Rabbi Sigmund Shlomo Freud: The Evil Son or The Wise Son?

“The Jews have celebrated me as a national hero (only because) I have never denied my Judaism.”

– Sigmund Freud, letter to Marie Bonaparte (May 10, 1926)

Freud’s Judaism was undeniable. Shlomo was not only the Hebrew translation of his actual first name (Sigismund), but also his given middle name. Involuntarily born into an Orthodox Jewish family (he noted his father was more fluent in Hebrew than German), he voluntarily married into one.

Consequently, not only was Shlomo inscribed into the official family Bible, noting he “entered the Jewish covenant” (i.e., circumcised, presumably involuntarily), but he also (30 years later) voluntarily, albeit obligatorily, recited from memory nine sacred Hebrew words defining a Jewish marriage.

Yet, his antipathy towards God, indeed his determination to convince the world to abandon Him is equally undeniable.

His epic work, The Future of an Illusion asserts: “We have recognized (beliefs in God) as illusions… Research has revealed the fatal resemblance between religious ideas and the mental productions of primitive people.”

His first attack on Him, Obsessive Acts and Religious Practices observes the similarity of psychotic obsessive acts to pious religious observances, concluding: “Obsessional neurosis (is) a private religious system and religion (is) a universal obsessional neurosis” (still believed by orthodox Freudian analysts.)

Totem and Taboo claimed God derived from an original murdered and cannibalized tribal-leader (reflected in Jewish animal-sacrifices, fasts and Christian communion.)

His final book, Moses and Monotheism added that Moses had been similarly murdered by his people, the Israelites.

Thus, in Freud’s view, religion in general, Judaism in particular, were the products of a horrific patricide.

Consequently, in the words of his biographer Peter Gay who dubbed him “A Godless Jew”, his mission was “to demolish religion with psychoanalytic weapons (in) the hope that discovering and disseminating the truth about religion (would) free mankind of it.”

As Freud wrote in Illusion: “There is no court higher than that of reason… In the long run, nothing can resist reason.”

How then, can a man who described himself as “An out-and-out unbeliever”, whose pet-phrase for himself was “An infidel Jew”, be considered a rabbi?

In point of fact, many prominent Reform rabbis, most Reconstructionist rabbis don’t believe in a supernatural God. Humanistic and Secular rabbis don’t believe in any God. Many Jewish heroes (Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Chaim Weizmann, Einstein, Emma Goldman, Ayn Rand, Spinoza) were also unabashed atheists.

To his legions of followers, Freud is unquestionably not only a hero, a rabbi, a teacher, but indeed a God.

No aspect of his life is too trivial to explore or emulate. Articles detail his relationship with his dogs. Drug companies distribute reproductions of his office sculpture collection. Traditional psychoanalysts prominently display busts or framed portraits of him in their offices, identical to Hasidim working under the gaze of their Rebbe.

Ultimately, he became a rabbi, a teacher to more than his followers. His ideas (Unconscious, Neurosis, Ego, Obsession, Repression, Compulsion, Narcissism, Sibling-rivalry, et al.) are part of our universal vernacular. If, as Aristotle said, all philosophy is but a footnote to Plato, then all psychology is a footnote to Freud.

Paul Johnson in A History of The Jews, anoints him “The greatest of all Jewish innovators.”

Yet, Rabbi Shlomo, at times, was a self-hating Jew, calling Alfred Adler (who defected from his followers) a “Judenbube” Jewboy, Eastern European Jews (he considered inferior) “Gesindel” scum. Worse, he habitually referred to “The Jews” (as in the opening-quote) in the third-person, as if the term didn’t apply to him.

Is he then, by definition, the Haggadah Roshoh, the Evil Son who excludes himself from our people?

Psychoanalysts say the answer is always more complicated than that, and, more importantly, that everyone has the capacity to grow. Both apply to Rabbi Shlomo.

Later in life, he regretted “our free-thinking religion-teachers did not direct their pupils to acquire knowledge in Hebrew language and literature.” He rued no longer being able to speak “our sacred old and now renewed tongue.”

Though he desperately needed the money his writing provided, he steadfastly refused to accept any royalties from Hebrew or Yiddish editions of his work.

He not only identified with the people of Moses; he became obsessed with Moses himself. In his own words: “The figure of Moses has haunted me all my life.”

He felt Moses created Judaism as he had created psychoanalysis, two transformative approaches to life. Both he and Moses confronted Gentile opposition; both would never enter the Promised Land. (He compared his successor Jung to Joshua.)

Most importantly, both had to unfairly endure their followers’ rebellion.

Revealingly, the only article he ever published anonymously analyzed Michelangelo’s Moses sculpture.He spent three weeks in Rome studying it daily, concluding Michelangelo portrayed Moses at the precise moment he returns from Mount Sinai with the 10 Commandments to find his followers worshiping the Golden Calf.

In his fury, he almost drops the Commandments, but manages to regain his composure, realizing the message he carries is more important than his desire for revenge. Michelangelo’s Moses was therefore “superior to the historical or traditional Moses.” Michelangelo’s Moses became Freud’s therapy.

Freud realized early-on “if I were (Gentile), my innovations would have found far less resistance… Only (Jung) can save psychoanalysis from… becoming a Jewish science.”

Despite his concerns about “The hidden antisemitism of the Swiss”, he was reassured by Jung’s continued pledges of loyalty.

Ironically, Jung’s first rebellion was maintaining religious feelings were an integral element of mental-health. Pouring salt on that particularly sensitive wound, Jung charged that Freud’s “Psychoanalysis is not a science, but a religion.”

Ultimately, Jung completely betrayed him: “One cannot accept… Freud… as a valid representation of European mankind. The Jew as a nomad has never created… a cultural form of his own. He is dependent on a civilized host-people. In my view it has been a great mistake to apply Jewish categories to Christian Germans… The mighty phenomenon of (Nazism), at which the whole world gazes in astonishment, has taught them to know better.”

Freud belatedly, painfully acknowledged Jung was a “lying, brutal, condescending antisemite.”

Resultantly, unlike his followers (“Jewboy” Adler converted to Protestantism, Otto Rank to Catholicism), Freud began to take pride in his Jewish origins: “My language is German. My culture, my attainments are German. I considered myself German intellectually until the growth of antisemitism… Since then, I prefer to call myself a Jew… I’ve always held faithfully to our people and never pretended to be anything but what I am: a Jew… (It is) nonsensical to deny it… What remained of (my) Jewishness was… the main thing.”

He was proclaiming he remained, in essence, a Jew.

He identified with Jews, past, present, and future.

He justified moving the psychoanalytic society from Vienna: “After the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakai asked permission to open a school at Yavneh to study the Torah. We are going to do the same.”

He embraced Theodor Herzl and Zionism, described dreaming about the future of Jewish children in a Jewish homeland, noting “Zionism has awakened my strongest sympathies.”

He wrote to Einstein declaring his pride in “Our Jerusalem University and our flourishing settlement in Palestine.”

Though he died as he lived, “A Godless Jew”, he tried to make peace with his people (if not his Creator.)

He assured Jews threatened by his attacks on religion: “No one who seeks consolation in the holy Bible or in the prayers of the synagogue is in danger of losing his faith because of my preaching… I merely produce scientific discourse for the interest of a minority, which has no faith to lose.”

He acknowledged Illusion was “childish, feeble, inadequate. The analytic content of the work is very thin… It is not worth very much. This is my worst book.”

His loyal Jewish lay-analyst pupil Theodor Reik admitted The Future of An Illusion “presented the illusion of a future.”

Dying of throat-cancer, he eschewed painkillers to write his Rashi, his last tribute to Moses and his people, Moses and Monotheism, in his mind, not an attack on Jews, but a going-away-present to them: “Leave me alone with Moses. He has become a fixation for me. This is my final attempt to answer the question of what has actually created the special character of the Jew.”

(Identically, a half-century earlier, Ulysses Grant also developed throat-cancer from smoking cigars, also refused painkillers to complete his memoir. Difference however is, Grant’s tome is revered; Freud’s is disregarded.)

Ultimately, is Freud the Evil Son, or the Wise Son?

Another “Rebbe”, Chabad’s Rabbi Joseph Schneerson suggests the Four Sons represent four generations leaving the insulated roots of the Jewish shtetl.

The Wise first-generation maintains the traditions; the Evil second-generation rejects them; the Simple third-generation is left confused; the Ignorant fourth-generation has no idea what questions to ask.

Freud’s father Jacob kept the traditions. Freud’s son Martin got married in a synagogue, respectfully removed his hat, was totally confused when his religious friends insisted he replace it. (Yet, with Freud’s blessing, Martin joined a Zionist student organization.) Freud’s granddaughter hosted a British TV-show, questioning her male guests, sharing a bed, under the covers, both in pajamas, proudly advertising she didn’t know any questions about her grandfather because she never read any of his books, was totally ignorant of his work.

According to this Rebbe, Rebbe Shlomo, the second-generation, is the Roshoh.

For decades, I have advocated a different interpretation of the troubling metaphor of the Four Sons. They don’t represent four siblings, or four generations, but (in reverse-order) our four inevitable stages of life.

First-stage, Toddlers, we are ignorant, not knowing what questions to ask. Second-stage, Children, we have learned the questions, but are confused, having learned there are no simple answers. Third-stage, Adolescence, we rebel, rejecting our parents’ traditions, to assert our independence. Fourth-stage, Adulthood, we (hopefully) mature, become wise, resemble our preceding generations.

Mark Twain wryly noted, at 15 I realize my parents were complete imbeciles; at 21, I marveled at how much they had learned in just six years.

In the final analysis, Rabbi Shlomo was, like most of us, consecutively, all four sons. To his subsequent regret, he grew up ignorant of his heritage, never entering a synagogue. Consequently, he became confused. He rebelled, attacking religion in general, his own Judaism in particular.

Though he never believed in God, he grew to embrace Judaism. His going-away-present declared: “Christian(ity) did not maintain the height of spirituality to which Judaism has risen… Christians… beneath a thin veneer, (are) the same polytheistic barbarians they’ve always been who will persist in antisemitism because of their justified envy and jealousy… The children of Israel, God’s chosen people are blissful in the possession of the truth and treasure of the mind and morality.”

The Wise Son asks about the origins of our laws and traditions.

Rabbi Shlomo asked precisely the same question.

Like all of us, Rabbi Sigmund Shlomo Freud was, at times the ignorant son, at times the confused son, at times, if not evil, certainly rebellious, perhaps destructive.

And yet, he was, undeniably, one of the wisest rabbis the world has ever produced.

[Excerpted from Jamie Lehmann Memorial Lecture, June 13, 1988]