When Dr. Steven M. Joseph was in high school, he knew he wanted to be either a theoretical physicist or a psychoanalyst. While these may seem like very different paths, they were both disciplines that attempt to "get at the root of things," says Joseph.

Joseph earned a bachelor's degree in physics at the University of California at Berkeley, did graduate work in biophysics and then went to medical school at Stanford. After doing a residency in psychiatry, he pursued additional study to become a Jungian analyst. When people undergo analysis and engage in the protracted conversations that explore their inner worlds, they are able to live their lives more consciously, says Joseph. Without such consciousness, our lives may "live us" in an unconscious way that results in more suffering, he says.

Joseph chose to train at the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, rather than at a Freudian institution. While both types of analysis help people resolve childhood issues, the Jungian approach goes beyond healing childhood wounds to focus on helping people realize their potential, says Joseph. Jungians are also open to spiritual experience and the larger mysteries in life. This was important to Joseph, since he had been pursuing his own spiritual practice in parallel to his academic path.

He was raised in the Conservative movement and experienced a deep sense of community as a camper at Camp Ramah, and later returned as a counselor. But he was not able to accept a conventional religious approach, so he searched in non-Jewish spiritual traditions while an undergraduate student at Berkeley. During a junior year abroad in Israel, he had an important encounter when he spent Rosh Hashanah with Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a modern Orthodox Jewish philosopher.

But it was still difficult for Joseph to make a spiritual connection to Judaism; so back at Berkeley, he immersed himself in the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff, who emphasizes waking up and being present in the moment. While exploring this path, Joseph first experienced feeling the presence of God, what in Judaism may be called the Shechinah, or indwelling presence. After he met his first wife and began medical school, they decided to become Orthodox. He took a leave of absence from medical school and returned to Israel to study at Yeshivat Hanegev, a traditional Lithuanian Orthodox yeshiva, and with Hasidic teachers at Kfar Habad, a Lubavitcher enclave. But he had problems with his teachers' exclusivity - the idea this was the only right way to practice Judaism, or to be religious in general.

After exploring non-Jewish spiritual paths including Thomas Merton's Christianity and several schools of Buddhism, Joseph kept coming back to his Jewish identity. He realized, he says, that he could either continue in a rather adolescent stance of staying unhappy with Jewish institutions, or he could take his place as an adult in the Jewish community and work to create the personal practices and institutions that were meaningful to him.

In the San Francisco Bay area, he participated in larger Jewish organizations and formed groups where he could more readily bring his own point of view into conversations. When he and his second wife, Corey Hansen-Joseph, began maintaining dual residences in the Bay area and in Tucson in 1997, he offered a workshop on Jewish meditation at Jewish Family & Children's Service. That was well-received, so he and Hansen-Joseph decided to open their home and lead a Jewish study group that focused on exploring the Torah from a deep psychological perspective.
He also continued to study on his own and with teachers in the Renewal and Hasidic traditions.

When he starts his workday as a psychotherapist, Joseph, who sees clients in Tucson and in California, keeps in mind a teaching from Rabbi Hayim ben Isaac's book Nefesh Hachayim, that within each of us is an image of divinity that is infinitely and uniquely precious. At the same time, no matter how troubled individuals may feel, really their problems are utterly mundane and ordinary - they are not beyond the pale.

He also remembers Rabbi Simcha Bunam's teaching that each person should metaphorically carry two pieces of paper, and reach for one when needed. One says: "I am dust and ashes." The other reads: "For my sake was the world created." Joseph then tries to hold both of these thoughts, for himself and the person he is working with.

 The heart of his own spiritual practice is davening (praying) three times a day, taking the time and space to do this in a contemplative way, so as to feel the presence of the Shechinah with him and speaking through him.

Each word in the prayers offers an opening to enlightenment, according to a core teaching of the Ba'al Shem Tov, says Joseph. In the act of saying the familiar "Baruch atah Adonai," it is possible to focus and recognize three aspects: becoming aware of one's smallness in the face of what is vastly larger; recognizing the otherness of the infinite; and bringing together the different aspects of the Divine, so that the harsh judgments of life are sweetened at their root by divine mercy. Holding these thoughts in mind while bending at "baruch," bowing at "atah," and standing up at "Adonai," he says, it is possible to move from the state of ordinary consciousness into a shifting state of perception, and emerge back into ordinary consciousness transformed.

Joseph explains that a Jungian way of saying this is that archetypical images can serve as vehicles for initiation and transformation in the process of individuation - that of the person becoming more fully who and what they are. Thus the Jungian perspective gives modern psychological language to the power of Kabbalistic exercises, says Joseph.

A few patients come to Joseph because they know of his Jewish spiritual work. He does not give spiritual exercises to patients, but rather helps people recognize their own spiritual yearnings and find what paths are right for them. It is important to respect each person's values and ways of thinking, says Joseph.

This respect for other perspectives, as well as the depth of his learning, attracts a wide range of people to the study groups at Joseph and Hansen-Joseph's home, says Carol S. Kestler, who attends the groups. His approach draws Muslim, Christian, and unaffiliated participants to these gatherings, resulting in a rich diversity of opinions in discussions, says Kestler.

Another participant, Marcia Zaccaria, says Joseph's "depth of experience through the eyes of an analyst" enables her to make a deeper connection with the Biblical stories and characters. Joseph makes the stories timely and fascinating, so that each person can look at their self now, as if they were living the story, says Zaccaria. In opening their home and creating these events, Joseph and Hansen-Joseph "elevate the whole idea of holiness, not just in prayer, but in relationships with people," says Zaccaria.

To learn about the Shabbat (Saturday) gatherings for prayer and Torah study, leave a message at 290-8725.

Joseph also recommends these books:
¥ Arthur Goldwag, The Beliefnet Guide to Kabbalah (New York: Three Leaves Press, 2005).
¥ Edward Hoffman, ed., Opening the Inner Gates: New Paths in Kabbalah and Psychology (Boston: Shambhala, 1995).
¥ Aryeh Maidenbaum, ed., Jung and the Shadow of Antisemitism: Collected Essays (Berwick, Me.: Nicolas-Hays, 2002).
Deborah Mayaan is a freelance writer in Tucson.