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Ending hostility and violence means wrestling with our own shadows
This story was originally published on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — Hostility originates in the disowned and unacknowledged elements within us. That, at any rate, is the claim of a body of research based on the work of Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology.
Jung introduced the concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of ourselves that we are unable or unwilling to acknowledge. Those elements we repress stem from painful experiences that give rise to difficult emotions such as shame, jealousy, rage and grief. “The level of hostility a person exhibits is proportional to the amount of shadow,” writes Roderick Main, a professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex.
At this moment of intensifying hostility within our communities and devastating levels of violence in our world, this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, offers us glimmers of insight into how we might heal society’s fractures and open a way towards peace: We must stop projecting our shadow on to others, and instead grapple with it for ourselves.
As the portion opens, Esau is on the march toward his brother Jacob, whom he has not seen since Jacob stole his birthright and ran away, evading responsibility. Jacob gets word that Esau is approaching with 400 men and becomes afraid and distressed. Rashi says the fear is that Esau will kill him, while the distress is that he will have to kill Esau. Either way, this already hostile situation seems likely to end in violence.
It is easy to imagine Jacob preparing to meet his brother by doubling down on a path of self-interest and plotting a preemptive attack. What’s more difficult to imagine is what he does instead.
Before meeting his brother, Jacob creates the conditions to first meet himself. Jacob separates himself from all that he has amassed and places it on one side of the Jabbok river where his family is camped. He then crosses back to the other side empty-handed and unescorted. That night, vulnerable and alone, shorn of all that has come to define him, a mysterious figure appears and wrestles with Jacob until dawn. As day breaks, Jacob demands from the figure a blessing. It is then that he is renamed Yisrael — one who has struggled with beings Divine and human and endured.
According to Jung, this kind of transformative experience of the Divine is “a force … that will only function and express itself where there is a true dialogue between ego-consciousness and the unconscious.” In this light, we can understand the mysterious figure with whom Jacob wrestles as representing the disowned, unacknowledged elements within that he finally brings to consciousness. Jacob emerges from his dark night of the soul humbled, hobbling and blessedly transformed. When dawn breaks and he and Esau finally meet, there is no hostility or violence. Instead, in an act of tender intimacy and relief, the brothers embrace and together they weep.
We aren’t told how Esau prepares for this encounter, or why he was able to meet Jacob with open arms. We could imagine that he prepared for multiple possibilities, including a hostile encounter. But with its focus on Jacob, the text seems to suggest that the changed contours of the conflict have much to do with the wrestling Jacob did within his own soul. We can infer that without this internal work, this story could have been the beginning of ongoing war, rather than a tender reconciliation. It was only after Jacob engaged in the wrenching, humbling work of grappling with his own shadow that the conflict could resolve.
The Torah is not meant to be a straightforward guidebook for how to navigate the world. But perhaps Jacob’s wrestling with his shadow can offer us clues towards actualizing the new realities we seek.
Each one of us has the capacity to do the inner work that changes how conflict unfolds. In this difficult and divisive time, what if we, like Jacob, acknowledged the fear and distress that we feel? What if we risked being “alone,” separated from the beliefs, narratives and identities that have come to define us, allowing for the vulnerability and disorientation that necessarily will arise? What if we wrestle with the difficult questions and challenging truths that come to meet us? Perhaps if we are tenacious enough to stay with the struggle long enough, we, like Jacob, will discover the blessing it contains.
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The post Ending hostility and violence means wrestling with our own shadows appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.