Issues 16:06 A Jewish Psychiatrist

What’s behind two prominent psychiatrists’ opposing viewpoints on humanity’s raison d’etre.

What some scientists have discovered… Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is…

     We come into consciousness, we know not from where      And we face eternity, we know not when or how      We come into consciousness, and eventually consciousness ends…      Or does it?      No wonder we are so angry, frightened, confused and depressed      Until we can figure out what it is all about      Or can we?      Why bother?…

It was evening in Vaysechvoos. Young Perchik stared and stared at the sky. The vastness of the black and white speckled blanket that stretched beyond his home was more than even his eleven-year-old imagination could comprehend. “Mama, Mama, what are stars?” asked Perchik as he burst into the kitchen where his mother was cleaning the…