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RECORD, TAKE IT DOWN, AND COLLECT A P P E N D I X M P erhaps in the course of your reading, you have begun already to observe and assess Jewish ritual innovations. Should you choose to do so more intensively, I offer these methodological suggestions . This open-ended approach to collecting evidence of new ritual, inspired by the Yiddish writer Shlomo Ansky, characterizes my own research process and might inspire yours. Let Ansky Inspire You Between 1911 and 1915, Ansky (best known for his play The Dybbuk ) led ethnographic expeditions to the Eastern European shtetls to preserve and document the artifacts, stories, songs, clothing, and even healing practices of Jewish life. He feared they would be forgotten, the inevitable consequence of a growing abandonment of a traditional Jewish way of life, or be destroyed, as a consequence of the devastations of war. He gathered an entourage that included the writer Y. L. Peretz, a composer, an ethnomusicologist, a painter, and a photographer. Abraham Rechtsman, one of the assembled, recalled: Everywhere we came we collected the historical treasures we found: we noted down tales, legends, sayings, spells, remedies and histories told to us by men and women; we documented stories about demons, dybbuks … we recorded old melodies— nigunim—, as well as prayers and folksongs; we photographed old synagogues, historical places, tombstones, shtiblech of tzadikim [the prayer houses of revered, holy men] …; and we collected or bought Jewish antiques, documents, pinkassim [record books], religious articles, jewelry, costumes.1 On January 1, 1915, Ansky and Peretz wrote an open letter to the readers of the Warsaw Yiddish daily, entreating Jews everywhere to follow their lead and preserve Jewish life. Their plea, so painfully prescient , would anticipate the even more horrible era to follow: Record, take it down, and collect. See to it that nothing is lost or forgotten … record everything, knowing thereby that you are collecting necessary material for the construction of Jewish history during this horribly important and terribly vital moment … whatever can be recorded should be recorded, and whatever can be photographed should be photographed. Collecting in Ansky’s Day, and in Our Own There are important differences between Ansky’s collecting and my own. There is the clear matter of rationale. Ansky collected and admonished others to do likewise because he saw strong evidence that a way of life (though one he no longer embraced, as we shall see) would soon be lost. Jewish life that had flourished in the Pale of Settlement and in Galicia was indeed as vulnerable as Ansky believed it was and even more so; the barbaric massacres he witnessed called for emergency measures. 260 INVENTING JEWISH RITUAL By blessed contrast, American Judaism is not on the verge of being lost, though some sound the alarm. I resist embracing the persistent popular anxiety that erupts, one that is possibly fanned for its salubrious effects on fund-raising. It holds that Jewish ways of life, practices, beliefs, study, and memory are more vulnerable in our hands than in those of our ancestors. Perhaps I delude myself, but I see no evidence that American Jewry stands on the precipice of annihilation. When we are privileged to know power, influence, and affluence, prudence becomes us more than anxiety. I collect evidence of Jewish innovation because I am inspired by the plethora of new and emerging spiritual practices, rituals, liturgies, and ritual objects that expand the possibilities for contemporary sacred Jewish experience. I collect because I know objects will teach me to discover practices that I cannot yet see. I have collected in the spirit of one amassing a collection of contemporary paintings: not merely to possess but to contemplate. Unlike Ansky, I am privileged to collect at a pace that is at times slow and deliberate, and at other times, spontaneous and exuberant. ETHNOGRAPHIC EXPEDITION My ethnographic expedition took place at my synagogue, my JCC, one daughter’s Jewish day school, the other’s college Hillel, my grocery store, at friends’ homes. It took place in my kitchen, my living room, my jewelry box. Some of my collecting was done without ever leaving home, and was based on close readings of texts that came my way, all providing evidence pointing to new practices being generated. My research began when cyberspace was not as cozy to us as our own kitchens, and before we were relying on the Internet to access religious information and even have spiritual experiences. Now nearly all my access to new Jewish rituals, texts...

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