INTRODUCTORY UNIT - RITUALS, CULTURE AND US

1. JEWS AND LIFE CYCLES: OPENING WORDS

Judaism is a cultural system whose roots go back several thousand years. In that time, it has gone through many changes and developments. Biblical Judaism, Second Temple Judaism and Talmudic Judaism are differentiated in terms of the customs and practices that developed in the different countries and periods, as well as in the ways that the ideas of Judaism were incorporated into their daily lives.

In this regard, the Talmudic period (the five or so centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.), is perhaps the crucial stage. The rabbinical authorities who came to the fore at this time as the unchallenged leadership of the Jewish people, standardized, in completely new ways, the Halachic (legal) requirements that obligated the Jew in every area of his or her life. They created a base of legal requirements, onto which additional traditions could be grafted, according to circumstances. Through the following centuries, many local traditions - "minhagim" - as well as additional Halachot, developed in different places and swelled the obligations pertaining to many aspects of Jewish life. In many spheres of life, these minhagim were seen to have the same force as law.

This chain of events is as true for life cycle events as much as for anything else. Thus, when we examine any aspect of the life cycle in the Jewish culture, we are likely to find a dense core of Halachot and minhagim, often cushioned by additional traditions and beliefs, verging from the sublimely spiritual to the outright superstitious. But we always find a richness and depth that usually comes only in the oldest and deepest cultures.