Biblical Archetypes

 

 

One of the most important understandings of the Bible, comes from the Chassidic interpretation of the very Hebrew word (which as you may know, is the essence of the matter it describes) for the Bible, called the Torah – which means lesson.

 

Some, even believers in God – for example Einstein – say the Bible is old fairy tales – what they didn’t understand, is the Bible is actually the road map for life; but in order to give us freedom of choice, it can literally be seen in infinite ways – the most productive is, as lessons.

 

Obviously certain things are clear, such as “Love your friends as yourself.”

 

But why all the stories?

 

In fact, most of the Bible, is stories.

 

The answer is, that far from being stories, they are archetypes.

 

In other words, examples of main features of human personalities.

 

Let’s begin with Adam – presumably he could have had it all, eternal life as the first man – but in fact he couldn’t follow a single command of God – Adam’s downfall, explains Chassidus, was his recognition of his (true) greatness – the arrogant person is not humble, hence, cannot have the common sense to set aside their ego, for listening to God.

 

We then come to his wife Chava – our sages teach us: women are easily swayed.

 

We then come to Kayin – who murders his own brother.

 

Now this is an amazing story, because the truth is, God never really intended for the world to be heaven on earth, without a long arduous self-refinement process.

 

So in truth, the world really begins with Kayin and Hevel.

 

Hevel is the one who has gratitude, and offers his best sheep to God.

 

Now Kayin is stingy, he offers his worst as a sacrifice.

 

Here we see all of life.

 

For life vacillates between seeing – “am I lucky?” hence grateful, and willing to give my best to God, who gave me everything?!

 

Or “am I stingy” – am I desirous of more, to boost my ego, or enhance my image, hence begrudge what I need to give?!

 

Kayin of course shows us, how evil is based on not being cognizant of the fact, “all is a loving gift from God” for as his jealousy of his brother’s happiness mounts, his rage mounts – this is not a limited event to Kayin, it has played out over the entire course of human history! it is why there is evil in this world! for random acts of violence, be it bullying, be it antisemites, all come from the fact, some people are stingy; instead of seeing their blessings, they feel angry that everything is not theirs! and the greatest jealousy that emanates from them is not over the possessions of others, rather, over others happiness; for what greater possession is there, than happiness?!

 

This is why before God (though it’s not so clear in the literal reading of the Torah) punished Kayin – a while before when he saw he was jealous – he tells him to repent.

 

As long as you or I don’t recognize that everything is a gift, we shall be jealous – as long as we shall be jealous, we shall be evil.

 

And hence the first act of violence was perpetrated by the great cause of violence, jealousy.

 

Moving right along, we find humanity as a whole without humility and gratitude, become mired in evil.

 

Noah is one who has his compass on God and God likes him.

 

Yet there is a profound lesson in Noah’s life.

 

For instead of Noah going out and teaching, sharing, inspiring, he in fact builds an ark – though on God’s command – and saves himself!

 

This is the wrong approach.

 

Moving right along, we find a new kind of civilization, the people of Bavel (where we do find archaeology the earliest signs of civilization) begin.

 

What is unique about these people, is having had their ego mollified – remembering the flood (by the way, many cultures distant from each other, say American Indians, ancient Egyptians etc. all have a tradition of the story of Noah) hence as the human ego is the cause of anger, jealousy, violence (as mentioned) the people are capable of forming civilization – they build a tower, yet the internal lust for power has not been shaved – this is very reminiscent of much of future civilizations, that are able to join jointly for the joint ego of their joint country, so they are better at getting along, but their subconscious motive, has not been refined.

 

Moving right along, we come to the first humble truth seeker, Abraham.

 

Abraham is a radical shift from all people before him, for he is not interested in ego – he seeks only the truth – he is ready to live and die by the truth he discovers – but most importantly and the reason why Abraham was chosen to father Judaism (and of course the Jews, who were to carry the torch of God’s light to the world) is not because of his dedication to the truth (as seen, there were others like Noah before, who also managed to dedicate their lives to the truth) but for his identification, compassion and love towards everyone else, to share the truth.

 

For ultimately, this is the world God seeks.

 

God needs not to be served – which would be similar to saying that I seek the adoration of an ameba – rather, God seeks the pleasure, of like a parent watching his children unified, loving, growing and mainly assisting one another.

 

Abraham represents more than the passion for truth, the passion for kindness.

 

So Abraham is the archetype of a person who not only knows how to dedicate his life to ideals, but knows how to love others and assist them both physically and spiritually.

 

Now what is fascinating is what happens after Abraham.

 

You see, Abraham has two children, and they represent diametrically opposite archetypes.

 

His elder son is Yishmoel who represents an archetype of selfish love, the very opposite of Abraham.

 

Abraham represents giving your life for others.

 

Yishmoel represents – though he had (and still has) the kindness of Abraham (Arabs are well known for their hospitality) nonetheless his primary motives is on self-gratification as the Talmud states “10 measures of sexual lust were given to the world and 9 were taken by the Arabs” (to this very day, Arabs are literally raping women held as hostages in brothels all over the middle-east; they are notorious in their lack of any morality; and all cultures, including Muslim who have interacted with Arabs, attest that their selfish lust for money, women etc. etc. eliminates any moral sense whatsoever! as one Arab philosopher and writer, writes about his people, “the only positive trait in the Arabs is that they are not jealous of their wives, otherwise they are murderers, rapists, thieves, liars…” and if I may add, the fact that they are not jealous of their wives is also not a positive, for they don’t even identify with them.)

 

Now the other son of Abraham was Isaac – Isaac is the contrast of Abraham – as Abraham was kind, so was Isaac disciplined – Abraham represents how a Jew (or any good person) should give; Isaac represents how we should behave – for as we see, love can be corrupted (into Yishmoel’s selfish archetype) so Isaac represents a person of incredible self-discipline, he wouldn’t ever step out of the boundaries of doing the right thing.

 

And yet once again, we find an interesting anomaly, for he has two children, his eldest his Eisav, for Eisav represents Rome (his progeny) which represent the flipside of positive self-discipline, namely a harsh brutal sever judgmental approach to others – for while self-discipline is about how I need to behave, Eisav represents that it’s my way or the highway! Rome was a brutal force that cared nothing for another’s way of life – they methodically erased culture after culture (by way of contrast, there were other previous empires, say Babylonia, that not only allowed other cultures to flourish, they in fact brought advisers from all cultures for their benefit and many other examples.)

 

Now the flip side of Eisav is his twin brother Jacob / Yisroel, who the Jewish people are the full-fledged decedents from and represent the balance between Abraham and Isaac, resulting that none of Jacobs kids flip off the true way – they were all good – and it represents Torah, Judaism, which represents a balance.

 

Now when we say balance, think not dear reader, it means there is a third way – there is an infinite paradigm which means rigorous analysis (something we hate to do, namely, use our minds which makes us tired) the third way says, there is no one approach (say love or self-discipline) for every circumstance is unique – how I treat my child depends on his age, his stage, what is he demanding? Now there is a big picture and there are countless details.

 

Judaism is to the best of my knowledge the only religion that has a diet for every single step of life, for in every step there is the right and the wrong.

 

Judaism for example, is the most balanced legal code, for one can be too harsh, say cutting off the hand of a thief, or too lenient, as often we find in some democracies, which encourage thievery; but Judaism (“pay back double”) is the most beneficial approach, discouraging thievery, yet not robbing a person of their ability to repent and be productive (and the same compassionate attitude towards all people is found in all of Judaism’s laws) hence, if we did have to sum up in an approach Judaism and Jacob, and the ultimate approach for a person – besides the obvious which is to adhere to what the Torah teaches – it’s the approach of compassion; not unconditional love, which is really more about my emotion of love – nor unconditional-discipline which is really more about my fear of doing evil; rather Compassion, Which Is How Can I Help You?