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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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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.