Harold Bridger - Conversations and Recollections

SG: I am wondering what there is in you, and in your past experience, that may be relevant to your thinking in general. For example, you mentioned the Passover at one point and the questions that are encouraged, and your idea that you don't take any answer as the right answer. Is this aspect of your upbringing relevant to what you are saying?

HB: Yes, I think it is. The whole point about the Passover really is the young person asking, ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ And the whole of the Passover service tends towards answering that kind of question. It doesn't answer it, but it deals with the situation. And it is that asking ‘why’, which I think is very Jewish -perhaps why Freud was able to develop what he did … to both create, invent, and think along those lines as well. Of course it can turn into blind alleys which I think it does with a lot of the work that is done on the meaning of the Talmud. Not that these are useless endeavours, but the work tends towards how many angels can dance on the point of a needle. That kind of intricacy can be very self-destructive to

my mind, but at the same time there is a degree of questioning which can lead to progress.

SG: Can we link the questioning in the Passover and responses to organizations? Symbols, pictures and metaphors can perhaps be applied to the question, ‘In what way is this organization different from other organizations?’ or ‘In what way is this night different?’ Who led us out of slavery? Or who can lead us out of slavery? Is there not that kind of belief in being special? Each organization believes it is special in its own way. There are a number of questions and they expect answers. But according to you the paradox is, nothing is resolvable and no answer can re