Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:31:05.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modes of Reference in the Rituals of Judaism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

J. Stern
J. Stern
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is through ritual that religions often express their deepest truths, and historians and anthropologists of religion have long recognized the impor-tance of its symbolic dimension. Yet it remains to be explained how religious rituals perform this function. That is, in what ways do ritual gestures (the term of art I will henceforth use to refer to all actions and objects that achieve ritual status) symbolize or refer – reserving these two general terms to cover all ways of bearing semantic-like relations to objects, events, and states of affairs? In this essay I will take some first steps toward answering this question by constructing a taxonomy of symbolic gestures in the rituals of Judaism, drawing for this purpose on various categories of reference, first distinguished by Nelson Goodman in his study of symbol systems, including the arts, and more recently elaborated by Israel Scheffler.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 109 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 109 note 1 Goodman, Nelson, Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1968, 2nd ed., 1976)Google Scholar (henceforth: LA); idem, ‘Routes of Reference’, Critical Inquiry (Autumn 1981), pp. 121–32; Scheffler, Israel, ‘Ritual and Reference’, Synthèse (03 1981), pp. 421–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In adapting Goodman's framework to the needs and space limitations of this paper, I have made no attempt to remain faithful to his nominalism; hence, where Goodman talks only of labels and predicates, I freely mix with properties and concepts. But no philosophical point is specifically intended.

page 109 note 2 Scholem, Gershom, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p. 120.Google Scholar

page 110 note 1 Cf., e.g. Nahmanides, , Commentary on the Torah, Deut. 22:6.Google Scholar

page 110 note 2 Cf. Scholem, , op. cit. especially pp. 118–57.Google Scholar There does not yet exist an adequate history or study of non-verbal ritual in Judaism, but important source material can be found in Goodenough, E. R., Jewish Symbolism in the Greco-Roman Period, especially vol. IV (New York: Pantheon Books, 1954).Google Scholar See also Grater's, T. H. popular study Festivals of theJewish Year (New York: W. Sloane, 1952);Google Scholar A. I. Sperling's classic rabbinic collection Ta'amei ha-Minhagim [Reasons for Customs and Observances], in Hebrew, (1890);Google Scholar and the more traditional studies of Munk, Elie, The World of Prayer, 2 vols. (New York: Philipp Feldheim, 1963)Google Scholar and Jacobson, B. S., Meditations on the Siddur, in Hebrew (Sinai, Tel Aviv, 1966), especially ch. x.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 LA, pp. 3–43. For reasons of space, I will assume that these notions of verbal denotation and pictorial representation are themselves sufficiently well understood for our purposes, difficult as it may be to analyse them precisely.

page 111 note 2 On the rainbow and circumcision, see Nahmanides, , Commentary on Genesis 9:12Google Scholar, ‘the [rain]bow is a sign … [because] any visible thing that is placed between two people to remind them of a matter pledged between them is called a sign and every agreement is called a covenant’. I.e. like an agreement, the symbolic functioning of the gesture does not appear to depend on any of its intrinsic features but on convention. To be sure, particular features of the gesture may none the less be symbolically significant. Because the rainbow looks like an inverted bow and ‘the custom of warriors is to turn their bows around in their hands in this way when they call for peace with their opponents’ (ibid.), Nahmanides suggests that it also serves as a sign or ‘remembrance of peace’. But here it is because the rainbow already commemorates/denotes the covenant that it comes to symbolize (express) peace; it is not because it symbolizes peace that it commemorates the covenant.

page 111 note 3 Cf. Glatzer, Nahum N. (ed.), The Passover Haggadah (New York: Schocken Books, 1953), p. 10.Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 Cf. LA, pp. 52–68.

page 112 note 2 Cf. BT Menakhot 84 b.

page 113 note 1 Cf. Pesakhim 54a.

page 113 note 2 Cf. Lieberman, Saul, Tosefta ke-Peshutah (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary Press, 1955)Google Scholar, Zera'im, p. 99, Berachot, ch. 5, n. 87.

page 114 note 1 Cf. LA, pp. 54–95.

page 114 note 2 On this gesture, see also Orah Hayyim 607:2.

page 115 note 1 Cf. Orah Hayyim 48, gloss.

page 115 note 2 Cf. BT Berakhot 10b, on Ezek. 1: 7.

page 116 note 1 Cf. Karo, R. Joseph, Beit joseph, CommentaryGoogle Scholar on the Tur, Orah Hayyim 95.

page 116 note 2 For a similar point, see Matthews, Gareth, ‘Ritual and the Religious Feelings’, reprinted-in Cahn, Steven M. and Shatz, David (eds.), Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 154–66.Google Scholar

page 117 note 1 Cf. Mishnah Pesahim x, iii.

page 117 note 2 Cf. BT Pesahim 114a.

page 118 note 1 See, however, Orah Hayyim 48 and commentaries ad loc., for dissenting opinions that oppose the practise, especially during recitation of the Amidah.

page 118 note 2 Zohar 111:218b–219a, Sperling, H. and Simon, M. (trans.) Five Volumes (London: Soncino, 1931–1934).Google Scholar For a contrasting account of the same gesture that renders it entirely practical, cf. haLevi, Jehuda, Kuzari, Hirshfeld, H. (trans.) (New York: Schocken, 1964) 11:79–80.Google Scholar

page 119 note 1 Scholem, , op. cit. p. 124.Google Scholar Cf also his essay ‘The Idea of the Golem’, ad loc.

page 119 note 2 Cf. Commentary of Rabeinu Asher, BT Sukkah in, paragraph 26. The full text of the Midrash reads as follows: ‘R. Abin stated: “It is like two people who went before the judge. The only way we know which of them won is [by observing] which of them is carrying a palm branch. Similarly, Israel and the nobles of the nations of the world enter in judgement before God on Rosh Hashanah; the only way we know which of them won is by virtue of the fact that [the people of] Israel emerge from before God holding their palm branches [lulavi] and their citrons [etrog] in their hands“’. (Pesikta, collected in Yalkut Shimoni 751). Note that the prooftext cited by R. Asher is not cited in the midrash itself.

page 120 note 1 On these ancient symbolic uses of the lulav, cf. Goodenough, op. cit.

page 120 note 2 Cf. BT Sukkah 37 b; BT Menahot 61a; compare also Caster, op. cit.

page 121 note 1 Cf. Goodman, , ‘Routes of Reference’; Scheffler, op. cit.Google Scholar

page 121 note 2 Cf. Scheffler, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 121 note 3 Note that performances need not be qualitatively identical to be of the same ritual type. Here, as elsewhere in discussions of the type/token distinction, resemblance or similarity plays no significant role in the identity-conditions of a ritual-type. Consequently, a later performance of a ritual Rcan contain denotative references to earlier performances of R yet, despite this difference in their contents, both be performances of R, hence, replicas of each other.

page 122 note 1 Mishnah Yoma VI, ii (incorporated more or less verbatim, depending on the rite, into the traditional liturgy of Yom Kippur).

page 122 note 2 Cf. Rashi, , Commentary on BT Yoma 36b and 56b, on Hosea 14:3.Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 Cf. Scheffler, , op. cit. pp. 429–32Google Scholar and n. 15–16, and references therein to Jacobsen, Frankfurt, and Cassirer. For a possible scriptural instance of mimetic identification in ancient Israelite religion, see Langer, Susanne K., Philosophy in a New Key (New York: Penguin Books, 1948), p. 124.Google Scholar Let me also emphasize that it is, of course, possible, even likely, that many rituals of Judaism developed out of, or in reaction to, pagan rites that involved mimetic identification. We lack knowledge of ancient ‘Jewish’, or Israelite, rites that retained that element but, for whatever reason, that aspect of their origin has not survived in the ‘canonical’ forms of ritual in Judaism, significantly, in contrast to Christianity. For a possible exception, see, however, Orah Hayyim 141, iv and commentaries, ad loc.

page 123 note 2 For a variant of the rite, see Levin, Benjamin M. (ed.), Otzar ha-Caonim, Toma (Jerusalem, 1934).Google Scholar

page 123 note 3 For the first interpretation, see BT Berakhot 54b, for the second BT Sabbath 32a.

page 124 note 1 For a dissenting opinion, cf. Rama, , Orah Hayyim 605, gloss.Google Scholar

page 124 note 2 Note that the scapegoat of rom Kippur, which was also performed largely outside the confines of the Temple, raised similar worries; cf. Nahmanides, , Commentary on Leviticus 16:8.Google Scholar

page 125 note 1 Nahmanides, , Commentary on Leviticus 1:9;Google Scholar my emphasis. Nahmanides himself opposed the practice of Expiation as a heathen custom, possibly because of the underlying allusion to sacrifice. For this opinion of Nahmanides, cf. Aaron ha-Kohen of Lunel, Orhot HayyimGoogle Scholar, ‘The Laws of Yom Kippur Eve’; for further opposition to the rite, cf. Orah Hayyim 605.

page 125 note 2 On a related note, there is no basis in the tradition for the view that the custom, while reciting the Tashlikh service (a prayer for atonement made in view of a body of water) on Rosh Hashanah, to gesture as if to shake out one';s garments is meant to symbolize some sort of transference of one's sins to the fish. Rather the gesture expresses the desire to ‘shake off one's sins’, related to the general symbolism of clean garments for a pure moral life.

page 127 note 1 Cf., é.g., Elias, R. J. (trans., ed.), The Art Scroll Haggadah (New-York: Mesorah, 1977), pp. xix, 146–7.Google Scholar

page 127 note 2 Scheffler, , op. cit. p. 434.Google Scholar

page 127 note 3 I am indebted here to conversations with Professor Ted ‘Hymie’ Cohen.

page 127 note 4 Cf. Maimonides' Haggadah which replaces the work ‘see’ [lir'ot] with the word ‘show’ [lehar'ot] in the quoted passage, emphasizing the active creative side of the Haggadah recitation.

page 128 note 1 I owe this observation to Professor David Stern.

page 128 note 2 An earlier and much shorter version of this essay, entitled ‘Gesture and Symbol’ will appear in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, edited by Cohen, Arthur A. and Mendes-Flohr, Paul (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987).Google Scholar Permission to adapt and expand that essay is gratefully acknowledged. For discussion and comments I would also like to thank Arthur Cohen, Ted Cohen, Jon D. Levenson, Sidney Morgenbesser, Cheryl Newman and David Shatz. This essay is dedicated to the memory of Cohen, Arthur A. (1928–1986), Zikhrono le-brakhahGoogle Scholar, without whose encouragement it would never have been written.