Archive for March, 2005
Exegesis and Ritual Cookbook
Jill Hammer
Vanessa Ochs, Sarah Laughed: Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and Stories of Biblical Women (McGraw-Hill, 2004) 233 pp., $24.95
Sarah Laughed: Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and Stories of Biblical Women, by Vanessa Ochs, is a complex and multilayered journey through the spirit.Ochs has set out to retell stories of biblical women, weave them with [...]
Money in Synagogues
Mordechai Liebling
The typical synagogue board devotes more time to issues relating to money than anything else. But, then, more of the 613 mitzvot relate to money than any other subject.This is indicative of the central role that money plays in our lives, evidenced by Rabbi Yishmael’s comment in Bava Batra, “One who wishes to acquire [...]
Renewing the Ritual of Get
Or Rose and Judith Rosenbaum: At present, the get, the Jewish divorce ceremony, is often conducted as it were an exclusively legal procedure, with little attention given to the emotional and spiritual dimensions of the experience.
Jewish Feminist Ritual and Brit Milah
Susan Fendrick: As simchat bat (welcoming baby daughter) ceremonies were developed and as they flourished, their sheer level of creativity spilled over to the evolution of brit milah (traditional circumcision).
Renewal and Ritual for the Earth
David Seidenberg essay along with flow chart and Pri Eitz Hadar Page: The shape of the kabbalistic Tu B’shvat seder, moving through the four worlds from doing to being, can embrace new understandings of the Tree of Life – not only the kabbalistic sefirot, but also the web of life studied by ecologists and the evolutionary tree of life, in which all species are related to one another.
Discussion Guide – Inside Jewish Rituals
1. What is the impact of the feminist movement on Jewish ritual? How have new rituals created by women impacted traditional rituals?
2. What makes a ritual authentic?
3. Will changes in ritual, and the ritual lives of Jewish men and women, transform Judaism? How so?
4. Do rituals legitimize new behaviors, and if so, how?
