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“On a warm spring evening in early May,” began the introduction to the first roundtable discussion to be published in this journal, “Is Politics the Last Taboo in Psychoanalysis?” On a mild summer night in East Hampton, Judy Greenwald, Perspectives' founding editor, happened to attend a screening of the short film, Time for a New God, in which Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL—The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership—expressed his
novel views about a spirituality of and for our times.1 The vision of respect for a diversity of people and the desire to understand offered in this film excited Judy Greenwald, and she felt she had to meet Irwin Kula. She thought he would certainly be interested in “The Last Taboo,” since it also stemmed from a wish to promote dialogue and understanding between emphatically differing viewpoints. They spoke at length and one thing led to the next, until… one cool autumn morning Rabbi Kula, having read and been moved by “The Last Taboo,” found himself at a Starbucks proposing to Perspectives' editors a CLAL/Perspectives collaboration on a sort of “Last Taboo, Part II,” i.e., another roundtable exploration of not-so-simple, interdisciplinary terrain.
And so, nearly two years later on another warm spring day, a second roundtable, inspired by the first, took place. In question this time was the place of spirituality/religion within, or in relation to, psychoanalysis and vice versa. Again, a panel of esteemed professionals was convened for mutual reflection upon a list of questions jointly composed by the journal's editorial board and members of CLAL's faculty.2 Panelists were asked to come prepared to