Transitions in this life consist of many different things, including but not limited to: birth, coming of age, marriage, and into the religious life. Each an important piece of time and defining moment within a person’s religion and culture, representing past events through the current and future lives of the members participating within them. What does each event or custom within a religion represent for each of its followers? Does each transition in life represent more than just, what its title indicates? As Mircea Eliade points out within his book Patterns in Comparative Religion, “Every ritual has the character of happening now, at this very moment. The time of the event that the ritual commemorates or re-enacts is made present, “re-presented”
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This transition in this life, includes the assumption of the obligation to observe the commandments, and formally marks the corresponding right to take part in leading religious services, to count in a minyan, to form binding contracts, and to testify before religious courts (Jewish Virtual Library). This added responsibility is given when a boy/girl reaches puberty and is, therefore, able to follow the commandments and introduces him/her to life as an adult within his/her culture. “Initiation ceremonies are based on the hope that the past may be abolished and a new time established” (Eliade 407). This transition from childhood to adulthood is taking credit for the actions that the boy/girl may complete after his/her bar/bat mitzvah removing the responsibility of his/her sins from his/her father and mother. The initiation ceremony into adulthood authenticates the boy/girl’s life and gives more meaning to the commandments given to Moses and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai. The bar /bat mitzvah do not only establish a new time in each Jews life, it is also the time that a boy becomes a bar mitzvah, son of the commandment, and a girl becomes a daughter of the commandment (Jewish Virtual …show more content…
Marriage is an important step in the earthly life of a Jewish man and woman since it is looked down upon and seen as abnormal to be single. The Jewish people follow and believe that woman was made, because, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Therefore, marriage, just like a bar or bot mitzvah, defines a member of the Jewish faith and is so significant that the Ketubah is signed as a marriage contract, even though it is not required for man and wife to sign such a premarital agreement of promises to each other. This commitment to one another, which takes place in an elaborate ceremony, represents more than a man and woman coming together in love, intimacy, and truth. A Jewish marriage opens forms a new Covenant with God and each other. “Time can be seen in a new dimension that we may call hierophanic, as a result of which succession, by its very nature, takes on not only a particular cadence, but also varying “vocations”, contradictory “dynamisms” (Eliade 389). A marriage in the Jewish faith, is a calling found within their beliefs to not only grow the Jewish faith, but to also signify the importance of a greater power in earthly
This transition in this life, includes the assumption of the obligation to observe the commandments, and formally marks the corresponding right to take part in leading religious services, to count in a minyan, to form binding contracts, and to testify before religious courts (Jewish Virtual Library). This added responsibility is given when a boy/girl reaches puberty and is, therefore, able to follow the commandments and introduces him/her to life as an adult within his/her culture. “Initiation ceremonies are based on the hope that the past may be abolished and a new time established” (Eliade 407). This transition from childhood to adulthood is taking credit for the actions that the boy/girl may complete after his/her bar/bat mitzvah removing the responsibility of his/her sins from his/her father and mother. The initiation ceremony into adulthood authenticates the boy/girl’s life and gives more meaning to the commandments given to Moses and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai. The bar /bat mitzvah do not only establish a new time in each Jews life, it is also the time that a boy becomes a bar mitzvah, son of the commandment, and a girl becomes a daughter of the commandment (Jewish Virtual …show more content…
Marriage is an important step in the earthly life of a Jewish man and woman since it is looked down upon and seen as abnormal to be single. The Jewish people follow and believe that woman was made, because, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Therefore, marriage, just like a bar or bot mitzvah, defines a member of the Jewish faith and is so significant that the Ketubah is signed as a marriage contract, even though it is not required for man and wife to sign such a premarital agreement of promises to each other. This commitment to one another, which takes place in an elaborate ceremony, represents more than a man and woman coming together in love, intimacy, and truth. A Jewish marriage opens forms a new Covenant with God and each other. “Time can be seen in a new dimension that we may call hierophanic, as a result of which succession, by its very nature, takes on not only a particular cadence, but also varying “vocations”, contradictory “dynamisms” (Eliade 389). A marriage in the Jewish faith, is a calling found within their beliefs to not only grow the Jewish faith, but to also signify the importance of a greater power in earthly