Linking the Aqedah to Al Qaeda
Stuck in airless offices, pursuing
the life, or so-called life, of the unconscious,
is what the Freudians constantly are doing.
With intellectual honesty these honchos
reveal, by means that are Talmudic and
Socratic, truths controlling superegos,
as well as egos, and of course the ids.
Good luck to all the Freudian amigos,
removing lids off all non-Jungian Yids.
Freudians recently have changed the name
of their society. Delete New York,
they have resolved, which I think is a shame
far greater than of Jews consuming pork,
in fact quite comparable to what Bin Laden
proposed when messing with Al Qaeda’s title.
All those who wield an airbrush we should pardon:
treating neither jihad or New York as a Freudian idol,
and evaluating the aqedah in a way that’s epistemic,
while wondering whether it’s obliquely a denier
of Abraham’s deplorable, alleged intention to kill lsaac, a polemic
against aqedah-based martyrdom, the basis of the base Al Qaeda.
Jessica Gross, in “A Contemporary Freudian Slip,” Tablet, 5/7/12), writes about the change the name of the New York Freudian Society—a not-for-profit organization that, along with its companion training institute, is among a handful of New York analytic organizations that belong to the prestigious International Psychoanalytic Association—to the Contemporary Freudian Society:
Longtime Society member Dr. Edwin Levy likened the analytic method to that of Talmudic study—“there’s something very reminiscent about the very careful picking apart of reasoning and trying to make sense out of it”—as did Dr. Marsha Levy-Warren, the president-elect, who pointed to the Socratic quality of both: the back-and-forth between teacher and student, and between analyst and patient. Levy-Warren mentioned the emphasis on curiosity and agency in contemporary Jewish culture as present in analysis, too. But at a time when analysis has become viewed by many as insular, anachronistic discipline, perhaps shouting its Jewishness from the rooftops isn’t the smartest idea. The picture of anemic, bookish Jewish analysts, “stuck in an airless office, pursuing the life of the unconscious,” as Merkin put it, may not be the vision an organization striving for relevancy wants to present, to us or to itself.
The verb חשך in Gen.22:16 links the praise God offers Abraham for his restraint in not withholding his son from him in the aqedah to the restraint of Abimelech. This is described in Gen. 20:6 which reports that God told Abimelech that He had prevented him from sinning – by having intercourse with Sarah – when she and Abraham claimed that Sarah was not Abraham’s wife but his sister:
Gen. 20:6 states:
וַיֹּ֩אמֶר֩ אֵלָ֨יו הָֽאֱלֹהִ֜ים בַּחֲלֹ֗ם גַּ֣ם אָנֹכִ֤י יָדַ֙עְתִּי֙ כִּ֤י בְתׇם־לְבָבְךָ֙ עָשִׂ֣יתָ זֹּ֔את וָאֶחְשֹׂ֧ךְ גַּם־אָנֹכִ֛י אֽוֹתְךָ֖ מֵחֲטוֹ־לִ֑י עַל־כֵּ֥ן לֹא־נְתַתִּ֖יךָ לִנְגֹּ֥עַ אֵלֶֽיהָ׃
And God said to him in the dream, “I knew that you did this with a blameless heart, va’ehsoph, and so I restrained you from sinning against Me. That was why I did not let you touch her.
Gen. 22:16 states:
וַיֹּ֕אמֶר בִּ֥י נִשְׁבַּ֖עְתִּי נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֑ה כִּ֗י יַ֚עַן אֲשֶׁ֤ר עָשִׂ֙יתָ֙ אֶת־הַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֔ה וְלֹ֥א חָשַׂ֖כְתָּ אֶת־בִּנְךָ֥ אֶת־יְחִידֶֽךָ׃
And said, “By Myself I swear, GOD declares: Because you have done this and did not hasahta, restrain, the life of your son who is beloved by you.
According to my interpretation of the aqedah, Abraham in the episode echoes Abimelech, whom God managed to restrain from adultery, a sin that is as clearly forbidden as child sacrifice, forbidden in Lev. 18:21 and 20:2-3.
Al-Qaeda translates from Arabic to mean “the base” or “the foundation.”