Middot de Hiroshima

Hiroshima is a short book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey. The main part of the text tells the stories of six survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, covering a period of time immediately prior to and one year after the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945.

You can read this 48-page story here: http://www.eflclub.com/10books/hiroshima.pdf

Hiroshima does not have one main character. The author tells a story through six different people’s experiences following the dropping of the atomic bomb. He reveals different personality attributes found in all human beings through the dominant ones expressed in each character. Interestingly, these six resemble the six Sefirot of Ze’ir Anpin.

Two of the characters are more passive and react to things when forced (if at all), those being Ms. Sasaki (who lies around helpless) and Dr. Fujii (who moves forward every time something happens to him). On the other hand, Mrs. Nakamura and Dr. Sasaki are more pro-active in their thinking and behavior. She planned ahead and took assertive steps the moment she recovered from the blast. He quickly adapted his thinking when he realized his less-than-ideal situation. The two clergymen, Father Kleinsorge and Mr. Tanimoto seem to be more in harmony, the latter said to move with both speed and restraint.

While some have these things in common, each pair showed stark differences. While Ms. Sasaki becomes more spiritually inclined at the end of her ordeal, Dr. Fujii learns to become more concerned with people and thing in life he had been less concerned with. Mrs. Nakamura is far more involved with practical matters, whereas Dr. Sasaki is the idealist. Father Kleinsorge’s strength is seen more with dealing one-on-one with people, whereas Mr. Tanimoto relates more to groups, even hearing the emperor’s words in the framework of ‘what the common people of Japan heard.’

As mentioned in some of our other articles in this Kabbalah section, the middot parallel the ‘habits’ in the best-selling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” by the late Stephen Covey.

As you read the story, consider the characters of Hiroshima aligning as follows: