The Journey Back to Self: Overcoming Trauma in the Yaakov Narratives with Tanya White

In this session we discuss the narrative of Yaakov’s encounter with the strange man (angel) at the Yabok river. We trace his journey of self repression to expression, touching on issues relating to personal and national trauma, integration and dis-integration and imperfect redemption as well as the role of memory (and challenge of integrating painful experiences) in identity formation. We explore the ideas through the prism of classic commentaries as well as modern thinkers, psychologists and holocaust philosophers. Through the tumultuous experience of text analysis and a parallel thought development we achieve some sense of cathartic redemption from a difficult narrative.

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