Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Of god and goats
- 2 Religioning elsewhere
- 3 Christianity is not a religion
- 4 Talking like a pirate
- 5 Real world
- 6 Doing violence with impunity
- 7 Respecting relations
- 8 Things full of meaning
- 9 Purity and pilgrimages
- 10 Enchantment and emplacement
- 11 Christians do religion like other people
- 12 Religion is etiquette in the real world
- Bubliography
- Index
9 - Purity and pilgrimages
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Of god and goats
- 2 Religioning elsewhere
- 3 Christianity is not a religion
- 4 Talking like a pirate
- 5 Real world
- 6 Doing violence with impunity
- 7 Respecting relations
- 8 Things full of meaning
- 9 Purity and pilgrimages
- 10 Enchantment and emplacement
- 11 Christians do religion like other people
- 12 Religion is etiquette in the real world
- Bubliography
- Index
Summary
What facets of life are indicated to Jews when, talking to one another or addressing others, they use the word “Judaism”? What is the relation between that and the word “religion”? If “religion” (the term) had originated among Jews, to what kind of acts would it refer? What words in Jewish religious discourse (whether in Hebrew, Yiddish, English or any other language) are used for similar purposes when Jews talk with Jews?
It is commonly stated in books introducing Judaism that this is a religion of observance, encouraging orthopraxis more than orthodoxy, and best seen in everyday acts such as keeping meat and milk separate in meals. Judaism is a religion for living today; its concerns are not with immortality. Its questions are about human living and it insistently focuses attention on bodies, movement, materials and relationships. Its leadership models generally encourage facilitators rather than unquestionable authorities. It ought then to be the perfect model for any argument about vernacular, lived, material, performative religion.
I have no intention of contradicting that claim. Rather, I intend to emphasize it by arguing that Judaism is definitively religion in ways that Protestant Christianity is not. I will acknowledge that Judaism has its Protestantism/modernism too, but even that is affected by the gravitational pull of a well-established performative tradition. For most of this chapter, however, I want to go elsewhere.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Food, Sex and StrangersUnderstanding Religion as Everyday Life, pp. 153 - 170Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013