Ritual Studies and the Study of Rabbinic Literature

In the last two decades several important studies have been published that focus on ritual in rabbinic literature, and consider ritual to be a critically important conceptual and analytical category in approaching rabbinic texts and rabbinic culture. This article provides an account of the intersection of Ritual Studies with the study of rabbinic literature, surveys key works and significant developments and shifts in the field, and identifies the central challenges in and benefits of examining rabbinic texts through ritual lenses. The article pays special attention to the complex relations between texts about rituals and ritual performances, as well as to the blurry boundaries between law and ritual in the realm of rabbinic halakhah

Propitiating the \u3ci\u3eTsen,\u3c/i\u3e Sealing the Mountain: Community Mountain-closure Ritual and Practice in Eastern Bhutan

This interdisciplinary study examines a community ritual in Mongar, eastern Bhutan, in connection to its socio-ecological context. We provide an in-depth documentation of the tsensöl (btsan gsol) deity-propitiation ritual to ‘seal’ territory and prohibit entry to higher mountain reaches. The ritual and the community mountain-closure period (ladam) that it precedes are first situated in context of other documented (but now defunct) territorial sealing practices in Tibet and the Buddhist Himalaya. We then analyse and discuss the syncretic, flexible and place-based nature of tsensöl, and show how the ritual, the mountain god Khobla Tsen and ladam are interrelated in expressing community concerns for safe-harvests and wellbeing. We conclude by examining what a ritual such as tsensöl might tell us about village political ecology, community concerns and knowledge of the environment

Lessons from Love-Locks: The archaeology of a contemporary assemblage

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Journal of Material Culture, November 2017, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.Loss of context is a challenge, if not the bane, of the ritual archaeologist’s craft. Those who research ritual frequently encounter difficulties in the interpretation of its often tantalisingly incomplete material record. Careful analysis of material remains may afford us glimpses into past ritual activity, but our often vast chronological separation from the ritual practitioners themselves prevent us from seeing the whole picture. The archaeologist engaging with structured deposits, for instance, is often forced to study ritual assemblages post-accumulation. Many nuances of its formation, therefore, may be lost in interpretation. This paper considers what insights an archaeologist could gain into the place, people, pace, and purpose of deposition by recording an accumulation of structured deposits during its formation, rather than after. To answer this, the paper will focus on a contemporary depositional practice: the love-lock. This custom involves the inscribing of names/initials onto a padlock, its attachment to a bridge or other public structure, and the deposition of the corresponding key into the water below; a ritual often enacted by a couple as a statement of their romantic commitment. Drawing on empirical data from a three-year diachronic site-specific investigation into a love-lock bridge in Manchester, UK, the author demonstrates the value of contemporary archaeology in engaging with the often enigmatic material culture of ritual accumulations.Peer reviewe

Chest beating ritual

In the month of Moharram, when Imām Hossein and his family were killed in Karbalā, from 1st to 8th in the evening around 7pm, men proceed in one group around the village, chanting and beating their chests. One man leads the chant and the others answer. They are led by a boy holding a flag (parcham-e ‘āshurā). On 9th-10th everything in Iran is closed and they spend the whole day from morning to night in procession chanting and beating their chests. The women watch and cry.Materials collected during field research for a D.Phil (Oxford University) in Iran in 1974 and 1975/6, and during short return visits in 1992, 1995, 1996. Audio recordings include: folk stories, music and songs, rituals, people’s own historical recollections

Making the Cut: Covenant, Curse and Oath in Deut 27-29 and the Incantation Plaques of Arslan Tash (Society of Biblical Literature: Atlanta, 2015)

The phrase “cutting a covenant” is familiar to us from texts of the Hebrew Bible. In Gen 15:18, for example, God makes a covenant with Abram that is accompanied by a ritual enactment. This ritual performance involves the slaughter of animals, arranging the pieces in two rows, and fire passing between the two rows of pieces. The phrase that is used in this passage is: כרת יהוה את–אברם ברית , or “God cut a covenant with Abram.” This phrase “to cut a covenant” לכרות ברית) ) is a common one in the Hebrew Bible. The slaughtering of animals and the performance of other ritual acts to ratify oaths and treaties was an ancient practice in the Near East. Oath and treaty texts from the second millennium BCE from Mari and the Hittite Empire include elements of ritual performance such as animal slaughter, the burning of figurines, and the breaking of model plows and chariots.1 Aramean and Assyrian treaty texts from the first millennium BCE also include elements of ritual slaughter and other performative rituals.2 Also the ratification of the covenant in Deut 27-28 includes the building of an altar, making sacrifices, erecting the torah stones at the altar site, and an oral performance of the covenant with its blessings and curses. So it is no surprise that covenant and performative rituals go together. But what about covenant and incantation texts? What does covenant have to do with magical artifacts

Decorating the Neolithic: an Evaluation of the Use of Plaster in the Enhancement of Daily Life in the Middle Pre-pottery Neolithic B of the Southern Levant

During the Middle Pre-pottery Neolithic B in the southern Levant the use of lime plaster in both ritual and domestic contexts increased significantly relative to previous periods. Its properties of whiteness, purity, plasticity and antisepsis would have made it a natural choice for decorating, and through the act of colouring disparate categories of objects were linked together. Plaster appears to have transcended its own inherent value as a material due to its interconnectedness with mortuary ritual. Because of its ubiquity, this socially ascribed value was accessible to everyone. This article will claim that plaster, and the act of plastering both ritual and domestic contexts played a key role in the creation and maintenance of community cohesion and social well-being

Ritual and Pastoral Care

Reviewed Book: Ramshaw, Elaine. Ritual and Pastoral Care. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987. Theology and Pastoral Care

Ritual and setting

My research has for many years been concerned with ceremonial objects, the spaces they occupy and other associated elements (music, ritual, contemplation). Ritual and Setting allowed me to enter a wider debate, on the perception of ceramics as an art form. My aim was to examine the emotive relationship between an object and its location; also to acknowledge my own cultural heritage and to investigate how my Far Eastern approach to ceramics might sit alongside a Western architectural tradition. Ritual and Setting explores the reflective and sacramental notions of large-scale porcelain and their effect on celebrants and visitors. On a technical level the project advanced the development of surface treatments on large-scale ceramic forms in a manner not seen in contemporary ceramics in the setting of a sacred space. This placement of individual pieces around the Cathedral in a more speculative distribution departs from the more conventional approaches of ceramic artists such as de Staebler and Mongrain to insert single works in a site with prayerful intentions (e.g. the Altar) or to produce a whole body of furniture, or, as in the Matisse chapel at Vence, an entire decorative scheme. Winchester, like many cathedrals, has a long tradition of exhibiting art, but has never systematically presented contemporary craft. Ritual and Setting tested new ground for the cathedral. The event led to the hosting of a touring exhibition of ceramics by Julian Stair (2013). I intend Ritual and Setting to provide forthcoming generations with the idea that craft makers can initiate and complete exhibitions and projects outside the established arenas of galleries and shops. Traditional attitudes have hampered the opening up of ceramics as an art form. By recontextualising this work from 'historical pottery' to a public architectural setting, the project serves to re-present ceramics in a new light

A Refugee’s Choice

Every two months on a Saturday morning, I would wake up with the sun for a kind of ritual. This particular Saturday was cool, gray, and dreary; all of the colored leaves were now wet brown piles laying on the dead grass waiting for a blanket of snow to cover them. After washing my face, I went into the kitchen and prepared Uji, an African porridge. I sat down in front of my mother and readied myself for the next six hours: that’s how long it would take to braid my hair. I would dread this ritual because the day was long, but even so, I anticipated the excitement of having a shared opportunity to strengthen my relationship with my mother. The highlight of this ritual was that, for the next six hours, I would get to hear African folk tales and sing songs in Swahili. On this particular Saturday, the topic of our family’s origin and how we became refugees was heavy on my heart, but I was determined to ask about it

Seeing Through the Invisible Pink Unicorn

This paper explores the quasi-religious aspects of the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU), an internet based spoof of religion. IPU message boards situate a moral orientation in an ongoing interactional process that sacralizes parody and an idealized form of “free thinking.” We employ content analysis and grounded theory to argue that IPU writers’ parody of religion serves as a ritual act and conclude our discussion by considering the implications of the findings for the literature on ritual