From then on he understood that the peculiar relationship so effective therapeutically had an erotic basis, whether concealed or not.”
The ability to inflame the hearts of women at will is historically associated with Satanic powers.”
Criticism of psychoanalysis: it regards the simplest affairs in an unduly subtle and simplicities way, discovers secrets and problems where none exist, and that it achieves this by magnifying the most insignificant trifles to support far-reaching and bizarre conclusions.”
We fine confirmation that it was fashioned under conditions specified by Freud as leading to the Satanic Pact: the death of his father, depression, and financial pressure.”
Psychological significance of the Devil image as an ally against the superego or as its suspension.
God holds the content unconscious and the Devil is the counterforce which renders the material conscious. The demonological reference as indicative of the forces within the individual by which the suppressed materials finds methods and means of forcing its way into consciousness.”
By bringing the demoniac into the light, the demoniac is stripped of its demoniac character. Having permitted all to become open, the infantile character is revealed and distance with respect to each is won.”
Devil is always the Tempter. The essential message of the Tempter is that the anticipated rewards associated with resistance to temptation will not be forthcoming, that faith is groundless. The Devil presents the new hope and supports his promise by immediate tokens of his favor. The new contact is entered into because with the loss of hope, the anguish turns into despair; despair is exactly anguish without hope of relief.”
If a great author commits schoolboy errors, we have reason to search for a deeper meaning behind the apparent blunders.”
For Jews, living was always a full-time religious occupation.
There occurred a ready transfer of this perceptual attitude, the close scrutiny of the human being with inordinate conscientiousness in every detail, from the long Jewish tradition to psychoanalysis.”
The tractate Berakoth, one of the less legalistic in the Talmud, contains one of the most extensive treatments of dreams and dream interpretation in rabbinic literature.”
All dreams have meaning. The interpretation of the dream had priority over the dream itself. The validity of an interpretation becomes meaningless.”
There were fine shades of meaning in dream symbolism which could be ascertained only by understanding both the principles of dream interpretation and characteristics of the dreamer.”
Gematria, notarikon, temurah
The ancient dream interpreters supposed that anything in a dream could mean it’s opposite.”
Kabbalistic Conception of sexuality which is startlingly close to Freud, mixed with supernatural considerations which tend to turn the modern enlightened mind away from it.”
Bible uses the same word for both knowledge and sexual relations, knowledge itself is viewed as having a deeply erotic character.”
It may be assured that the impulse of cruelty arises from the instinct for mastery and appears at a period of sexual life at which the genitals have not yet taken over their latter role
Shekinah is identified with the whole body of Israel— the Jewish people themselves. The Shekinah is the wife of god who has been cast aside by her lord and the time will come when he will again look with favor upon her.”
Freud secularized Jewish mysticism and psychoanalysis can intelligently be viewed as such a secularization•
The political misfortune of the nation taught them to appreciate the only possession they had retained: their written records, at its true value.”
His works on religion are against the classical Judeo-Christian religious doctrines. Yet his sense of Jewish identity was so strong that we might consider his genetic conception of the Jew as the theoretical counterpart of his deep feeling of Jewish identity.”
Rabbi Isaac Bernays of Hamburg was called the leading monarch of the mind.
Three important kabbalistic elements: notion of bisexuality, extensive use of numerology, and the doctrine of predestination of the time of death- the doctrine of life portions.”
Jewish mysticism began 1st century AD by Jochanan Ben Zakkai. Kabbala appears in written form in 11th century AD in writings of Ibn Gabriol. Sefer Yetzirah the Book of Formation. Available 850 in France. Written by Abraham.
Modern Kabbala 1200
Golden Age or Kabbala: 13-14th centuries. The major document of Kabbalistic tradition, the Zohar, was made known by Moses de Leon at the end of the 13th century.
Abulafia: conviction that this kind of language product is not simply whimsical, but corresponds to another logic— the logic of God’s real world, which to Freud becomes the logic of the unconscious.”
Jumping and skipping-using associations were a way of meditation
The most important document in Kabbala is the Zohar- work of Simeon Ben Yohai in the first half of the second century.
Prior to the devastations which began in 1648, the Jews vigorously pursued the ways of life associated with the Torah, Talmud… With the seemingly endless persecutions from the outside, the hold of the Talmudic way of life weakened and the people turned to Kabbalah with its Messianic spirit as a source of hope.”
Sabbatianism was largely responsible for the creation of the atmosphere which eventually led to the Jewish reform movement in the 19th century.”
Sabbateanism encountering the emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century, passes into a rationalism which tends to conceal its Sabbatian origins.”
After the French Revolution it was the Sabbatian groups within the Jewish fold that fostered movements towards reform, liberalism, enlightenment.”
Sabbatian held to a doctrine of the necessity of the descent into evil in order to attain spiritual liberation, a doctrine which was to be endowed with specific sexual reference by the Frankists.” Sabbatianism encouraged concern with the forbidden areas of human experience.”
It would be more correct to say that Western enlightenment was seized by the Jews as an ally to one party of the desperate struggle within Judaism between Sabbatianism and orthodoxy.
Jacob Frank, psychopath. Regarded himself as the incarnation of Sabbatai-Zevi and restimulated the Sabbatian movement.”
The sexual is also a temptation which is ever-present and sometimes pressingly so; it offers the most accessible sins. The most important reason for the sexual excesses among the Frankists is to be found in the contribution of Freud himself; that sexuality is at the core of the human personality.”
The Frankists even charged that the Talmud made use of Christian blood obligatory and they lent testimony that the Jews engaged in ritual murder.”
1759: Members of the polish nobility acted as sponsors and the newly baptized Frankists Jews came into Polish nobility.
The Modern Period in Jewish history can be regarded as being about 250 years behind the development of the analogous modern period in general history.”
The early Sabbatianism transformed into the Jewish reform movement and liberalism.
Chassidism : joy in life was regarded as an ultimate blessing.
Freud participated in the historical continuity provided by Chassidism. Sabbatian elemwnts were still present in Chassidism even if in latent form. The encounter of the Jews with Western civilization tended to re-arouse those dim Sabbatian elements.“
Freud’s essay on Moses is a symbolic Sabbatian assertion of freedom against the severe restrictions of thought and action which had been the life strategy of the Eastern European Jews. In his interpretation the excess of the Mosaic-type Law made for neurosis and was generally inappropriate for modern living. He was echoing the message of Jacob Frank who asserted that the Law was useful only for an unredeemed world.
The devices for living adopted earlier by the Jews , the stern and forbidding adherence to every detail of the Law, was rendered inappropriate by the enlightenment and the new freedom of the Western World.
Sabbatianism shares with rationalism the conviction that the world of reality, all reality, may be apprehended by and encompassed in thought.”
The kabbalistic tradition has it that the secret teachings are to be transmitted orally to one person at a time, and even then only to selected minds and by hints. This aspect of the Kabbalistic tradition is still maintained in the education of the modern psychoanalyst.”
The Jewish mystical tradition translated itself from esoteric doctrine to large-scale socia movements in the culture of European Jewry
Psychoanalytic research is the subject of suspicious attention from Catholicism.”
The stricter the censorship, the more far-reaching will be the disguise and the more ingenious too may be the means employed for putting the reader on the scent of true meaning.“
The ability of the Jew to withstand opposition has historically been based in the Jewish community rather than in individual heroes.”
That he finally attained his goal, though by an extraordinary circuitous route, he rightly came to regard as the triumph of his life.”
The evidence provided by Freud’s psychoanalytic writings does not even begin to support the hypothesis that these writings are a reaction to the tradition with which he had been involved in his pre-psychoanalytic years. The psychoanalytic writings strike out in completely new directions.”
We know that genius is incomprehensible and unaccountable and it should therefore not be called upon as an explanation until every other solution has failed.”
Everything new must have its roots in what was before.
Few tasks as as appealing as inquiry into the laws that govern the psyche of exceptionally endowed individuals.”
Screen Memory: retention in memory of an everyday and indifferent event which could not produce any deep effects, but which in its recollection has over great clarity. It’s function is to cancel from consciousness some other, related, repressed material.”
The material suggests that Freud was unconscious of his sources and that exerting an effort to present an honest picture, he points, rather inadequately, to one or another incident which does come to mind as the possible source of his ideas.”
A system of thought such as was developed by Freud, made up of so many different propositions, so consistent in its mood, containing so many far-reaching implications, and with subject matter so diverse, could only be the result of a culture- the achievement of at least several generations.”
It is not attractive to be classed with the scholastics and Talmudists who are satisfied to exercise their ingenuity unconcerned how far removed their conclusions may be from the truth.”
He argues that in the average myth, the hero is born into a noble and royal family, but grows up in a humble and degraded family. Moses is born of the Jewish Levites but is raised in the Royal household.”
Freud felt very sensitive about the low social position to which his Jewishness held him.“
The distortion of a text is not unlike a murder.”
He was trying to remake and rework our conceptions of morality in a way which would make it possible for the individual to live a richer and less hampered existence, freed from the taboos which Judaism had imposed upon itself for its survival and which had been accepted by the Christian world as a way of life.”
Freud’s personality emerges as militant-Sabbatian.
The Devil is a Christian-legendary figure who can satisfy the Sabbatian tendencies toward apostasy. When Satan appears in Jewish legend his function is largely to tempt Jew to apostasy. The Devil stands opposed to the Mosaic features incorporated in Christianity.”
Frankists glorified sin as a way toward redemption. In the mystical dialectic the opposition of evil to good would result in a world in which sin would no longer exist. A conception of evil as a manifestation of the Divine was never to be completely rejected.”
A major psychological feature of black magic is that it provides immediate gains without immediate payment. The deferred and excessive payment for immediate gain is characteristically associated with pacts with the Devil. Ursury is exactly a social expression of the essential features of the Satanic pact, immediate gains and excessive deferred payment”
From then on he understood that the peculiar relationship so effective therapeutically had an erotic basis, whether concealed or not.”
The ability to inflame the hearts of women at will is historically associated with Satanic powers.”
Criticism of psychoanalysis: it regards the simplest affairs in an unduly subtle and simplicities way, discovers secrets and problems where none exist, and that it achieves this by magnifying the most insignificant trifles to support far-reaching and bizarre conclusions.”
We fine confirmation that it was fashioned under conditions specified by Freud as leading to the Satanic Pact: the death of his father, depression, and financial pressure.”
Psychological significance of the Devil image as an ally against the superego or as its suspension.
God holds the content unconscious and the Devil is the counterforce which renders the material conscious. The demonological reference as indicative of the forces within the individual by which the suppressed materials finds methods and means of forcing its way into consciousness.”
By bringing the demoniac into the light, the demoniac is stripped of its demoniac character. Having permitted all to become open, the infantile character is revealed and distance with respect to each is won.”
Devil is always the Tempter. The essential message of the Tempter is that the anticipated rewards associated with resistance to temptation will not be forthcoming, that faith is groundless. The Devil presents the new hope and supports his promise by immediate tokens of his favor. The new contact is entered into because with the loss of hope, the anguish turns into despair; despair is exactly anguish without hope of relief.”
If a great author commits schoolboy errors, we have reason to search for a deeper meaning behind the apparent blunders.”
For Jews, living was always a full-time religious occupation.
There occurred a ready transfer of this perceptual attitude, the close scrutiny of the human being with inordinate conscientiousness in every detail, from the long Jewish tradition to psychoanalysis.”
The tractate Berakoth, one of the less legalistic in the Talmud, contains one of the most extensive treatments of dreams and dream interpretation in rabbinic literature.”
All dreams have meaning. The interpretation of the dream had priority over the dream itself. The validity of an interpretation becomes meaningless.”
There were fine shades of meaning in dream symbolism which could be ascertained only by understanding both the principles of dream interpretation and characteristics of the dreamer.”
Gematria, notarikon, temurah
The ancient dream interpreters supposed that anything in a dream could mean it’s opposite.”
Kabbalistic Conception of sexuality which is startlingly close to Freud, mixed with supernatural considerations which tend to turn the modern enlightened mind away from it.”
Bible uses the same word for both knowledge and sexual relations, knowledge itself is viewed as having a deeply erotic character.”
It may be assured that the impulse of cruelty arises from the instinct for mastery and appears at a period of sexual life at which the genitals have not yet taken over their latter role
October 19, 2024
This is a very scholarly book. Not exactly a page turner, it requires deep focus and dedication if the subject matter is not previously known to the reader.
If you are familiar with Jewish mysticism, then perhaps some of the bizarre connections made by Freud will resonate. However, to fresh eyes, it’s possible to be dumbfounded by some of the tenuous connections made both by Freud and author David Bakan.
Freud is undoubtedly a complex character, but when investigating his greatest work “The Interpretation of Dreams”, it struck me that Freud is really just making it up as he goes along.
It’s interesting to read of his experience as a Jew and how it affected his life, and there are various interesting passages as the author takes as through the various stages of Judaism and Jewery - which at times are eye opening, but overall I didn’t take as much meat from this book as I would’ve liked.
For ardent Freudists I’m sure it’s worth the ride but there are better and more satisfying alternatives.
If you are familiar with Jewish mysticism, then perhaps some of the bizarre connections made by Freud will resonate. However, to fresh eyes, it’s possible to be dumbfounded by some of the tenuous connections made both by Freud and author David Bakan.
Freud is undoubtedly a complex character, but when investigating his greatest work “The Interpretation of Dreams”, it struck me that Freud is really just making it up as he goes along.
It’s interesting to read of his experience as a Jew and how it affected his life, and there are various interesting passages as the author takes as through the various stages of Judaism and Jewery - which at times are eye opening, but overall I didn’t take as much meat from this book as I would’ve liked.
For ardent Freudists I’m sure it’s worth the ride but there are better and more satisfying alternatives.
May 22, 2025
Very informative however the chapters at the beginning require some resilience to get through. Meticulously researched and the thesis (that Freud’s work is very much intertwined with Jewish mystical thought and the Kabbala) is explored and followable.
July 28, 2025
Definitely not a read for novice readers on the topic of psychoanalysis and Jewish Mysticism. There was a lot of useful but very complex information. Some of that information was helpful and others not so much. There’s a lot of commonality but not necessarily proof of causality between Sigmund Freud’s views and Mystical Tradition. I don’t doubt a connection personally but that’s for each to decide I guess. It was okay but I wouldn’t recommend starting here.
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October 30, 2025Very informative.
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