Engaging All the Senses
On Multi-sensory Stimulation in the Process of Making and Inaugurating a Torah Scroll
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/post.32694Keywords:
Artefactual use, Sensory integration, Torah scroll, Procession, TransitivityAbstract
Based on an analysis of the process of making and inaugurating a Torah scroll, this article describe what is likely to trigger sensory responses in the participants in each phase of the process and the function of activating the five senses of touch, hearing, vision, smell, and taste. By distinguishing between hermeneutical and artefactual uses of sacred texts and drawing on sensory integration theory, it argues that multi-sensory stimulation in handling the Torah scroll brings people close and enables nonconscious internal negotiation between individual memories, cultural representations, and the immediate environment. In this way, sense-stimulation facilitates the transitivity crucial for individual subject formation as part of a greater collective.
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———. 2010. “Accounts of a dying scroll: On Jewish handling of sacred texts in need of restoration or disposal.” In The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts in World Religions, edited by Kristina Myrvold, 11–29. London: Ashgate.
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Avrin, Leila. 1991. Scribes, Script and Books: The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Chicago/London: American Library Association/The British Library.
Bundy, Anita B., Shelly J. Lane and Elizabeth A. Murray. 2002. Sensory Integration: Theory and Practice, 2nd edition. Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davies Company.
Elbogen, Ismar. 1993. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.
Finkelberg, Margalit and Guy Stroumsa, eds. 2003. Homer, the Bible and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World. Leiden. Brill.
Friedman, Jen Taylor. nd. “Milestones.” www.hasoferet.com. Accessed 17 October 2016.
Grimes, Ronald L. 2005. “Procession.” Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition, edited by Lindsay Jones, 7416–7418. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference.
Hayes, John E. and Russell S. J. Keast. 2011. “Two decades of supertasting: Where do we stand?” Physiology & Behavior 104(5): 1072–1074. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.08.003
Keeley, Brian L. 2002. “Making sense of the senses: Individuating modalities in humans and other animals.” Journal of Philosophy 99(1): 5–28. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil20029915
Malley, Brian. 2004. How the Bible Works: An Anthropological Study of Evangelical Biblicism Oxford: AltaMira Press.
McDonald, Lee Martin and James Sanders, eds. 2002. The Canon Debate. Peabody: Hendrickson.
Porteous, J. Douglas. 1985. “Smellscape.” Progress in Human Geography 9(3): 356–378. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913258500900303
Ricoeur, Paul. 1979. “The ‘Sacred’ Text and the Community.” In The Critical Study of Sacred Texts, edited by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty. Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union.
———. 2003. The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language. London: Routledge.
———. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth: The Texas Christian University Press.
Schleicher, Marianne. 2009a. “Artifactual and hermeneutical use of scripture in Jewish tradition.” In Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon, edited by Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias, 48–65. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
———. 2009b. “The many faces of the Torah: Reception and transformation of the Torah in Jewish communities.” In Religion and Normativity: Receptions and Transformations of the Bible, edited by Kirsten Nielsen, Vol. 2: 141–158. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
———. 2010. “Accounts of a dying scroll: On Jewish handling of sacred texts in need of restoration or disposal.” In The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts in World Religions, edited by Kristina Myrvold, 11–29. London: Ashgate.
———. 2011. “Constructions of sex and gender: Attending to androgynes and tumtumim through Jewish scriptural use.” Literature and Theology 25(4): 422–435. https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frr051
Scholem, Gershom. 1952. “Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der kabbalistischen Konception der Schechina.” Eranos Jahrbuch 21: 45–107.
Stern, David. 1987. “Midrash.” In Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, edited by Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, 613–620. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Waskul, Dennis D., Phillip Vannini and Janelle Wilson. 2009. “The aroma of recollection: Olfaction, nostalgia, and shaping of the sensuous self.” Senses and Society 4(1): 5–22. https://doi.org/10.2752/174589309X388546
Watts, James W. 2013. “The three dimensions of scriptures.” In Iconic Books and Texts, edited by James W. Watts, 9–32. London: Equinox
Watts, James W. 2015. “Iconic scriptures from decalogue to Bible.” Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 6(2): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.7202/1032712ar
Published
2017-08-19
Issue
Section
Special Issue Articles
How to Cite
Schleicher, M. (2017). Engaging All the Senses: On Multi-sensory Stimulation in the Process of Making and Inaugurating a Torah Scroll. Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts, 8(1-2), 39-56. https://doi.org/10.1558/post.32694
