Rituals and Ritual Theory in Ancient Israel (Brill Reference Library of Judaism)

294 Pages·2003·1.41 MB·English

by  Ithamar Gruenwald

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RITUALS AND RITUAL THEORY IN ANCIENT ISRAEL
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THE BRILL REFERENCE LIBRARY

OF JUDAISM

Editors
J. NEUSNER (Bard College) — H. BASSER (Queens University)
A.J. AVERY-PECK (College of the Holy Cross) — Wm.S. GREEN (University of
Rochester) — G. STEMBERGER (University of Vienna) — I. GRUENWALD
(Tel Aviv University) — M. GRUBER (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
G.G. PORTON (University of Illinois) — J. FAUR (Bar Ilan University)
VOLUME 10
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RITUALS AND RITUAL THEORY

IN ANCIENT ISRAEL

BY
ITHAMAR GRUENWALD
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2003
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gruenwald, Ithamar
Rituals and Ritual Theory in Ancient Israel / by Ithamar Gruenwald.
p. cm. — (The Brill reference library of ancient Judaism, ISSN 1556-1237 ; v. 10)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9004126279 (alk. paper)

1. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Judaism—Liturgy—Philosophy. 3. Ritual. 4. Judaism—
History—To 70 A.D. I. Title II. Series
BM660 .G78 2003

296.4/9 21 2002033038

ISSN 1566-1237
ISBN 90 04 12627 9
© Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without prior written permission from the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by

Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright

Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers 01923,

USA. Fees are subject to change.

printed in the netherlands
preface v
CONTENTS
vii Preface
1 Chapter One—Rituals and Ritual Theory—Introductory
Remarks
The study of rituals in the context of an anthropological approach.
A definition of rituals as behaviourally autonomous expressions of
the human mind. Focussing attention on what is done, how it is
done, and what it brings into effect. The need to separate the
discussion of rituals from the context of theology and symbolic acts.
The meaning of rituals is embedded in the process of doing. The
inner logic that makes the individual segments of the ritual acts
work. The ritual theory of every ritual is embedded in the logic of
the ritual process. Jewish law and Halakhah as rituals. The ritual
“cosmos”, or attitudinal space. The labelling-approach to rituals
as opposed to a detailed discussion of ritual processes.
40 Chapter Two—Economic Ethos and Rituals in the Religion
of Ancient Israel
The Book of Genesis and the ethos stage in the religion of ancient
Israel. Ethos as a way of life (in our case, an economic system) that
shapes culture at a stage that precedes the one in which a full-scale
religion unfolds. In the case of ancient Israel two rival kinds of
economic ethos compete for hegemony: Sheep herding, nomadism,
tribal organisation versus agriculture, cattle breeding, urbanisation,
and monarchic organisation. What brings economics and religious
ethos together? Ethos and rituals. The story of Cain and Abel. The
cursed Adamah. Abraham, the shepherd. Jacob and his sons. The
ethos-duality in the case of Isaac. John the Baptist. The two Enochs.
The ritual notion of walking in the Book of Genesis.
94 Chapter Three—The Relevance of Myth for the Under
standing of Ritual in Ancient Judaism
Myth is the shaping story behind ritual. Mythology comprises of
myths that lost their connectedness to rituals. Myth and rituals in
the history of their scholarly perception. The mythic status of
philosophical explanations given to rituals. The case of Maimonides.
Suggestions for a psychoanalytic approach to myth. The creation
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vi contents
of Man in the Tselem of Elohim. Ritual and mythopoesis. Eliade’s
discussion of myth. Myth, temple, and ritual purity. The mythic
status of the Exodus story. The various processes of ritualising the
Pessach-event. The mythic status of the concept of the written/oral
Torah.
139 Chapter Four—In Quest of New Perspectives in Religious
Studies: Halakhah and the Study of Rituals
The doing-modes of Judaic Halakhah. Oral Torah, Halakhah, and
ritual theory. Reconstructing the doing modes of rituals from written
documents. The introduction of anthropological considerations and
parameters into the study of religion and rituals. Philosophical
reservations and scholarly inhibitions in the study of rituals. The
importance of the study of Halakhah for the study of rituals. The
aesthetics of rituals. Mind and rituals. The ritual “cosmos”. What
do Halakhic rituals do? Intention and intentionality in the doing
of Halakhic rituals. Intentionality in the case of laws concerning
the infliction of damages. Intentionality in the case of purity/
impurity. Intentionality in the case of tithing. Intentioanlity in the
case of sacrifices. Rituals as “language”.
180 Chapter Five—Sacrifices in Biblical Literature and Ritual
Theory
Examining the studies of Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss. Jacob
Milgrom’s work on Leviticus. What do sacrifices do? The factor of
transformation in rituals. The study of sacrifices in religious studies.
The de-theologisation of the study of rituals and sacrifices. The
sacrificial “cosmos”. The ritual reality. Meaning in rituals. The non-
ideational approach in the study of rituals. A verse for verse analysis
of Leviticus 16.
231 Chapter Six—The “Lord’s Supper” and Ritual Theory
The study of the Pauline letters in light of the study of rituals. How
can Paul inform ritual theory and how can the study of ritual
improve our understanding of Paul. Arnold van Gennep and the
study of rituals. Paul’s views on Nomos in light of ritual theory.
Stanely J. Tambiah’s definition of ritual. Rituals and essential life
processes. A detailed analysis of 1 Corinthians 10: 16-18; 11: 23-26.
Concluding remarks in light of Bruce Kapferer’s views on sacrificial
rituals.
267 Bibliography
275 Index
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preface vii
PREFACE
I
Let me briefly explain what this book wishes to accomplish, with an
example. Eating to satisfy one’s feeling of hunger obeys natural needs.
Eating addresses life-preserving instincts. When we eat every hour
or so, we demonstrate a habit that belongs to a particular repetitive
pattern or rule. When we say that we require a specific mixture of
ingredients in order to satisfy our hunger, our habits reflect a per
sonal preference or predilection. Paying special attention to such
matters as hygienic rules, a specific recipe, establishing a repetitive
pattern of repetition and even the manner in which we serve the
food, upgrades the eating process to the sphere of ritual behaviour.
We may even have an vegetarian ideology that bears upon the
choices we make with regard to the kind of food we prefer.
I believe there is no need to show how the example works in the
case of rituals. On a personal level, rituals imply a fixed order to
the act and, even more importantly, the conviction that any devia
tion from the “protocol” is likely to create counter effects, or cause
damage to one’s wellbeing. Rituals easily cross the borderline be
tween the personal and the communal. When the event is shared
by a community, the ritual is upgraded in function: it creates a sense
of participation in the community, as well as its identity. On the
communal level, the prevailing notion holds that any deviation from
the “protocol” annuls the function of the ritual. In such a case, the
ritual fails to connect to the situation for which it is intended. In many
cases, not doing a ritual means that an element that could preserve
the wholesomeness of the community is not enacted.
An important principle of rituals is that the components of the
ritual act require an orderly performance. This order establishes the
inner logic of the ritual acts. The essential factors, therefore, that
are active in shaping rituals, are the detailed prescriptions that should
be followed and the notion that not following the prescription means
failure, with all the consequences that such a failure entails. In any
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viii preface
event, all rituals are conducive to creating desired changes, techni
cally called ‘transformations’.
These introductory comments are designed to make the reader
see the starting point of my discussion. At this point, it addresses
one major issue, namely, what differentiates simple human activity
from ritual behaviour. One may go a step further and ask, “Why
does the eating according to a fixed protocol have the desired ef
fects, which a normal meal lacks?” The initial answer would be, “This
is how rituals work, and we do not really know why”. Although a
specific ideology may account for the doing of the ritual, it does not
explain what makes rituals work the way they do. In fact, no intrin
sic meaning or self-explanatory reason is normally attached to the
manner in which we do the various parts of a specific ritual. In the
example given above, a chemist may add an explanation: The com
ponents work chemically on the digestive system and on the metab
olism, only when the ingredients are put together in a specific or
der and in the right quantities. This explanation makes matters look
logical. So would the explanation given by a brain physiologist, al
though, at best he would simply locate the zone or nerve-centre in
the brain, that control digestion and make one feel satisfied. In the
realm of religion, a theological stance will offer an explanation.
However, from the point of view of the doing of rituals, there is a
limit to what explanations can achieve in the very doing of rituals.
Explanations cannot explain how an explanation works in the ritu
al act itself, that is to say, an explanation may stimulate the doing
of rituals, but the explanation itself has no effect on how the rituals
work to achieve their specific results. In a religious context, expla
nations set the framework for the cause and result, but the rituals,
which link the two ends, operate by a logic that an explanation does
not necessarily possess or address. In brief, explanations do not func
tion in the ritual act itself.
To make my point as clear as possible, the degree to which eat
ing satisfies hunger does not depend on any explanation. The act
of eating does it all, regardless of the explanation. What the expla
nation does is to convince people to persist in what they are doing,
and to point to the logic implied by the order that is essential to the
act. Practically speaking, though, the explanation says, “this is the
order,” but it fails to account for what it accomplishes and how.
Thus, knowing the general explanation of why we cook this meal
and for what purposes is not as essential as we may think to the very
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preface ix
preparations we make, the process of cooking, and, finally, the pro
tocol involved in eating it. As we shall see, the same principle ap
plies to most of the rituals that we shall examine here. That is to
say, the degree to which the doing of rituals requires an ideology or
theology is not self evident. It is one of the major questions to be
discussed in this book.
A further point needs to be mentioned here. When we say, “This
is the only way to do it, because my father and grandfather did it
the same way,” we introduce the notion of (family) tradition. This adds
a new factor to the study of rituals. In religions, this constitutes a
“theological” dimension, but significant as this may be in the eyes
of the people doing the ritual, it does not explain the ritual itself. If,
furthermore, people are told that they have always to do the same
thing in the same manner, one introduces the factor of authority. Both,
the notion of tradition and the factor of authority, have sociological
significance and relevance, but they do not explain how rituals work.
Nonetheless, rituals function as constitutive acts in what may be the
basis of a social structure. In religion, telling people to behave or to
do things in a certain manner has an additional relevance. It helps
to shape a community that is bound together by factors such as the
belief in a divine being, a hierarchy of authorities, and textbooks that
contain regulations on which rituals to do, when, how, and to what
purpose. Rituals make a community live by agreement on the cen
trality of a certain set of actions and signs. In the final resort, though,
all these factors have little to say on which kind of ritual is done and
how it is done.
II
It is important to note that, in my discussion of rituals, I refer to
rituals as (a) a form of human behaviour that primarily reflects the
mind that generates them, rather than any ideology or symbolic
structures; (b) not specifically religious forms of behaviour, unless,
of course, they are included in a religious structure or context; (c) a
mode of behaviour that represents a significant departure from in
stinct and custom; (d) promoting the preservation, regeneration, and
reconstitution of conditions that people consider essential to their
vital life processes; (e) addressing the issue of survival, whether bi
ological or other. In rituals, the mind demonstrates its reaction to
existence. When existence is at stake, the mind reacts in structured
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