The "Sacred Fool" in Judaism

From Jill Hammer and Holly Shere's forthcoming book, The Hebrew Priestess:

"The Fool", Pat B. Allen

One role of the sacred fool is to bring sexuality into the public sphere—to name that area of life and make it visible.  At the ancient celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, women celebrated Demeter and Persephone by telling bawdy jokes and stories.  In Japan, the goddess Uzume lured the sulking sun goddess Amaterasu out of her cave by telling bawdy jokes and dancing lasciviously—thus saving the world from chaos and darkness.  In sixteenth century Europe, Jewish women would tell bawdy jokes to the bride on the night before her wedding.  The bride would sit with a bowl in her lap, and as her hair was braided, people would throw money and presents into the bowl.  Women would sit around the bride, “chatting with her to make her merry, and telling her about naughty things to make her laugh.”  This ritual would have defused the bride’s fear and tension, and perhaps

The Fire-Juggling Rabbis of Beit Hashoevah

A fire-juggling rabbi

Below are some wonderful excerpts from the Talmud that vividly describe the juggling rabbis during Beit haShoevah (the water drawing ceremony that happened during Sukkot in the time of the First Temple) along with an English translation.

The Joy of the Water Drawing

תלמוד בבלי מסכת סוכה דף נא עמוד א, ב

משנה. מי שלא ראה שמחת בית השואבה לא ראה שמחה מימיו. במוצאי יום טוב הראשון של חג ירדו לעזרת נשים ומתקנין שם תיקון גדול. מנורות של זהב היו שם, וארבעה ספלים של זהב בראשיהם, וארבעה סולמות לכל אחד ואחד, וארבעה ילדים מפירחי כהונה, ובידיהם כדים של מאה ועשרים לוג שהן מטילין לכל ספל וספל. מבלאי מכנסי כהנים ומהמייניהן, מהן

A Jewish Circus Vocabulary

At "Gragger", Workmen's Circle's radical Purim party

Badchanim/Badchaniot: (meaning "joker" or "clown") is a scholarly comedian who traditionally entertains before and after Ashkenazic Jewish weddings. They are generally learned men and women comparable to a maggid or sermonizer. Currently they are only common in the Hasidic world. In Europe during the Middle Ages, there were among the Jewish communities traveling merrymakers who probably originally patterned themselves after the troubadours, but soon

Purim: The Seeds of a Jewish Circus

At a hoop-dance class in Tel Aviv

Circus arts education has great potential to engage with and reinforce a deeper and more playful sense of Jewish identity. Purim is a holiday that expresses the carnivalesque in Judaism through costume, mask and clowning, and lends itself naturally to circus performances. But circus imagery appears in many other texts and traditions within Judaism: descriptions of the Levite's musical performance during the Temple service, the Talmud's depiction of Beit haShoevah, and the appearance

The Background Image

The background image was included
in the exhibit "Emunah v'Omanut"
at Hebrew College in 2010

Fire in the Temple
Sefer Vayikra describes, in precise detail, the way the ancient Temple’s sacrificial system and burnt offerings served to balance the Cosmos. For me, as for the ancient priests, incorporating fire into ritual acts represents is a profound act of prayer and offering.

Firedancing
Unchecked, fire can be frightening, unpredictable, and destructive. "Fire-dancing", whether literally or through metaphor, allows us to play with this powerful energy. "Dancing" with fire is also a  kavannah (intention) in working with the "fiery" and potentially harmful pieces of our own and other’s personalities.

Isha and Eish

The Zohar teaches that in the ancient Temple, sacrifice was done for the sake of God’s unpronounceable four-letter name (yud, hey, vav, hey). In the letters of this name,