I wanted to relate a dream that I had a few years ago. I dreamed that Moishe Rosen was pursuing me. I had done something wrong in his eyes, and he wanted to confront me and punish me. By the end of the dream, I realized that he wanted to actually kill me. In my dream, Moishe was as we all know him or remember him, a big, tall, bear of a man, but there was a difference in the dream, in that he could run very, very fast. I discovered this when I tried to outrun him, and was only marginally successful. I was hiding out in a suburban neighborhood, but he found out where I was and tracked me down. Time after time I managed to elude him, but he was always on my track. I could not escape this man, who was voraciously seeking to destroy me. I finally awoke from the nightmare, never having been caught but also never having completely escaped. It was a very frightening dream.
I don't know exactly what it means, but I think that it probably relates to my fear of Moishe and the power he still wields. It is ironic, because today Moishe Rosen is a sickly old man, but for me (and for many others), the bear is still on the loose.
6 comments:
I have had haunting dreams with Moishe Rosen in them for years and years.
I don't understand why I have these dreams, but they keep coming back, and I hate them.
In most of these dreams Moishe appears in a place that gives me happiness.
The dreams seem so, so real, and only when I wake up, do I realize that Moishe no longer has control of me.
I wish these dreams would go away.
A few nights ago I had a dream that Moishe Rosen passed away suddenly. The dream seemed so real. I was surprised that I was sad. What was so terribly upsetting though was that no one in JFJ would allow me to share in mourning for him. The mindset was that I was an enemy and would not be allowed to pay my respects. It shouldn't have mattered to me, but it did.
I think it is important for us to take a step back and realize that Moishe Rosen is a sick, prematurely old man. By this I mean, we need to de-iconize him, to coin a phrase. By taking a step back and looking at him dispassionately, we can drain him of his mythic power in our lives, achieve better objectivity and stability, and avoid obsessing about him to our own detriment and in a manner that is unduly cruel toward him. Remember, in addition to everything else, he is a human being, and we are responsible to God for how we behave toward him. To the extent we become cruel and unfeeling toward him, we damage ourselves.
In thinking about JFJ, I often think of the original Star Trek and the episode on M-5, a computer designed to totally run a star ship. In this episode it was hooked up to all the controls of the Enterprise. The problem was, when they tried to disengage the M-5 after the trial run, it defended itself using all the forces and phaser capacities of the Enterprise, even killing some people. In the end, it became apparent that the M-5 was patterned after the enngrams of its creator, a scientist who himself was defensive of his work.
Jews for Jesus is M-5. It is an organization that bears and extends the imprint of the enngrams, the intimate inner workings, of the mind and personality of Moishe Rosen. It is also fiercely self-protective. To the extent that Moishe is a wounded and unwell man psychologically, the organization is unwell and wounding. As best I can gather, Moishe was not well-treated nor well-regarded by his father, even before his coming to faith in Yeshua. His family of origin has always dealt cruelly and dismissively with him, it appears. His wounds are old and deep, his defense mechanisms and imprinting with the cruelties of his family of origin run clear to the bone. Yes, he is one of the most Machiavellian people any of us will ever encounter, and he has done some things that are downright evil. And yes, the organization replicates his DNA. But also, yes, he is both victimizer and victim.
To a large extent, his mythic/iconic stature arises from the fact that he, with our complicity, assumed a father-role in our lives. Many of us came from homes where we had damaged relationships with our fathers. Moishe "took an interest in us" and showed us attention and believed in us when we craved it. That he did so knowingly and with design is true. It is also true that he enjoyed the role. True as well, is the fact that he just doesn't know how to function socially except as patron, papa, or potentate.
But he is not our daddy. We need to realize that. We need to accept our own responsibility for letting him be so much larger than life in our inner psyches, and we need to get reframe our memories and and images of him. In the process we will develop some rachmunes for someone who is more complex than the one-dimensional iconic/mythic status he assumes in our lives. In addition to everything else, Moishe is a wounded, unwell (physically and psychologically), lonely old man. And truth be told, he had/has personality aspects that we rightly admired and that endeared him to many of us, especially those of us from the early days.
Lets not blow him out of proportion. Let's de-iconize him. And let's see him as he really is: a wounded and wounding mortal. And let's do what we can to unplug and/or if possible, reprogram M-5, rescuing insiders and outsiders from its damaging phaser array and destructive self-protectiveness.
Thank you for your long comment and suggestions. Suggesting Moishe's impact is like an out of control computer from Star Trek makes sense.
I just wish the dreams I have with Moishe in them would go away. They haunt me. They follow me. And...they come for no reason.
I had a dream recently...
I was in a room where the JFJ people were having a party, one of them came to talk to me, the rest ignored me.
Later, I found out that this same person had left the JFJ cult and was experiencing problems from them.
Curious.
I have had nightmares about JFJ for years. Initially they occurred about every two weeks. Usually David Brickner is in them pressuring me to stay and finish my post cards. Once I had a nightmare that I was on a subway in New York and my children were in a different car, unsupervised. I kept begging to leave the car to join them and protect them from strangers or from getting separated, but was told that I needed to finish my postcards before I could leave! I kept yelling, "but I don't work for you anymore!" The nightmares have become less frequent, thank God, over the past two years. May that be true for you too.
Post a Comment