The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective

The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective explores the soul loss that results from personal, collective, and transgenerational trauma and the healing that unfolds through reconnection with the sacred. Personal narratives of disconnection from and reconnection to Jewish collective memory are illuminated by millennia of Jewish mystical wisdom, contemporary Jewish Renewal and feminist theology, and Jungian and trauma theory.

The archetypal resonance of the Exodus story guides our exploration. Understanding exile as disconnection from the Divine Self, we follow Moses, keeper of the spiritual fire, and Serach bat Asher, preserver of ancestral memory. We encounter the depths with Joseph, touch collective grief with Lilith, experience the Red Sea crossing and Miriam’s well as psychological rebirth and Sinai as the repatterning of traumatized consciousness.

Tracing the reawakening of the qualities of eros and relatedness on the journey out of exile, the book demonstrates how restoring and deepening relationship with the Sacred Feminine helps us to transform collective trauma.

This text will be key reading for scholars of Jewish studies, Jungian and post-Jungian studies, feminist spirituality, trauma studies, Jungian analysts and psychotherapists, and those interested in healing from personal and collective trauma.

Editorial Reviews Summary

“Sometimes trauma is the only thing that breaks us open to this larger reality that sustains us and leads us home to ourselves―and to others who are courageous enough to share their own heartbreak. This book carries a profound message for our time of spiritual and psychological ‘exile.’ It shows us a way home. I cannot recommend it highly enough.”

–Donald E. Kalsched, PhD, author of Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-spiritual Approach to Human Development and its Interruption

“The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective is a feast! Here we discover layers of insight―brilliant midrashic and mystical wisdom that enabled Jews to overcome millennia of collective trauma, and offers us a pathway to reconnect with the sacred in our own time.”

–Rabbi Marcia Prager, Director and Dean of Ordination Programs for ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, author of The Path of Blessing

“A significant contribution to our understanding of the roles of Jewish myth and mysticism, the divine feminine, and archetypal psychology in the revitalization of Judaism in a post-Holocaust world. Dr. Fershtman provides us with a profound path for reconnecting with the cultural collective unconscious of Jewish life.”

–Sanford Drob, author of Kabbalistic Visions: C. G. Jung and Jewish Mysticism