“A Winkle in Time:” Serendipitous Creativity Between a 20th Century Psychoanalyst and a 16th Century Kabbalistic Rabbi

This paper explores some ideas about narcissism that serendipitously were shared by two thoughtful men across a 500-year span of time. Separated by cultures and professions quite different from each other, the innate sensibilities, observations, and intelligent conclusions of these two very different men suggest a universality to the role of narcissism within the human condition. One man, Rabbi Issac Lurya (1534–1578), was a young, sixteenth century Kabbalistic theologian. The other man, Heinz Kohut (1914–1981) was a twentieth century psychoanalyst. Different as they were, these two men shared one set of similarities. Both men were Jews. Each lived in the immediate shadow of horrific antisemitic atrocities. Of significant interest is that the theory of each man deals with issues of fragmentation, healing, and repair of a broken whole. Psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut was concerned with the emotional fragmentation of a broken person and the restoration of emotional wholeness for that person. Rabbi Issac Lurya was concerned about the fragmentation of the shattered Divine and suggested a process to restore the broken Divine to its former perfection and through that restoration, to heal the Universe.