Often times Jewish people are referred to as ‘the people of the book,’ or in Hebrew, ‘Am Hasefer.’ This nickname comes from their deep connection to the Torah, also known as the Written Testament, which is a scroll containing the Jewish laws. Three times a day for all seven days of the week, Jewish men gather at their local synagogue to worship and pray to their God. On Monday, Thursday, and Saturday service, the Torah is removed from the ark, in the front of the room, that it is kept in, and is read out loud. On Saturday, also known as the Jewish Sabbath, a larger crowd gathers at the synagogue because of the increase of women and children in attendance. The atmosphere can be described as having a sort of party vibe to it both before the prayers begin and after they have been concluded. However, once prayers begin, everyone must remain quiet and respectful; they are solemn and in awe of what is happening.
The way the prayers are conducted is as follows; the hazzan, or cantor, stands in the center of the room on an elevated step called the bima. He leads the services, and after the completion of the first portion of the prayers, the hazzan removes the Torah from inside the ark and reads from it. The reading of the Torah is constantly changing; each Sabbath, a specific portion or the Torah designated for that week is read. When the weekly section of reading is done, the Torah is lifted in the air and everyone says a blessing together. The Torah is then covered and carried around the room for everyone to touch and kiss before it is returned to the ark.
The reason why the cantor reads from the bima is to proclaim the Torah to the people in the synagogue the same way God proclaimed the Torah on Mount Sinai. It is this kind of dramatic reenactment that helps Jews relive what took place on Mount Sinai so that the Jews can understand what Moses felt and experienced when he accepted the Torah from God. Eliade states that the way the Torah is read and treated shows how important and holy it is. The Torah reading nowadays can help everyone in the synagogue imagine what it was like when the Torah was first accepted. This requires imagination and the intentional focus on what is important; mainly, being the people of Israel and accepting the laws at the hands of Moses. Everything that happens in the synagogue is supposed to highlight this event and allow Jews to experience this moment anew. For Eliade, everything Jews do is going to be an imitation of what happened the first time. The distance between the present and past is collapsed with this imaginative recreation, and as a result, Jews feel closer to God, and the to the first event that truly made the Jewish people a nation. Taking pledges to obey the law and having God say, “Be my people and I will be your God,” essentially makes Jews proclaim their love to God and do their best to serve him. For Eliade, being religious is wanting to be maintain a synchronicity with the holiest part of life.
Durkheim has a different perspective to the pscho-social role of religion to that of ELiade. He argues that the Torah is assigned a recognition of divinity, and therefore read, carried, and kissed, this is the true sign of the Torah’s holiness, the symbol and reverence it plays for the faith community. For Durkheim, religion is the driving force that unites a group of people and allows them to recognize themselves as a distinct group. Religion generates the sense and feeling of social unity. Therefore, on the Sabbath, when all the people from the synagogue come together, they socialize before the service starts and after the service ends. They are all coming together with a certain kind of high spirit which is the reason for their gathering. It is looked at as a cause and effect of one another. Jews come together because their spirits are elevated and their spirits are elevated because they decide to come together. These two aspects reinforce one another and act as one ultimate goal.
Durkheim focuses on the gathering of people. The gathering may be looked at as having a party vibe, but it still maintains a level of respect and seriousness needed to show how holy the Jewish religion is in its entirety. Durkheim states that the Torah holds Jews together and Jews hold the Torah together. Honoring the Torah scroll and its contents gives Jews a group identity that is unbreakable, that being, the people of the book.
Both Durkheim and Eliade believe the Torah scroll is holy. However, Durkheim believes it is holy because he finds the Torah scroll to be a sacred part of the Jewish history. It’s not an object that can be treated poorly, rather it’s something special that Jews treat with the utmost respect. Therefore, one can recognize it as an instigator of holiness. The Torah is holy because it forms the Jewish religion, giving Jews a guidance of how to live and approach life.
Eliade and Durkheim argue that it's by virtue of dedication to the content of the torah scroll that the Jewish people are the Jewish people. Eliade argues that what's important is the connection with the holy, and Durkheim argues that the holy, in this case the Torah, earns its holiness, in so far as it empowers a group to be. By analyzing the reading of the Torah and how it is carried around, one can see how Eliade sees his way into it and how Durkheim perceives the scroll as holy; but in a sense, they end up in the same place. Every week you are renewing your dedication to being the people of the scroll.
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