The Modern Hero's Journey of the Jewish People: Where is Your Shadow?

A hard war has been launched against us, with psychopaths committing atrocities. As people of faith, we naturally seek understanding in the scriptures about how this evil has come upon us, and we have already understood that the destruction of our homes was due to baseless hatred, so powerful that Hashem destroyed our houses. Such baseless hatred is often rooted in self-hatred and disconnection from parts of the soul, stemming from a person's difficulty in accepting their limitations and respecting others' boundaries.

I would like to offer another perspective, particularly for those living in homes and families where relationships are less than beneficial, fighting both within and outside. This is a difficult and stressful situation.

It’s important for me to emphasize that what I write here is just a fragment of what can be said; perhaps I will add more on the subject in future articles.

I wish to encourage, uplift, and raise the morale and motivation to live, to do good, but genuinely—not in a way that brags about how much we’ve done and how amazing we are.

I will present these ideas from a psychological perspective, as knowledge is the first step in healing, recovery, and the maturation required from us.

The concept of the "hero's journey" in psychology comes from the teachings of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), and to understand what that journey is, we first need to recognize the concept of the "shadow".

The archetype of the "shadow" represents those sides of a person's personality that do not align with societal expectations or collective morality (the social norm), and so the person tries to hide or disguise them.

This is the "dark side" of a person, without denying the bad and selfish aspects that exist within them. The shadow also represents the creativity and uniqueness inherent in each of us.

The shadow is that place in the soul where fears are stored, the things we are disgusted by and shy away from, all those things we avoid confronting within ourselves. These parts are perceived as foreign to us and as "others," and we often react to them with anger, hatred, or rejection. We all have such a shadow. Some people project large parts of their personality into the shadow—this is, for example, a characteristic of individuals with narcissistic traits. Others may be willing to engage in awareness work and process these parts, thereby projecting fewer parts of their personality there.

A person who identifies with certain traits or values (such as modesty, kindness, patience, as well as characteristics like rebelliousness, individuality, and assertiveness) and sees them as very meaningful in their life will hide in their shadow components of their personality that contradict these traits, suppressing them and denying their existence.

To strengthen their identity, they will fight against behaviors or opinions that oppose those with which they identify. For example, a person who identifies with kindness may act with extreme kindness, but will respond with extreme emotional turmoil to any behavior that is not kind, even if it does not violate social norms. Unconsciously, this person will yearn to free themselves from the burden of kindness and may behave differently at times. This behavior does not have to be criminal or rude, but could be a subtle and tiny expression of a lack of kindness. A person's resentment toward others may be related to their inability to accept the existence of certain traits in others within themselves.

The shadow is an integral part of every person, just like their physical shadow.

To the extent that a person confronts their shadow and becomes aware of these personal parts, they are likely to try to reconcile somewhat with the shadow and find a place within their soul for those suppressed traits and feelings that have not been allowed to express themselves before.

The hero's journey is largely a journey toward meeting the shadow, accepting it as authentic life energy and reconnecting it to the whole personality. The shadow is, in fact, the secret of our power. The more we own parts of our shadow within us, the stronger we become.

This is a rite of passage, a maturation journey where we move from the division or hierarchy of good and evil to a more integrative place, one that can hold the tension between opposites. The ability to live with paradoxes.

It isn't hard to see that we are at very important times in our spiritual development as individuals and as a people, as a society. Each person is essentially required to look at what is in their shadow, what is it that they so avoid confronting that it leads to burning hatred for their neighbor?

Working with the parts of the shadow creates a situation where there is more internal peace. This does not mean that you will necessarily start to love and want to mingle with things you do not agree with, but you will not have to hate so much. You will be able to set boundaries more easily and respect others' boundaries without feeling your ego is being threatened.

This is a hero's journey because it is that hero who conquers their impulse through work and confrontation. It is hard to do such work alone because there are parts of the shadow that threaten us greatly, and it requires a process and guidance, but one can certainly start with courage to mend oneself before others. The freedom and joy that is released through such soul and spirit work is great and blessed, and it brings light to Israel.

In the upcoming articles, we will try, God willing, to understand what is happening to us now on the psychological-spiritual level in the wake of war as individuals and as a people, and how we can take things toward growth.