Freud and the Legacy of Moses (Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought, Series Number 4)

Freud's last book, Moses and Monotheism, was published in 1939 during one of the darkest periods in Jewish history. This difficult book has frequently been vilified and dismissed because Freud claims that Moses was not a Hebrew but an Egyptian, and that the Jews murdered Moses in the wilderness. Richard Bernstein argues that a close reading of Moses and Monotheism reveals an underlying powerful coherence in which Freud seeks to specify the distinctive character and contribution of the Jewish people. It is this character that has enabled the Jewish people to survive despite persecution and virulent anti-Semitism, and Freud proudly identifies himself with it. In his analysis of Freud's often misunderstood last work, Bernstein goes on to shows how Freud expands and deepens our understanding of a religious tradition by revealing its unconscious dynamics. Discusses Freud's "Moses and Monotheism" (1939), published just after the Nazis took over Austria and Freud fled Vienna for England. Despite what many have interpreted as a putdown of Jews and/or Judaism, notes that the work, written at a time when the very survival of the Jewish people was more seriously threatened than at any other time in its history by the Nazis, presents an explanation for Jewish survival. One section focuses on disagreements with the reading of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi in his "Freud's Moses" (1991). Ch. 3 (pp. 75-89), "Anti-Semitism, Christianity, and Judaism", deals with Freud's view of antisemitism, especially his psychoanalytic view of the deicide charge. Argues for a sophisticated reading of Freud's "Moses", one that does not focus either on the "Egyptianness" of Moses or his actual murder by the ancient Hebrews. Ch. 4 (pp. 90-116) focuses on disagreements with the reading of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi in his "Freud's Moses" (1991). (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism)

This important new title by Richard J. Bernstein presents a detailed examination of Freud's last book, Moses and Monotheism. Bernstein argues convincingly that this frequently vilified and dismissed book is one of Freud's most important works. It is in Moses and Monotheism that Freud answers the question that obsessed him: what is the essence of the Jewish people? Bernstein goes on to show how Freud developed a new interpretation of the concept of a religious tradition—an interpretation that is applicable to both Judaism and Christianity.

a Detailed Examination Of Freud's Last, And Most Difficult Book, Moses And Monotheism.