Author Henry Abramovitch comes from a culture that encourages people to ask why. As a Jungian analyst, he also values questions. In reading the life stories of "Great Individuals," he often found himself asking the question, "Why?" Why did Arjuna, greatest general of his age refuse to fight? Why did Socrates remember his debt to Ascalapius, the god of healing, only in his last breath? Why did Jesus, the prophet of love, curse an innocent fig tree?

Why did Odysseus come home as a stranger?

The short essays in this book do not try to answer these questions, but they do provide a response, enriched by Jewish tradition and Jungian psychology.