In this paper I will endeavor to show how the three pilgrimage feasts of the Jewish liturgy manifest and embody the Jewish ideological system of God, Torah, and Israel.  It must be remembered as indicated in my earlier paper that these three elements are held together by a principle of authoritative interpretation, which is passed down through the rabbinic texts, and that this system of interpretation is what actually connects the three elements and helps them to become a living reality in the Jewish community.  Judaism is more than simply a system of belief, it is a way of life and in order to manifest this reality the tradition developed a system of ritual observances, some based in the written Torah and some based in the oral Torah.  The various feasts within the liturgical cycle form the ritual observance of the Law and as a consequence they become a place of encounter for the people of Israel with God and with the events of Sacred History, which are in some sense actualized and made a living reality through the act of worship and remembrance.

          The three pilgrimage feasts all have a connection to the agricultural cycle of the land of Israel, and in this sense they embody the third element within the ideological system.  Jews throughout the world pray for rain during the time in which it would be most beneficial to the land of Israel, even if they themselves are living in eastern Europe, or in South America.  In this way the agricultural underpinning of the feast connects the Jewish people to the land of the promise, and by relation it also connects them to God and the Torah, for the Lord is the one who promised Abraham and his descendants the land, and He renewed this promise on Mount Sinai when He delivered the Torah to Moses. 

          The feast of the Passover was a harvest festival, but it is reinterpreted in the Bible as the feast commemorating the exodus of the people of Israel out of Egypt.  The Book of Exodus recounts how God commanded Moses to instruct the people of Israel to “slaughter a lamb (an animal that was also an Egyptian deity), and to sprinkle some of its blood on their doorposts.  Thus, when the Angel of Death saw the blood, he would know that the house was occupied by an Israelite and would pass over (in Hebrew, pesach) it when he came to slay the firstborn” [Telushkin, 581].  The use of unleavened bread in this festival is connected to the bread of affliction which the Israelites made just before leaving Egypt.  The various rituals of the Seder meal are “geared to spur, not so much a leap of memory as a fusion of past and present.  Memory here is no longer recollection, which still preserves a sense of distance, but reactualization” [Yerushalmi, 44].  Thus through the liturgical acts of remembrance the events recalled are relived and become operative for the worshiper.  This feast manifests the ideological system by recalling the formation of the people of Israel as a nation and simultaneously their liberation by God, who then gave them the Law; so that  all three elements are present in this festival in some way.

          The next feast is called Shavuot (in Greek Pentecost), also known as the feast of Weeks, there are “precisely fifty days between the second day of Passover and Shavuot” [Telushkin, 592].  The first forty-nine days are called the Omer and “each day is counted aloud during the evening service. . . . [and] on the fiftieth day, Shavuot is celebrated” [Telushkin, 592].  This feast originally was connected to the harvest season, with Shavuot itself celebrated as the harvest’s end, but the Talmud “teaches that God gave the Jews the Ten Commandments on the sixth of Sivan, the first night of Shavuot” [Telushkin, 592-593].  The Talmudic interpretation thus connects this agricultural feast to the three elements of the ideological system, and the Torah in particular.

          The last of the three pilgrimage feasts is Sukkot, which is also know as the feast of Tabernacles, this is the feast of the vintage, but it came to commemorate the wandering of the Jews in the wilderness and the tabernacles or booths which are part of the celebration are meant to recall “the booths in which the Israelites dwelled in the desert.  By ‘dwelling’ in such a precarious hut one is expected to experience the insecurity of the Hebrews during their wanderings in the desert for forty years, and to be inspired with a feeling of trust in God who led the Hebrews safely through the desert and brought them to the Promised Land” [Millgram, 315].  This recollection of Sacred History connects the festival to the three elements of the ideological system; but even the rituals involving the lulav and the etrog connect the Jewish people to the ideological system, because they deal with the climate of the Land of Israel and these items are used as part of the ritual prayer requesting rain.

          The liturgical celebration of these three feasts, along with the whole festal calendar helps to embody and manifest the ideological system which is the origin of the Jewish people.  By connecting the events of Sacred History to the agricultural festivals, the three elements of the Jewish system, God (the author of history and creation), Torah (the commandments for right living) and Israel (the people of God), become a living reality to the successive generations of the descendants of Abraham, and the beliefs of Judaism rather than simply being a form of abstract doctrine are made relevant and concrete.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abraham Millgram.  Jewish Worship.  (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1971).

Joseph Telushkin.  Jewish Literacy.  (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991).

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi.  Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory.  (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996).

Jewish Ritual:  The Embodiment of the Jewish Ideological System

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Jewish Studies 300:  Introduction to Jewish Studies

Professor Fred Astren

12 October 1999

Copyright © 1999-2024 Steven Todd Kaster