When Abraham begat Isaac — and ultimately Baruch Goldstein — he passed on a legacy of violence.
That’s not surprising, said Bette Unger Kiernan, a Palo Alto therapist.
“Look at the behavior of the Old Testament God through a lens,” she suggested. “He has a narcissistic personality disorder.
Such a personality is preoccupied with unlimited power, said Kiernan, who holds advanced degrees from San Jose State University and Western Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto.
He also has a grandiose sense of self-importance, requires constant admiration and exhibits a cool indifference.
The God of Abraham, said Kiernan, “uses individuals to enhance His own sense of being almighty.”
He furthermore has shut off the feeling side of his personality, so that “things are dealt with through violence, rather than compassion and understanding,” she said.
In today’s world, most people would consider Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice Isaac “an act of child abuse,” she noted.
But to Kiernan — who began studying Bible stories as a child at the Petersburg, Va., Reform synagogue where her mother taught a Sunday school class — Abraham’s behavior follows a pattern that originated when the planet’s first couple was banished from paradise.
“God came upon Adam and Eve sitting and weeping,” she said — and His only consolation was that at least He had given them tears.”
Thus, this first significant event in the history of the Jewish people gets passed on as a birthright to Jewish children.
“In a manifestation of extreme psychological pain, Cain kills Abel,” Kiernan said. “You can certainly trace that kind of pain back to the abandonment of Adam and Eve.”
The counselor — who teaches The Psychological Meanings of Myths and Fairy Tales at U.C. Santa Cruz and who will offer an advanced psychology course at U.C. Berkeley in the spring — doesn’t consider her portrait of the Old Testament God excessively severe.
“You cannot deny that the history of the Jews has been the history of extreme suffering and persecution,” she said. “Any attempt to understand that and transform it has got to be considered of value.”
She offers the story of Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, as a departure from the cycle of violence.
“Joseph spends time in prison alone,” she said, “and evolves and deals with his family in a compassionate way. He doesn’t just think [about] what violent thing he can do to his brothers who tried to murder him.”
In a psychological context, this favorite son of Jacob is a deviant, a type of person who is essential to society, she said, because “they are the ones who can bring about change.”
Without a deeper inspection of the Old Testament stories, Kiernan warned, readers might get the message that “whatever you do to your enemies is OK.”
Notice, she contended, how major Jewish holidays “are celebrations of war, like Passover, Chanukah and Purim.”
It was on Purim in 1993 that Dr. Baruch Goldstein shot down 29 Arabs in Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs before killing himself.
“That it’s OK to attack other groups,” she admonished, “is the core root of international violence.
“If we’re made in God’s image, is that what we want for our lives and children?” she asked.
“How about taking a more compassionate path?”