Freud's Hannibal: New Light on Freud'sMoses

Abstract

In the 65 years since he died, Freud’s work has lost none of its interest for the history of thought. Moses and Monotheism stands as its confusing culmination, raising unavoidably the mystery of Freud’s Judaism and whether it is central to his work. As early as 1958, David Bakan argued that psychoanalysis has important roots in the Jewish mystical tradition, and other writers on the subject have included Marthe Robert (1974), Emanuel Rice (1990), Jerry Diller (1991), and, most interestingly, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1991). Among others, William McGrath (1986) and Marianne Krull (1979) have written at length about Freud’s discoveries in relation to his father and his family constellation. All these studies have united in making clear that Freud was extremely conscious of his Jewish identity and thought profoundly about it, despite inconsistencies and perhaps intentional misdirection in what he wrote or said, such as his impossible claims at various times to be ignorant of Hebrew, Yiddish, and all Jewish observance (Rice, 1990, p. 30; Yerushalmi, 1991, pp. 68–71). Perhaps the clearest single statement of his Jewish identity and the mystery it poses appears in the 1930 preface to the Hebrew edition of Totem and Taboo: “If the question were put to [me]: ‘Since you have abandoned all these common characteristics of your countrymen, what is there left in you that is Jewish?’ [I] would reply: ‘A very great deal, and probably its very essence’” (Freud, 1913, p. xv).