Tag Archives: Judaism

Midrash

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/9/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

INFO:
When Moses got the Torah tablets (Ten Commandments) from God, at the top of Mt. Sinai, he stood on the top of Mt. Sinai and spoke the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel/Jewish people, who were all standing at the base of the mountain. Like you do, he said certain words and everyone at the bottom heard something different from each other, which is also what happens in conversation — you don’t hear exactly what someone says, because you have to interpret everything you hear.

BACKGROUND:
A midrash is a story that was originally told by rabbis in order to fill in character story/background outside of the canonical text of the Torah. Over time, these stories would become passed down and written down in their own right, and though they are considered canonical now, they were originally told from the speculation of rabbis rather than the word of God, and are always told with that distinction.

The informant first learned this midrash around elementary school, from her father, and finds the story personally important to her because it gives her, as a Jewish person, the permission to interpret the text to be what she wants/needs it to be, and for that to be allowed. If someone else gets something else from a text than she does, then they can both be good interpretations without having to fight for authenticity.

CONTEXT:
I spoke to my informant during an on-campus event.

ANALYSIS:
I think it’s really interesting that a canonical religious text actually gave a lot of leeway to individual interpretations, and that those interpretations then got folded back into the general religious understanding.

I think the meaning that my informant gathered from the midrash is also beautiful, and uniquely suited to her kind of sensibilities. I’m not that familiar with the Old Testament, or with Jewish traditions at all, so to hear someone speak about her religious practice in a way I, someone who isn’t religious, could understand helped me gain a new perspective on both her religion and her.

The Afikomen: A Passover Tradition

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 17
Occupation: High school student, planning to major in physics or chemistry
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 15, 2012
Primary Language: English

“On a Passover seder, the adults hide the afikomen—a special piece of matzah [unleavened bread]—and the kids have to find it. (Usually, the adults hide it in really dumb places, like under a book.)  Our family, though, does this the other way around: the kids hide it, and the adults have to find it. I think this tradition comes from my Grandpa Ned’s side of the family.

“We always plan out our hiding places in advance, and try to make them good enough that the adults won’t be able to find the afikomen. Once, we opened up an old computer, put the afikomen inside, put the computer back together, and turned the computer on. My favorite hiding spot, however, was one I thought of last year: my friends and I opened up the smoke detector, took out all of the electrical equipment (so that the afikomen would fit in it), and put the afikomen there; meanwhile, we hid the electrical equipment somewhere else.

“When the adults were searching, one of them actually suggested looking inside the smoke detector. My dad, though, said that ‘there’s no way it could fit in there with all of the electrical equipment,’ because he didn’t think that we would take it out. Finally, when the adults gave up, I showed them the smoke detector electrical components to give them a hint. My dad had no idea what the equipment was, so I told him to hook it up to a battery. He said, ‘What is this? Am I going to get a secret coded message telling me where the afikomen is?’ When he connected a battery, the equipment made the sound of the smoke alarm, so he finally figured out where the afikomen was hidden.”

This tradition of hiding the afikomen has long been a part of the Jewish holiday of Passover, an eight-day festival that celebrates redemption from slavery in Egypt. The seder (a Hebrew word meaning ‘order’) is a ritual feast that families carry out in their homes at the start of Passover. Since a seder cannot end until the afikomen is eaten, hiding the afikomen has almost become a ritualized prank.

My informant feels that the afikomen tradition makes the holiday of Passover more meaningful and memorable for him personally, as it is one of the main reasons that he looks forward to Passover each year. He definitely intends to pass this tradition along to his children, stating that “I would definitely want them to come up with creative hiding places.”

The afikomen custom also reflects this holiday’s focus upon the younger generation. Seders customarily involve rituals in which children ask adults questions about the holiday; the Haggadah, a text that Jews read on Passover, even advises adults upon how to answer different sorts of questions from children. The afikomen ritual fits naturally into the seder, as it serves to keep children actively engaged with the holiday in the face of a long series of prayers.

Jewish Confirmation

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Maddy Heyman

Los Angeles, California

April 24, 2012

Folklore Type: Ritual

Informant Bio: Maddy Heyman is one of my apartment mates and good friends. She is a twenty year old Sophomore and double major in Theatre and Narrative Studies at The University of Southern California. She is from St. Paul, Minnesota and has lived there her whole life. Maddy is a very active member of her theatre community back in St. Paul. She also has acted and directed shows at USC. Although she is thriving in college despite tearing her meniscus and finding out she has mild Crohn’s disease, she is very attached to her home, family, friends, and Theatre community in St. Paul. Maddy is Jewish.

Context: Maddy and I were in our dimly lit apartment late in the night around midnight when I asked her to share some theatre folklore knowing she is a Theatre major. After she told me the theatre ritual, she said there was another ritual they do with her form of Judaism that is also really important to her.

Item: A Jewish ritual more specific to my form of Judaism, er Reformed Jew, is confirmation at fifteen or sixteen. It’s not like Bar or Baht Mitzvahs. Then you become a Jewish adult in the community. Reformed Jews get that at thirteen you’re not old enough to decide you’re gonna be a Jew adult. With Confirmation, you take a year and really study what it means to be a Jew. We looked controversial issues like birth control, homosexuals, and stem cell research. At the end we wrote confessional statements. They allowed us to confirm our faith but like on our own terms which was super cool. You can be like I accept it but I believe this or I wanna think about it this way (hand gestures on each side). Also we learned a lot about other religions, and why we would want to be Jews. I really got to decide and realize, yes, I want to be Jewish and hopefully raise my kids Jewish. It culminates a year of learning. At the end it culminates into a service where we read our statements and then they get published in a program.

Informant Analysis: I don’t know when it started. Just know it started cause they knew thirteen was too young, and we needed the chance to experience more before we make the big decision.

Analysis: Maddy identifies with this ritual because as she said it really helped her learn about the important decision she was going to have to make and helped her make it. This ritual is a reaction to a ritual of the past. Instead of changing the ritual the Reformed Jews added a new one. It is an example of Religious ideas changing over time.

  Alex Williams

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California

ANTH 333m   Spring 2012