A guidebook to the most current trends in contemporary Jewish art and design, Reinventing Ritual provides an unprecedented look at the work and thought of contemporary artists as they respond to the needs and practices of traditional culture. Beautifully illustrated with new art from Israel, Europe, and the Americas, this publication features both traditional and avant-garde sculpture, textiles, architecture, metalwork, and ceramics by forty leading artists. Author Daniel Belasco surveys current trends in Jewish ritual art and the influences of feminism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, and new media; Julie Lasky provides a groundbreaking discussion of the role of recycling and social consciousness in contemporary Jewish design; Danya Ruttenberg, a recently ordained rabbi, offers a lively perspective on the constantly evolving Jewish impulse "to concretize the encounter with the Divine"; Arnold M. Eisen writes an absorbing and personal commentary on the role of ritual in Jewish life today; and Tamar Rubin contributes an illustrated timeline covering key Jewish cultural and historical events from 1994 to 2008. Published in association with The Jewish Museum Exhibition Schedule: The Jewish Museum, New York (September 13, 2009-February 7, 2010) Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (April 22 - September 28, 2010)

Providing a personal, informed and cultural perspective on rites of passage for general readers, this text illustrates the power of rites to help us navigate life's troublesome transitions.

This book argues that literary features and ritual dynamics within the book of Leviticus enlighten each other. The first two chapters establish that one may read Leviticus as a coherent literary work and define the genre of Leviticus as "narrativized ritual," a complex blending of descriptive narrative and prescriptive ritual. In conversation with Catherine Bell, they present several aspects of the text that are ritualized and show how this ritualization implies a negotiation of power relations among participants. The third and fourth chapters examine the first half of Leviticus, both the legal sections in Lev. 1-7 and 11-15 and the narratives in Lev. 8-10 and 16. These sections alternate between establishing the ritual system and exposing gaps and ambiguities in that system.Chapter 5 turns to the second half of Leviticus, traditionally called the Holiness Code. The ritual language found in this section is less formal and precise, mirroring the way in which the concept of holiness is expanded and extended to the whole people. As this material concludes the book, it relativizes and democratizes the strict ritual system contained in the first half.

There’s nothing quite like a hot, soothing bowl of soup. It’s a leisurely meal—a purposeful one that offers pause for reflection between every savory spoonful. What if you approached every meal as if it were that delicious bowl of soup? In Reinventing the Meal, you’ll learn how to reconnect with your body, mind, and world with a three-course approach to mindful eating. Inside, you’ll find mindfulness exercises to help you slow down and enjoy your food, pattern-interruption meditations to infuse presence into your eating life, and unique stress management tips to prevent emotional overeating. In addition, you’ll discover a wealth of philosophical perspectives that will inspire you to focus on the quality of your eating experience, rather than on the quantity of what you eat. Designed to help you embrace the ritual of eating (and discover the power of mindful meditation in the process), this book will ultimately change the way you view your meals—as not only sustenance for the body, but for the soul as well.

A fascinating analysis of how the study of ritual is critical to illuminating what is Jewish about Jewishness.

Revisiting the dominant scientific method, 'coding,' with which investigators from sociology to literary criticism have sampled texts and catalogued their cultural messages, the author demonstrates that the celebrated hard outputs rest on misleading samples and on unfeasible classifying of the texts' meanings.

A celebration of innovation and creativity in Jewish ritual