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ABSTRACT
This article describes how the culture of Jewish traditional literature inspires the shaping of laws, the emergence of new customs, and the changes that occur over time. We will begin by formulating what we will call “the rules of Jewish cultural grammar.” Through an analysis of several laws and customs such as kiddush and havdalah, breaking a plate at engagements and breaking a glass at weddings, washing hands with mayim rishonim before a meal and mayim aharonim after the meal, marriage and divorce ceremonies, we will demonstrate how laws and customs are shaped and performed, how they change, and how they reflect the rules of activity and cultural creation. This article joins the trend of re-examining structuralist theories, and with their help we will show how recurring patterns such as symmetry, inclusion and exclusion, covering and removal, are an analytical expression of “particular cultural order,” a kind of “Jewish cultural grammar” that comprises a significant component of the rules that direct, whether consciously or unconsciously, the relationship between the individual and his culture, cultural activity and creation, and even the ways in which Jewish culture changes.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Rubin, “Sociological-Anthropological Theories”, 98–121; Rubin, Bending Frameworks.
2 Sperber, “Israeli Customs”, 61–70 found the custom in Ashkenazi books of halakha dating from the sixteenth century. The mention of breaking pottery as a well-known tradition suggests that this was an even earlier custom.
3 T’naim are the terms of the agreement brokered by the parents of the engaged couple, in which both parties agree to various conditions including the date of the wedding and the sum of money each side undertakes to provide for the couple. In the event that the marriage does not take place, the side responsible for cancelling the wedding is obligated to pay reparations. The t’naim contract is signed by witnesses. See Katz, Tradition and Crisis, 165.
4 Mishna, Kelim 2.1. A defiled earthenware vessel cannot be purified; only after it is broken can the shards be purified and used. It is customary for unmarried women to keep the shards as a charm to ensure that they, too, will marry.
5 This question is also valid outside the narrow context of Andrea’s story. The breaking of the plate has been a fixture in ultra-Orthodox communities for at least a century as a female ceremony. A review of the various halakhic sources in which the custom is mentioned does not solve the mystery of when and why a ceremony carried out by men became one performed by women.
6 Rubin, Sociological-Anthropological Theories, 98–121; Halbertal, Interpretive Revolutions.
7 Shapiro, Changing the Immutable.
8 See for example Rubin, Sociological-Anthropological Theories, 98–121; Alexander and Smith, “The Strong Program”, 135–50; Levi, Structuralism and Kabbalah, 929–84; Rutherford, How Structuralism Matters, 61–77; Thomassen, Liminality and the Modern; Rothem and Fischer, Reclaiming Arnold van Gennep’s, 255–65.
9 Hsu, Kinship and Culture.
10 For example see Rubin and Kosman, Time and Dress: the dress code of haredim, which is derived from Eastern European garb rather than Israeli tradition.
11 For a holistic examination of rituals and practices in the cycle of Jewish life see also Bilu, From Milah (Circumcision), 172–203; Rubin, The Joh of Life; Rubin, Time and Life Cycle; Rubin, “Sociological-Anthropological Theories,” 98–121; Rubin, Bending Frameworks. For anthropological works that explore the ways in which Jewish culture is shaped see: El-Or, Next Year I Will Know More; El-Or, Reserved Seats; Boyarin, Voices Around the Text, 339–421; Goldberg, Judaism Viewed; Guzmen-Carmeli and Rubin, ‘Tikkun’, 217–41; Guzmen-Carmeli, Encounters Around the Text; Heilman, The People of the Book; Shahar, The Amen Meal; Shahar, We Need to Worship Outside, 483–95; Werczberger, Jews in the Age.
12 The use of tradition and the idea of continuity also appear in more remote contexts. See for example how members of an Anglican Church include and even adopt the practice of Jewish rituals in an encounter with Messianic Jews in Dulin, Reversing Rapture, 601–34.
13 See for example Cooper and Guzmen-Carmeli, The Structure of Change, 8.
14 Handelman, Introduction, 1–32.
15 For a gender-based reading of Jewish rituals and how they are formulated in Reform Judaism, see Ben-Lulu, Performing Gender, 202–30.
16 Rubin, The Onset of Life, 30.
17 Bavli, Berachot, 30 72–31 72.
18 See Rubin, The Joy of Life, 297–300; Goldberg, Cycle of Jewish Life.
19 In circumcision, the cutting that removes the foreskin; in mourning, the rending of clothing, see Rubin, The Joy of Life, 299.
20 On how Orthodox couples concerned with gender equality contend with the problem of ensuring an egalitarian, Orthodox marriage ceremony, see for example Koren, You are Betrothed to Me.
21 See Shahar, The Amen Meal, 158–76; Shahar, We Need to Worship, 473–95.
22 Hsu, Kinship and Culture.
23 Thus, ironically, the prayer services and customs followed nowadays in participatory or egalitarian Orthodox denominations with a feminist worldview reflect our claim because, contrary to tradition, they strive to create symmetry and a more egalitarian gender division in traditional Jewish prayer services.
24 Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked.
25 Kant, Critique of Judgement.
26 Washburn and Crowe, Symmetry Comes of Age.
27 Collier, Information Originates, 247–56.
28 Yerushalmi, Demai 4a, 24 71.
29 Rubin, The Joy of Life, 173–5.
30 Sheetrit, “Traditional Jewish Wedding,” 19–103.
31 Without going into the finer details of the laws involved in the performance of these rituals we will point out that they parallel various rituals in the work of the priests that involve transference from state to state, and they have symmetry. The guilt offering with which the second stage of the purification process begins is parallel to the two goats on Yom Kippur, one of them sacrificed in the Temple and the other sent to Azazel in the wilderness, in Leviticus 16: 7–10 and 20–2. There is also symmetry in the process of initiation of Aaron and his sons, the priests, to their work in the tabernacle, a process that also lasted seven days. The ceremony they underwent was similar to the purification of the leper. The blood of the sacrificed ram of ordination was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot, and they too were anointed with oil, in Leviticus 8: 22–30.
32 see for example, Bavli, Pesachim 30, 72; Bavli, Avodah Zara, 76 72.
33 Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim Tanna 1–4; Yira De’a 121, 2.
34 Weitman, Making Love as a Love Ceremony.
35 See Durkheim, The Elementary Form. This claim is also upheld by Illouz, Cold Intimacies.
36 Bavli, Cholin 105, 72.
37 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “The Cut that Binds,” 136–46.
38 Sperber, Israeli Customs, 58–61.
39 Cooper and Guzmen-Carmeli, The Structure of Change.
40 The cover motif is repeated later in the story of Judah and Tamar. After Tamar seduces Judah who believes her to be a prostitute, he leaves with her a seal, threads and his staff, as his guarantee that he will return. According to Onkelus and Rashi, a thread is a garment. Rashbam maintains that it is a belt. In this story, the cover saves Tamar when Judah acknowledges the seal, threads and staff as belonging to him. The removal of the seal and threads continues the motif of revelation and cover that is repeated throughout the stories of Tamar and Judah and the story of Joseph.
41 Cooper and Guzmen-Carmeli, The Structure of Change.
42 Douglas, Natural Symbols.
43 See Rubin, The Onset of Life; Cooper, “The Laws of Mixture,” 55–74; Bilu, From Milah (Circumcision).
44 Austin, How to Do Things with Words.
45 Rubin, The Onset of Life, 16–17, 28–9.
46 Halake is a relatively new custom first mentioned by the last of the Aharonim in the Radvaz responsa (R. David Ben Zimra, 1479 Spain – 1573 Safed), part II, as the prevalent custom of cutting children’s hair at the tomb of Samuel the prophet.
47 Bilu, From Milah (Circumcision); Marcus, Childhood Ceremonies; Baumgarten, Mother and Children; see also Rubin, The Onset of Life, 17–19.
48 It should be pointed out that in traditional patriarchal Jewish society it is only boys who enjoy a ceremony marking their entrance into society, not girls. See Rubin, The Onset of Life, 17.
49 Cooper, “The Laws of Mixture”; see also Rubin, Bending Frameworks, 242–3.
50 Shahar, The Amen Meal; Shahar, We Need to Worship.
51 On the process of fermenting wine as an uncontrollable state and its place in liminal states, see Silman, The Symbolic Significance. Bread and wine are basic symbols in Jewish rites of passage.
52 On Jewish transition and rectification ceremonies see Rubin, The Onset of Life, 28–9.
53 Chomsky and Lightfoot, Syntactic Structure.
54 Kroeber, The Nature of Culture.
55 Dan, On Sanctity; Dan, “Midrash: From Interpretation to Anarchy,” 108–31.
56 Barthes, Image-Music-Text.
57 Bateson, “Social Planning”.
58 Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Samuel Cooper
Samuel Cooper is a senior lecturer (retired) at the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar -Ilan University, Israel. His research fields of specialization are anthropology of religion; ethnography of Jewish communities; psychological anthropology and medical anthropology.
Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli
Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli is a Lecturer at the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar -Ilan University, Israel. His research fields of interest and specialization are text and society; the ethnography of Jewish communities; the anthropology of knowledge and learning; anthropology and sociology of religion and Judaism; anthropology of medical research; separatist communities, and ritual healing. His book Encounters around the Text, Ethnography of Judaisms (2020) won the Bahat Grant for outstanding academic manuscripts for 2017.