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The old professor … informed me that ... a rich man had given him a sum of money for a worthy person in need,
that he had mentioned my name and he was herewith handing it to me.… It is not the first time the old man has
helped me in this way.… I do not know any people kinder, more humane, further removed from any ignoble motive
than they [the Hammerschlags] … quite apart from the deep-seated sympathy which has existed between myself and
the dear old Jewish teacher ever since my school days.22
Thus, throughout this period of schooling prior to his going to college at the University of Vienna, Freud did receive a modest but positive introduction to the Hebrew concept of God through his father and his religion teacher, and above all he was thoroughly grounded in the rationalistic and liberal Philippson Bible (Old Testament). Certain important experiences, however, were totally lacking during this time. First, there is no evidence that Freud’s mother had any religious impact on her son. Amalia Freud, as mentioned in Chapter One, was decidedly less religious than Jakob. Support for this view comes from the fact that after Jakob’s death in 1896 the modest celebration of Jewish festivals came to an end, for “Amalia ignored Jewish feasts.”23 Second, there are no data to suggest that Freud was instructed in any specifically Jewish literature, as distinct from the Old Testament, which is common to both Judaism and Christianity. The psychoanalyst Trosman, writing on Freud’s cultural background, notes that “nowhere do we see any real familiarity with the Talmud nor are there citations from it [in Freud’s writings]”; he further notes that “specific Jewish sources for his thought are not striking.”24 The absence of any known direct Talmudic influence is a glaring one for those seeking Jewish religious influence on Freud’s thought. There is simply no evidence that Freud ever read the Talmud, although there was some indirect influence through the occasional Talmudic scholars cited by Philippson in his remarks and discussions about the Biblical text.25 This is, of course, not to deny the great effect on Freud of Jewish stylistic, cultural, and ethnic factors. Finally, in this period of Freud’s life, there were no figures within his family or among close acquaintances who were deeply and impressively religious; that is, there were no believers strong in their religious convictions and in their personality. Jakob’s liberal Judaism is never described as impressive, or it would have been reliably identified by the many Freud scholars that have investigated the question. For Freud, therefore, Jewish religion was associated with his father and his teacher, Hammerschlag. Both of these men were admirable, but neither of them was strong or forceful in thought or action. I stress this point, since it is well known that strength and courage were extremely important qualities to Freud. |