The Kabbalah Dance, Jungian Analysis, and Home in Soul

ABSTRACT

This article explores meaningful intersections between Kabbalah ideas, Jungian analysis, the author’s background in dance, and the idea of finding home in soul. Underlying depth work is the art of listening, with the humility of opening to what wants to grow. The Tree of Life imagery—a dynamic and creative dance—has symbolic roots in the heavens, whereas the Sefirot—utterances from God on how to live a holy life—are continually forming and re-forming new beginnings, impregnating and birthing the human soul. The author explores how Kabbalah mythology and Jungian ideas can work in tandem, becoming touchstone and compass in the process of analysis, with receptive ears to the grindstone and the heart pointing to eternity.

KEY WORDS:

• active imagination
• archetypal
• complex
• creative
• dance
• Ein Sof, endlessness
• exile and return
• home
• improvisation
• individuation
• ineffable
• Kabbalah
• Lurianic Kabbalah
• receptive
• Sefirot, Self
• shadow
• Shekinah, soul
• Tree of Life
• Tikkun Ha’Nefesh, Tikkun Olam, transcendent function
• treeness
• Tzimtzum

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In this article I further develop and engage with material from my chapter “Soul Home: The Kabbalah Dance and Jungian Psychoanalysis,” in The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy; Mysticism, Intersubjectivity, and Psychoanalysis, edited by Willow Pearson and Helen Marlo. I also wish to acknowledge and thank Rick Borutta, public programs coordinator for the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, for his artistic contribution to Figure 6, Sefirot Tree.

NOTE

References to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung are cited in the text as CW, volume number, and paragraph number. The Collected Works are published in English by Routledge (UK) and Princeton University Press (USA).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robin Eve Greenberg

ROBIN EVE GREENBERG, MFT, is an analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is an associate editor of Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, teaches in the candidate-training program, and has a private practice in Kensington, California. Robin has roots in dance and has written and presented on subjects related to creativity, active imagination, Jewish mysticism, embodiment, and the idea of home. Her chapter “Soul Home: The Kabbalah Dance and Jungian Psychoanalysis” appeared in The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy (2021), edited by Willow Pearson and Helen Marlo. Correspondence: [email protected].