“Ritual gives structure to chaos,” says Judy Davis, author of Who’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah Is This Anyway. “It’s a form of communal holding. All who light candles in this way are connected, part of a family, part of something larger.”
It’s the morning after the second night of Passover, and we’re sitting in her kitchen, eating Matzo Brei covered with real maple syrup. Delicious.
She goes on to explain, “All rituals have open and closed parts. Everyone usually agrees about the closed parts. A Christmas tree on Christmas. A turkey on Thanksgiving. Open parts are the ways in which we can contribute our signature stamp, personalize the structure.”
Judy’s Haggadah is a true work of art.
For the past thirty years, she has clipped out poems and art, pasted pieces from other Haggadahs, all in an effort to make hers more personal. There is still the traditional beginning, middle and end. The four questions. You start with a glass of wine. You end with a glass of wine. But she has added her own touch, her signature, her soul.
Ritual is ever-changing and yet the same. I think that’s its power. You do something year after year, you light the candles, you sing the songs, you eat the parsley, you eat the horseradish, you open the door for Elijah, and each year something new touches you in a different way.
This year, I was surprised to find myself moved by the line, “Until all of us are free, none of us are.” This is not a new line, nor is it special to Judy’s Haggadah, but it was the first year it had special meaning for me.
Last July, I quit my job at Fox News Channel where I had been for nine years. I was unhappy there. I felt imprisoned. When I quit, I was able to see that it had been a prison of my choosing. I had trapped myself and didn’t even know it.
With my newfound freedom, I felt my heart open and my mind clear, and wanted to share the feeling with others.
I wonder if it’s like Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, you can’t concern yourself with spiritual practice if you’re worried about feeding your kids. Does wanting to help others feel free come from a place of personal freedom?
Whatever it is, I care about people being free, and I’m ready to do something about it.
We ended the evening by singing a German folksong, “Die Gedanken Sind Frei,” something Judy added as one of her “open parts.”
(English by Arthur Kevess)
Die gedanken sind frei,
My thoughts freely flower.
Die gedanken sind frei,
My thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them,
No hunter can trap them,
No man can deny
Die gedanken sind frei.
So I think as I please,
And this gives me pleasure.
My conscious decrees,
This right I must treasure.
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator,
No man can deny,
Die gedanken sind frei
Well should tyrants take me
and throw me in prison,
my thoughts will burst free
like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble
and structures will tumble,
and free men will cry,
Die gedanken sind frei.
__
Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Art, Music, Religion, Therapy Thursdays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
There are currently 7 responses
Very well put. The fluidity of meaningful moments is my favorite part of good rituals.
Even though I grew up Methodist, there were several years where our church held a Passover supper. I don’t remember if we read from the Haggadah, but I remember those bitter greens.
This Monday, I attended my friend’s Seder in Hoboken. There were 15 of us gathered around their table, but only four were Jewish. Still — and perhaps because of this — I was profoundly moved by the Haggadah readings, and the ritual. (I actually stole one of the photocopies because I enjoyed it so much. Don’t worry, I told her I was taking it.)
I love that you want to share your freedom with others. You have a lot to give, and you do it so well.
Jennifer, thank you so much! I love that you you were moved by your friend’s Seder and took a photocopy of the Haggadah. I know the ritual I talked about was “Jewish” specific, but I think all rituals can be appropriated. For example, Judy used to teach ritual at Antioch University in NH. She was once explaining to her class that on Rosh Hashana we dip apples in honey for a sweet New Year. There was a man in class, not Jewish, who started using apples and honey on his children’s birthdays. And then you have someone like Cindy Chupack, Executive Producer of Sex in the City, Jewish, who decided to get a Christmas tree for the holidays: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/fashion/24PotteryBarn.html?ex=1324616400&en=476d081358173a00&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Ever since I worked at the Yiddish Theatre, I give money gifts in multiples of $18 (chai). And when putting away savings, I tend to save amounts divisible by $18.
This may be a bigger subject for a different post, but when do you think appropriation crosses the “respectful” line and enters the “exploitation/Orientalism” zone? Maybe this is a question laden with white guilt; I’m not sure. A tentative answer to my own question would be: when the sacred ritual element or energy is removed, and the act is done purely for the visual/trendy appeal.
Thoughts?
Whoa! Great question. If you’re wearing a Kabbalah red string bracelet because you saw Madonna wear it and you have no idea what it means, then that’s crossing the line you’re talking about. I think you’re right that it comes down to meaning, if you are able to keep something sacred. For example, I practice Qigong, not to be trendy, but because I like feeling the energy coarse through my body. It helps me feel G-d. Even though there are different rituals and practices for different religions and cultures, they’re all so similar… lighting candles, washing hands, celebrating rebirth, freedom, family, love, that’s all Universal to me. I guess it’s what you do with them, what they mean to you. But man, what a great question. I would love for someone to explore the idea more. An article? Jennifer? Please.
I think I may start residing on Crucial Minutiae because I love what you bring up. Excuse me as I blather at 1am.
I’ve had many years and numerous life events when I have appreciated the structure of the rituals in my life, much as hangars, to hold my different feelings, thoughts and needs, but still to organize.
I had removed myself from any religious observance until my sister was dying. At that point I returned to synagogue because I needed an historical context for her life, for her life and my life and for the struggle on that boundaries of life and death. I did not return because I needed God, or relligion per se, but rather as a container, which ritual can and often is.
It was there, in synagogue, on Friday nights, where the singing generated the deep rhythmic breathing that allowed the tears to flow. And , it was only there that they did flow. The ritual of attending and of the release helped to sustain me through her illness.
After she died I said Kaddish for her and that too provided the structure, the time set aside to remember, which made it easier to let it go at other points during the day.
And, going through my divorce, I wondered, focused upon those moments when ritual was a coming together and a coconstruction, how I would weather holidays, such as Passover. The anticipation was fraught, but the ritual, the structure held. And, as you have pointed out, it was a familiar place to visit, but with new meaning and resonance. ( I actually prefer it without him!)
As to your other point, for whatever it’s worth, in Judaism you are supposed to do the ritual even if it has no meaning to you. You do the ‘right thing’ and the assumption is ,is that the “Kavanah”, intention will come. You cannot wait until you have the ‘right’ feeling to do the right thing.
We live in times where we are exposed to so many religious and spritutal practices and some speak to us either in terms of their intial intent, or we take them on in our own lexicon. Can it be trite, a ‘fashion statement’? Sure it can. But we can’t always judge why someone is doing something. It’s often hard enough for us to know why we are doing iwhat we are.
There is, however, the possbility of offending someone else’s deeply held beliefs if they experience the donning of bracelets as treating their relgion as a smorgesbord with the option of taking certain rituals and ritual objects and leaving others. My guess would be that one’s attifude toward this would depend upon how fundimentalist or liberal one is in one’s own belief system.
Time to go to sleep.
Trudi, thank you so much for your beautiful and heartfelt response. I am happy to hear that ritual has such a deep place in your life and that it has helped you get through some traumatic life events. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you also for pointing out that in Judaism “you are supposed to do the ritual even if it has no meaning to you.” I had heard that before, but had forgotten about it. I guess I’ve always believed that you should do what you want to do, if it means something to you, but there’s obvious merit in “doing the right thing.” For example, if you have low self-esteem, people say, fake it until you make it, act as if. Maybe it’s the same kind of thing.
PS. I saw a great South Park Easter Special last night. Stan wants someone to explain to him how dyeing eggs different colors has to do with Jesus dying for his sins. I thought it was cool… to question the meaning of the ritual, to want there to be a link.
Thank you for this post, Kimmi, and to Jennifer and Trudi for the insightful comments. It spurred me to dig out my notes from the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference that I went to in 2005. In the heart of Hollywood, artists gathered from all over the world and managed to investigate “Creative Tools for Critical Times.” I was there for Augusto Boal, who I’d been admiring for years, but I found I was most moved by Lynn Gottlieb, a rabbi and peace activist.
It was not only Lynn’s wisdom, but her welcoming of everyone at 9:00 am with a ritual… that brought me to tears. Quite simply, she led us in singing a Spanish song about peace. The call and response, the standing together, the meditative quality of it all, changed the air in a ballroom at the Hollywood Renaissance, and it became a sacred space.
I believe in the power of ritual to lift us from the ordinary and to connect us to one another.
Leave a reply
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed