Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 37 Jeffrey Katzman, Ben Bernstein, Matthew Ponak it is linked etymologically for the words that mean “abundance” and “addition.” The name for Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim and is connected through interpretive etymology to the concept of a “narrow channel” or a “strait.” Through this allusion to the Israelite exile in Egypt, the meaning of servitude, and the exodus narrative, one can begin to wonder why it is that we in our lives continue to visit our internal pharaohs and sink into submission to their instructions. And how we can perhaps become free. The idea here identifies that within this dark place there is a great deal of light when it can be recovered. This is a difficult task; it involves traversing the narrow place of constrictions and likely is best done in conjunction with a skilled practitioner. These dark places are not necessarily to be just avoided, or overcome through skills management training, but to be approached with the understanding that there is some sense of divine spark contained within them, as Fairbairn had referenced, a component of our original “central pristine ego”. It may be possible that we can experience a release of bad objects through a “good enough” therapy with a “good enough” therapist. One may face an inner saboteur – and release it – but not necessarily be in contact with the experience of the light held there simultaneously. Perhaps the internal saboteur can leave such an imprint, that even when we understand it, and release it in good part, we cannot experience the light without assistance in recognizing it. We share here another relevant patient dream. This individual was a 50-year-old-attorney, now working with a rabbi, after many years himself of psychoanalysis, which had been quite helpful. He sought help connecting to an experience of something bigger outside of human relationality. He had had prior experiences that one might call spiritual or transcendent through Buddhist and Sufi paradigms, though had now begun a study of Jewish mysticism. He began a discussion of his dream life with the rabbi. And a dream was gifted to him, like none before (Ponak 2024). I was in some sort of train station. My parents were going to pick me up, but they were far away and couldn’t get to me. I was trapped in this room, and there were sinister people around – one was torturing someone next to me by teasing him about getting out, but he ultimately couldn’t. I thought maybe I could call an Uber to escape this place. I looked down at my cell phone and it wasn’t working. Though it then started to flash a code – 0-64-0. And I began to feel a vibration over my whole body. And as I did, I realized I was escaping the room through some sort of portal that I didn’t quite comprehend, though it felt warm, familiar, and in a strange way like home. The client went on to experience this feeling in dreams on various nights for the days to follow before the experience subsided. Though he described it as “terrifying” at first passing, he later related that this was not quite the right word, and that it might be closer to God-fearing… to a sense of awe to be in contact with something beyond himself. He realized that he had connected to a new dimension of his experience of Self, and that it implied to him connection to something beyond himself, and he was relieved of a certain experience of loneliness with this knowledge. The patient wondered about the code. He thought it represented his new zip code, where he and his wife had moved and where he felt quite content and free and had begun a new life chapter. Of some interest is the association to Hassidic literature provided by the rabbi to the code 64. The rabbi associated this to a famous passage from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov from his text Likutei Moharan. This passage describes the original contraction from the light of Ein Sof, so that the Eternal might show and experience compassion. This is the original creation story and describes the contraction involving the creation of a “Vacated Space”, perhaps symbolized in this dream by the room. Yet, like the light of the cell phone code, Nachman describes (in passage 64!) the possibility of finding light in this vacated space formed by contraction, a process similar to finding light within a journey to dark, endopsychic structures of the Self (Nachman 1808, 64:3): For he will be able to find God in that place, if he seeks and searches for Him there. Since the [note: heresies] stem from the Shattering of the Vessels, there are some holy sparks and some letters that broke and fell there, as is known. Therefore, he can find divinity and consciousness there in order to answer the questions raised by this heresy that stems from external wisdom, which [note: in turn] stems from extraneous elements from the Shattering of the Vessels. For there is Godly life-force there, i.e., consciousness and letters that broke and fell into that place. Spiritual metaphors may help us to understand this situation of the darker places within us and the draw to them in a more immediate way. Kabbalistic thinking describes this process of descent into the darkness, drawn in by a sense of the light. While it cannot be known whether the actual cell phone code in the patient’s dream reflected this ancient Jewish text, the conversation led to an expansiveness for
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