Confronting Our Shadow

You are on your way to the grocery store to pick up a few things. As you enter the building, you notice someone on the way out. With a smile, you take a step back and hold the door for them. They walk through the door and out into the parking lot without acknowledging your kindness.

Inside of you, a tiny spark of frustration is ignited. Your smile fades and you consider sarcastically saying, “You’re welcome!” - but, that is beneath you. Instead, you remind yourself of how spiritually developed you are for restraining that impulse. Feeling good that you stifled your remark and not getting mad - you go on with your shopping - yet the event is on your mind throughout the rest of the day.

Many readers of The Hidden Orchard Project are likely aware of the discipline of Mussar¹, sometimes known as the study of 'ethics', Mussar is often considered the Repairing of our character traits (Tikkun haMiddot).

Since these imbalanced traits our part of Nefesh² (lower soul), essentially, this work is the refinement of the soul. The Vilna Gaon says this work is the sole purpose of our time on earth.

At a high level, this seems simple. For example, if you struggle with anger, strive to dampen it; if your issue is an inflated ego, seek to be more humble. This, however, is not what he was talking about.

There is much more to this work than we may be aware of. In truth, most people never actually get to the root cause of their issues, they simply grow skillful in suppressing them.

There is a difference between rectifying imbalanced character traits and rectifying the cause of the imbalance. For this, we need to confront our "shadow".

Carl Jung and Shadow Work

Carl Jung³, psychologist and philosopher, pioneered what modern psychology today generally refers to as ‘Shadow Work’. Jung was greatly influenced by esoteric traditions, especially Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). It seems he had some understanding of the Sefirot, which he likely leveraged to develop his archetypes/personas.