Tag Archives: jewish custom

Bar/Bat Mitzvah Chair Lifting

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/26/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece: 

What is your experience with this tradition?

“At the party, we were doing the hora. They bring in a chair, without arms even though I asked for arms. Four men lifted the chair up. One person was pushing harder than the others. Being pushed up in the chair with no arm rests. I asked to be put down. It happens during Hava Negila”

Why do you think this is a thing?

“Probably to single out the person and make it known that it’s their day and that this whole ceremony is about them. Maybe it’s spiritual and you’re getting closer to god? It’s kind of stupid”

Background/Context:

My informant is my roommate. She was raised in Conservative Judaism and had her Bat Mitzvah when she turned 13. A Bar/Bat Mitzvah is the Jewish coming of age ceremony that happens when a child turns 12 or 13. Hava Negila is the song that Jewish people traditionally dance the Hora to. The Hora is a traditional dance that involves dancing in concentric circles. The Bar/Bat Mitzvah teen is lifting in the center of the Hora circles. This story was collected when we were talking about Judaism during dinner.

Analysis:

This tradition is practiced by Jews of all observance levels and ethnic backgrounds at Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and the majority of Jews have no idea why we do it. We weren’t commanded to lift people in chairs through religious texts or by our religious leaders, it’s just a tradition that Jews practice. Some people think that the “lifting” component has religious connotations, but most Jews agree that it’s just for fun and to highlight the Bar/Bat Mitzvah teen on their special day. The experience of having a chair with no arms and being asked to be put down is a common one, and I myself didn’t have a great time being lifted at my own Bat Mitzvah. 

Washing One’s Hands After a Funeral

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Bethesda, MD
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main piece: There’s a tradition of washing your hands after a funeral so you don’t bring death into the house. If you’ve been near a dead body, you want to get the death off your hands. You don’t want to bring death into your house. Even after my dad’s funeral, friends of my mother, who had stayed back to help with the catering and the flowers, they put a pitcher outside. I was impressed by all that actually. It’s what you do. Some cemeteries have a water fountain. Outside Jewish funeral homes there’s a place to wash your hands. 

Background: My informant is a 51 year-old Jewish woman. The majority of the funerals she has attended have been in Jewish cemeteries with Jewish burial practices. She doesn’t remember where she learned the practice exactly, but she recalls vividly seeing the pitcher of water outside a Jewish funeral home at her aunt’s funeral when she was fourteen. The logic makes sense to her, and she has partaken in this ritual many times before. 

Context: I was talking to my informant about Jewish traditions, and this was the first one that occurred to her. 

Analysis: This practice makes a lot of sense. A funeral is a liminal space, as it is the final celebration of the life of someone who is now deceased. With that comes a lot of uncertainty, and fear that death can come for anyone else next. By washing your hands before entering a home, you don’t cross the doorway between a graveyard or a cemetery – a place of death, and your house – a place where you live/where life happens. This also promotes the idea that death can linger/cling to a live person, and having a ritualistic cleansing of death from your hands encourages a sense of protection, and that it won’t come for you next. 

Taboo of Discussing the Baby during Pregnancy

Nationality: American
Age: 79
Occupation: Retired; Former Schoolteacher
Residence: Baltimore, MD
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Yiddish

Main piece: The idea that you don’t talk about it (the baby). You don’t talk about it, you don’t bring the furniture in the house, buy the furniture but can’t open it, or put it together until the baby’s born. You come home from the hospital and have to put the crib together. In the day, when your father was born, you stayed in the hospital after you gave birth for a couple of days. So you (or the husband) had time. People that weren’t you, giving birth. So probably a month before I was due to have the baby, we went to Hutzler’s, which at the time was a very lovely department store, and we bought everything that we needed. Furniture, clothes, everything. And when the baby was born, Z [her husband] called Hutzler’s and told them to deliver tomorrow or whatever, and that’s why we did. Because you just want to make sure everything is alright. 

Background: My informant is a seventy-nine year old Jewish woman living in Baltimore, Maryland. She is also my grandmother. She describes herself as a follower of “bubbe-meise” (Yiddish), translated to “grandmother’s fable”, or a more serious version of old wive’s tales that are often accompanied by superstitions. The baby she is discussing was her first child (of three), my father, who was born in May 1965. 

Context: This practice is customary for Jewish couples. During a celebration for my father’s birthday, my mother brought up a (non-Jewish) co-worker, whose wife didn’t want to know anything about the gender of the baby, or even talk about her pregnancy before the baby was born. My mom then told the co-worker, “how Jewish of her”. When I asked for an explanation, my grandmother interjected with this story about her pregnancy with my father. She takes this superstition incredibly seriously, having heard it from her mother, who heard it from her mother.

Analysis: This custom seems to exist to protect the emotional and well-being of couples who may end up losing their baby. As there is a high risk in giving birth, especially prior to the invention of modern birthing practices, having the room set up/furniture ready for a baby that may not end up coming home could be emotionally and financially taxing on expectant parents. With this practice, not talking about the baby or preparing for its arrival home until after its birth creates the illusion of low to no expectations in the liminal and risky space of pregnancy. Over time, this has almost become a superstition like a jinx, that talking about the baby will result in bad luck and potentially riskier birth. 

Pidyon Haben

Nationality: American
Age: 88
Occupation: Retired; Former Physician
Residence: Baltimore, MD
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Yiddish

Main piece: The first born son who would have died in the Passover story. If you read the Haggadah on Passover, there’s a tenth plague. The tenth plague is when the angel of death comes down and kills the firstborn male child of all the Egyptians, but spares the firstborn male child of the Jewish slaves. And I don’t know how it got converted to buying back that child as a tradition, but the tradition is you redeem the firstborn son at birth. You give ten silver dollars to a Kohen. Kohanim children don’t have to have a pidyon haben. What my grandfather used to do, because my grandfather was a Kohen at a lot of simchas like that, is they would give him the money and he would give it back to them for the child as a gift. There’s a prayer, it’s a month after the bris. A separate ceremony. They usually have a little party. There’s a blessing, the Kohen gives the baby a blessing. It’s all symbolic, you know, not just like, an exchange of goods. Nobody’s buying or selling the child. 

Background: My informant is an eighty-eight year old Jewish man from Baltimore, Maryland, and a Kohen. He has watched his grandfather and father be the Kohen in the pidyon haben ceremony, and has been the Kohen for one himself. 

Context: A pidyon haben is a Jewish ceremony where ten silver dollars is given to a Kohen in exchange for their newborn son in order to remember/commemorate the work of the Angel of Death in the Passover story, where she killed all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, but spared the ones of the Jews, whose doors were marked with lamb’s blood (this is also where the practice of putting mezuzahs on doors in Jewish homes originated). The Kohens are one of the twelve tribes of Israel who historically took on the position of high priests, as they are said to be descendants of Aaron. Kohanim in modern Jewish settings today still perform blessings over the congregation. Tribal identity within the Jewish faith is established through the patrilineal line – my informant’s grandfather and father were both Kohens, so my informant is as well. Simcha is a yiddish term meaning party or celebration, often referred to in religious celebrations, such as weddings or Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. A bris is a Jewish male circumcision ceremony that occurs when the child is eight days old (female children have baby naming ceremonies, where similar prayers and blessings are performed, but no circumcision takes place).

Analysis: When there is a newborn child, historically there is concern that the child will not live very long, and there is pressure from the religious community to indoctrinate the baby into its ranks so that it can be protected both spiritually and by the congregation (this is the purpose of a bris). However, in the talmudic tradition, there remains a threat against first born sons, regardless of age, by the Angel of Death. Although Jewish people still protect themselves with a variant of the lamb’s blood they put on the door during the Passover story (mezuzahs), there is still a lingering want to protect the first born son from spiritual threats, such as the Angel of Death. The number of silver pieces, ten, represent the fact that the Angel of Death was the tenth plague (and also the number ten is important in Judaism, because that is the number of commandments there are and also the number of Jewish persons required to pray – a minyan). Silver in Judaism is a metal that represents both moral innocence and holiness. Since the firstborn is just a baby, the parents offer silver as a representation of proof of their innocence (even if the money is given back). Additionally, a Kohen is a holy figure, so offerings of silver in return for blessings for the longevity and health of the child’s life is a suitable exchange. A pidyon haben also occurs a month after the bris (which happens when the child is eight days old), so by that time it is likely the child will live past infancy. 

You Can’t Give Away a Dead Person’s Shoes

Nationality: American
Age: 79
Occupation: Retired; Former Schoolteacher
Residence: Baltimore, MD
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Yiddish

Main piece: When someone dies, after the mourning period is over and it’s appropriate to give the clothes away that can still be worn, and you can give them to whoever you want – the recipient can take everything. Not the shoes. You don’t wear a dead person’s shoes. 

Background: My informant is a seventy-nine year old Jewish woman living in Baltimore, Maryland. She describes herself as a follower of “bubbe-meises” (Yiddish), translated to “grandmother’s fables”, or a more serious version of old wive’s tales that are often accompanied by superstitions. 

Context: A previous informant was discussing a traditional Jewish practice of washing your hands after a funeral. A discussion ensued about Jewish funeral rites and traditions, and my informant mentioned this one. My informant learned that from her mother, and takes the practice incredibly seriously, though it is not a situation she personally has faced. However, she does recall her mother refusing to offer her father’s shoes to family friends after his passing. 

Analysis: My informant had no idea why this practice existed, nor is there any talmudic or religious reason connected to or behind this. It is possible that unlike shirts or pants, shoes cannot be washed, and so the person who used to inhabit them can never fully be removed from the shoes. It’s also possible that, pre-industrialization, a person only owned one pair of shoes, and therefore had a higher sentimental value/significance to the person. The shoes would also be tailor made for that individual, so it is possible that the family just couldn’t give away the person’s shoes, because they wouldn’t fit anybody else.