30 Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 ketplace. Our set of experiences at all times are influenced by a dynamic experience of relationality. Bowen, known for his breakthrough ideas in family systems theory, describes a process, which he terms the “differentiation of the Self”. Through drawing genograms of a family’s history, one can begin to uncover processes that persist within a system’s legacy. For example, one may begin to observe family cutoffs, scapegoats, and enmeshment as a way to cope with the anxiety of relatedness and the difficulty that comes from living within a system. Bowen’s Self is also difficult to characterize. It has certain capacities, measured on a differentiation of Self scale. Fundamentally, this Self in its mature form can remain connected to one’s family of origin while pursuing one’s own passions and desires. This comes from seeing others empathically as connected to and influenced by their own families, with those limitations. People are connected to systems, and the more that we can see those influences on the individuals with whom we interact, without getting pulled into them ourselves, the more “differentiated” our sense of Self is (Titelman 2008, 3). This understanding underscores the idea of a dynamic Self at all times impacted by a system of interconnectedness. 3.3 Relationality in Jewish Philosophy and Mysticism The ideas underlying the relational theorists can be discovered earlier through the ideas of Martin Buber, a prominent twentieth-century Jewish philosopher. Buber emphasized the growth of the Self in relation to the authentic experience of another, raising the question of the existence of a Self that is independent of relationality. Buber (1958, 2) explains that “[t]here is no I as such but only the I of the basic word I–You and the I of the basic word I–It. When a man says I, he means one or the other…” Buber describes an idea that there is no I without a relationship, and that we may see others either as an “It” or as a “You”, or as he later says, “Thou”. When our experience with the other takes the form of I–It, we see ourselves as a Self among objects: experiences, purchases, and more superficial interactions with others. When we consider another an “it”, they become an object in our mind, and this has ramifications for our experience of our Self. A “true Self” may involve seeing and connecting with others as subjects, as “true” and authentic themselves, through the experience of I–Thou. He underscores the intersubjective nature of this experience – it comes through relatedness, specifically when experiencing this other as a subject. He emphasizes that this experience of the authentic Self may come through our relatedness with nature, with the subjectivity of other humans, or with a greater sense of life with a spiritual being. Buber was highly influenced by the Hasidic rebbes (He. “teachers”, “masters”) who provided experience-near descriptions of this relational Self. Many of them sought to bring the experience of mysticism belying exoteric Jewish thought and praxis to individuals beyond the limited intellectual elite (Greene 2013, 21). Elie Wiezel, professor, writer, holocaust survivor, and author of 57 books shared in his work, Souls on Fire, the impact of this group of rabbinic scholars and leaders. He provides an image of their memory for all of us. He describes their “fervent writing, the longing for redemption; the erratic wanderings over untraveled roads; the link between man and his Creator, between the individual act and its repercussions in the celestial spheres; the importance of ordinary words, the accent on fervor and on friendship too; the concept of miracles performed by man for man” (Wiesel 1972, 5). The Hasidic rebbes considered the nature of the Self in relation to an eternal source – a truly relational view of the Self. One such Rebbe, Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl (1798), wrote in his work Me’or Einayim (He. “Light of the Eyes”; Nahum 2015, 1): Through the beginning – through the Torah, which is called the ‘beginning of His way’ (Prov 8:22) – the Holy Blessed One created the world (Zohar 1:5a). We find that everything was created by means of the Torah and the power of the Creator is in that which is created, in which case the power of the Torah is in each thing and in all the worlds, and also in each person as is written. This is the Torah: A person (Num 19:14) as we will clarify. And the Torah and the Holy Blessed One are one (Zohar 1:24a), so we find in all things the life-force of the Holy Blessed One. The Me’or Einayim provides here something beyond a mechanistic idea of the Self. This Self – “a person” – is indistinguishable from an Eternal source – “The Torah” and/or “The Holy Blessed One” – speaking to something more sacred, more blessed, more awe-inspired, than a mechanistic idea of forces regulating various drives. This Self inspires a greater degree of regard and reverence and may impact both the individual searching internally for this experience and the
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