L'ambivalenza emotiva nell'ebraismo mosaico

The paper aims to investigate the importance of the psychoanalytic principle of emotional ambivalence towards the father figure on the Jewish religion at the time of Moses. In the first part, the article examines the relationship between Sigmund Freud’s two books Totem und Tabu and Der Mann Moses, which deal with the same subject matter and thus appear to be two chapters of a single piece of writing; yet it is pointed out that this process of fusion between the two texts has as its counterpart the reverse fission movement whereby the work on Moses can be considered as a bipartite volume. In the second part, the paper discusses Freud’s interpretation of the political, ethical and gnoseological set-up of the exodus community, which is governed by respect for authority, goodness and reason; however, following Freud’s account, the article suggests in conclusion that the tribes of Israel certainly revered the firmness of their leader Moses but at the same time hated it.