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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Worship
This study explores the psychological foundations of religious ritual systems. In practice, participants recall rituals to ensure a sense of continuity across performances, and those rituals motivate them to transmit and re-perform them. Most religious rituals exploit either high performance frequency or extraordinary emotional stimulation to enhance their recollection. Robert N. McCauley and E. Thomas Lawson assert that participants' cognitive representations of ritual form explain much about the systems. Reviewing a wide range of evidence, they explain religions' evolution.
Central to both biblical narrative and rabbinic commentary,
circumcision has remained a defining rite of Jewish identity, a
symbol so powerful that challenges to it have always been
considered taboo. Lawrence Hoffman seeks to find out why
circumcision holds such an important place in the Jewish psyche. He
traces the symbolism of circumcision through Jewish history,
examining its evolution as a symbol of the covenant in the
post-exilic period of the Bible and its subsequent meaning in the
formative era of Mishnah and Talmud. In the rabbinic system,
Hoffman argues, circumcision was neither a birth ritual nor the
beginning of the human life cycle, but a rite of covenantal
initiation into a male "life line." Although the evolution of the
rite was shaped by rabbinic debates with early Christianity, the
Rabbis shared with the church a view of blood as providing
salvation. Hoffman examines the particular significance of
circumcision blood, which, in addition to its salvific role,
contrasted with menstrual blood to symbolize the gender dichotomy
within the rabbinic system. His analysis of the Rabbis' views of
circumcision and menstrual blood sheds light on the marginalization
of women in rabbinic law. Differentiating official mores about
gender from actual practice, Hoffman surveys women's spirituality
within rabbinic society and examines the roles mothers played in
their sons' circumcisions until the medieval period, when they were
finally excluded.
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On Repentance
(Hardcover)
Joseph B. Soloveitchik
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R597
R535
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This book argues that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches, it is a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, and its inextricable interdependence with language. It is also a detailed study of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions that we take to be religious and therefore central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from a range of disciplines.
Each year, in a solemn Sunni Muslim feast, the Ait Mazine of
northern Morocco reenact the story of Abraham as a ritual
sacrifice, a symbolic observance of submission to the divine. After
comes a bacchanalian masquerade which seems to violate every
principle the sacrifice affirmed. Costumed men sing and dance and
torment villagers, their wild activities centering around a mute
figure sewn into the skins of sacrificed animals. This character is
attended by several others who keep up a constant patter that mocks
the social order, especially marriage, women, older men, and the
Qu'ran. Because of the apparent contradiction between sacrifice and
masquerade, observers have described the two as entirely separate
events. Abdellah Hammoudi's study reunites them as a single ritual
process within Islamic tradition. Working with metaphors of stage
and play, Hammoudi details the festival from the rituals of makeup
and costume through the final spectacle. Each part of the ceremony
denies and at the same time conjures up the other. The
contradictions inherent in social and religious life are vividly
enacted; sacrifice and masquerade appear.
Martin Prechtel's experiences growing up on a Pueblo Indian
reservation, his years of apprenticing to a Guatemalan shaman, and
his flight from Guatemala's brutal civil war inform this lyrical
blend of memoir, cultural mythology, and spiritual call to arms.
"The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic "is both an epic story and a cry
to the heart of humanity based on the author's realization that
human survival depends on keeping alive the seeds of our "original
forgotten spiritual excellence."
Prechtel relates the current eco-crisis to the rapid disappearance
of biodiversity, indigenous cultures, and shared human values. He
demonstrates how real human culture is exterminated when real (not
genetically modified) seeds are lost. Like plants that become
extinct once their required conditions are no longer met,
authentic, unmonetized human cultures can no longer survive in the
modern world. To "keep the seeds alive"--both literally and
metaphorically--they must be planted, harvested, and replanted,
just as human culture must become truly engaging and meaningful to
the soul, as necessary as food is to the body. The viable seeds of
spirituality and culture that lie dormant within us need to
"sprout" into broad daylight to create real sets of cultures
welcome on Earth.
This concise (just 40 pages) and beautiful haggadah contains all
the elements for a complete and authentic seder. Its small size
(just 6 x 8") and straightforward text, and bright collage art will
capture the attention of seder participants and spark lively
conversation about social justice, freedom, and history.Ideal for
the host or seder leader who wants to run a short and meaningful
seder, bring a modern sensibility and fresh language tot he
observance, and add beauty to the seder table. Includes blessings
and the Four Questions in both Hebrew and transliterated Hebrew,
with English translations.
The endless wars of the seventeenth century took their toll in the
lives of millions of soldiers and crushing taxes. To legitimise
war, Europe s rulers turned to the Church: O God, we praise you ,
Te Deum Laudamus, was sung in the churches of France and Sweden to
celebrate victory in battle. It was a way of thanking God, but also
an opportunity for congregations to learn what had happened -- and
an occasion for festivities. In this book, the historian Anna Maria
Forssberg applies a narrative and ritual perspective to the Te
Deum, looking at specific wars such as the Thirty Years War and at
themes such as peace and enmity. This is a unique, comparative
study of war propaganda in early modern times, and how it defined
the roles of ruler and ruled alike. There were national
differences, but ultimately all war stories were highly selective.
Bloody defeat and uneventful everyday life were glossed over; what
mattered were spectacular victories and royal glory. Yet in the
end, the war stories peddled in both Sweden and France were
profoundly challenged by the crisis of 1709.
Every year hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the
world converge on Mecca and its precincts to perform the rituals
associated with the Hajj and have been doing so since the seventh
century. In this volume, scholars from a range of fields -
including history, religion, anthropology, and literature -
together tell the story of the Hajj and explain its significance as
one of the key events in the Muslim religious calendar. By
outlining the parameters of the Hajj from its beginnings to the
present day, the contributors have produced a global study that
takes in the vast geographies of belief in the world of Islam. This
volume pays attention to the diverse aspects of the Hajj, as lived
every year by hundreds of millions of Muslims, touching on its
rituals, its regional forms, the role of gender, its representation
in art, and its organization on a global scale.
This illuminating account of contemporary American Buddhism shows
the remarkable ways the tradition has changed over the past
generation The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist
communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and
questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait
of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates
the aspirations and struggles of younger North American Buddhists
during a period she identifies as a distinct stage in the
assimilation of Buddhism to the West. She observes both the
emergence of new innovative forms of deinstitutionalized Buddhism
that blur the boundaries between the religious and secular, and a
revalorization of traditional elements of Buddhism, such as ethics
and community, that were discarded in the modernization process.
Based on extensive ethnographic and textual research, the book
ranges from mindfulness debates in the Vipassana network to the sex
scandals in American Zen, while exploring issues around racial
diversity and social justice, the impact of new technologies, and
generational differences between baby boomer, Gen X, and millennial
teachers.
In this book, Masooda Bano presents an in-depth analysis of a new
movement that is transforming the way that young Muslims engage
with their religion. Led by a network of Islamic scholars in the
West, this movement seeks to revive the tradition of Islamic
rationalism. Bano explains how, during the period of colonial rule,
the exit of Muslim elites from madrasas, the Islamic scholarly
establishments, resulted in a stagnation of Islamic scholarship.
This trend is now being reversed. Exploring the threefold focus on
logic, metaphysics, and deep mysticism, Bano shows how Islamic
rationalism is consistent with Sunni orthodoxy and why it is so
popular among young, elite, educated Muslims, who are now engaging
with classical Islamic texts. One of the most tangible results of
this revival is that Islamic rationalism - rather than jihadism -
is emerging as one of the most influential movements in the
contemporary Muslim world.
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