Psychoanalysis as Torat Hayim

Abstract

Is there any reason for calling psychoanalysis a ‘Jewish science’? There is one, particularly significant: the affirmation of the act of birth thanks to which there emerges a new individual psychic life. In this article, I argue that the psychoanalysis which takes a positive view on the issue of separation is natalistic: it offers a particular philosophy of life, which chimes with the existential tenets of Jewish tradition. The Jewishness of psychoanalysis would thus manifest itself not so much in being a ‘science’, but in the way in which it follows the Jewish torat hayim, the ‘teaching of life’. The gist of this teaching lies in the specific attitude towards the human condition of natality: instead of trying to undo the trauma of birth, the Jewish singular life walks away from the place of its origin and never indulges in the phantasy of virtual return.