scholarly journals Can a Hasidic Tzaddik be called a Holy Fool? (Perception of the Rybnitser Rebbe in the USSR)

2021 ◽  
pp. 192-211
Author(s):  
Maria Kaspina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Charismatic Leader ◽  
Material World ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Holy Fool ◽  
Religious Meaning ◽  
The One

The article examines the reflection in oral stories and written hagiographic collections of the image of Rybnitser rebbe, Chaim Zanvl Abramovich (1896–1995) as a holy fool – a person who does not conform to social norms of behavior regarded as having a compensating divine blessing or inspiration. The combination of two characteristics – the canonization of the charismatic leader, and the adherence of this leader to some kind of deliberate strange behavior make it possible to draw certain parallels between the image of the tzaddik in Hasidism and the holy fool in the Christian tradition. The image of the Hasidic tzaddik is ambivalent; he combines two worlds, profane and sacred at the same time. He is understandable to his followers and strange to the uninitiated, which brings his perception closer to the attitude towards him as a holy fool among those who observe his actions and deeds from the outside. In the stories about the Rybnitser Rebbe, two opposite tendencies can be clearly traced. On the one hand, his customs such as to sprinkle ashes on his head, to immerse ritualy daily, stripping naked in any weather, and so on are not understandable for outsiders, not only for non-Jews, but even for Jews who have already managed to move away from the Jewish tradition or are far from the ideas of Hasidism. In this case, he is called crazy, blissful, etc. On the other hand, for the devoted Hasids of the rebbe, all his strange actions are endowed with a huge religious meaning, and only in order to escape from the authorities, he is forced to pretend to be crazy. In both cases, we can see clear parallels between the figure of tzaddiks and the image of holy fools as strange people out of this world who reveal the true pain points of the material world and help other people with their spiritual exploits.

There Ought to Be Roots

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Kappeler ◽  
Claudia Fichtel ◽  
Carel P. van Schaik
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Group Living ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Key Features ◽  
The One

This chapter explores the notion that the behavioural and cognitive constituents of human social norms have equivalents or precursors in humans’ closest living relatives, the non-human primates. Scrutiny of the definitions of various forms of conformity revealed, on the one hand, that some key features defining social norms are essentially impossible to infer in animals so that from a purist perspective, homologous equivalents of social norms cannot be demonstrated. On the other hand, this review revealed that functional equivalents or precursors of behavioural, emotional, and cognitive mechanisms constituting normative conformity are present and ubiquitous among (group-living haplorhine) non-human primates and that social patterns reflecting normative conformity have been described, hence supporting the authors’ main thesis that this salient aspect of human sociality, even though it may depend upon some uniquely derived features, has strong and long roots in the evolutionary history shared with other primates.

"Constantly in Motion

Transfers ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-96
Author(s):  
Frederike Felcht
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Foreign Markets ◽  
Material World ◽  
Geographical Mobility ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

In the nineteenth century, a significant change in the modern infrastructures of travel and communications took place. Hans Christian Andersen's (1805-1875) literary career reflected these developments. Social and geographical mobility influenced Andersen's aesthetic strategies and autobiographical concepts of identity. This article traces Andersen's movements toward success and investigates how concepts of identity are related to changes in the material world. The movements of the author and his texts set in motion processes of appropriation: on the one hand, Andersen's texts are evidence of the appropriation of ideas and the way they change by transgressing social spheres. On the other hand, his autobiographies and travelogues reflect how Andersen developed foreign markets by traveling and selling the story of a mobile life. Capturing foreign markets brought about translation and different appropriations of his texts, which the last part of this essay investigates.

scholarly journals Obrazki porażki [Images of Failure]

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xawery Stańczyk
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Artistic Performance

Images of FailureOn the one hand, the sphere of art offers the possibility to imagine a different, less oppressive and normative world, where just as in the case of cartoons even the greatest gawks, misfits, and outcasts would build friendships and alliances helping them to reach a happy ending. On the other hand, there is something of an artistic performance, at least of an illusionist show, to an intentional act of failure. To perform failure, one has to improvise, to operate randomly, blunderingly, and ostentatiously, as well as to resist the social norms and rules. The artworks that are presented here pertain to all of these meanings of the “art of failure”.Obrazki porażkiSztuka jest z jednej strony sferą, w której można wyobrazić sobie inny, mniej opresyjny i normatywny świat; w nim – jak w kreskówkach – międzygatunkowe przyjaźnie i sojuszenawet największych gamoni, odmieńców i wyrzutków prowadzą do szczęśliwego zakończenia. Z drugiej strony w intencjonalnym uprawianiu porażki jest coś ze sztuki, a przynajmniejsztuczki prestidigitatora. Performowanie porażki wymaga zdolności improwizacji, podążania po omacku, dyletanctwa, fanfaronady oraz przeciwstawiania się społecznym normom i regułom. Prezentowane tu prace nawiązują do tych sensów „sztuki porażki”. 

Cultivating Ambiguity

Jailcare ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Sufrin
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structural Vulnerability ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

This chapter looks at how jail health workers are constantly confronted with the incoherence of the ostensibly coherent domains of carcerality and biomedical care. Such attention to ambiguity in clinic workers' actions and relationships was the essence of jailcare—a kind of care that grapples with inequality writ large. The ambiguity of jailcare asks fundamental questions about the moral worthiness of prisoners receiving care—people who, on the one hand, have ostensibly violated legal-social norms and may be seen as less deserving of services; and who, on the other hand, are marginalized by poverty, addiction, and racism, and deserve care because of their structural vulnerability.

Text, Werk und Peritext

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Johnny Kondrup
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Material World ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

AbstractThe paper investigates Gérard Genette’s concept ‘peritext’ in relation to the concepts ‘text’ and ‘work’. It is obvious that Genette regards both text and work (which he tends to mix up) as immaterial entities and conceives the peritext as their way into the material world. The peritext forms a path between the text, considered as a series of linguistic signs, and the physical document, which is the book.Certain peritexts are indeed material (such as the format of the book and its typography). But other peritexts are linguistic, i. e. texts, and as such immaterial (e. g. the preface and the colophon). This ambiguity might be avoided if the term ‘peritext’ was confined to the linguistic ones and the material peritexts were labeled ‘materiality’.Also, Genette’s notion of ‘work’ is ambiguous. On the one hand, he describes a work as synonymous with a text, and on the other hand, he confines the term to a certain class of (literary) texts. None of the notions is in accordance with his argumentation, underneath which lies implicitly the idea of the work as a ‘polytext’.Finally, the paper discusses which peritexts can be regarded as belonging to the whole work, and which belong only to a certain version of the work or to a specific copy (document).

Ciało i duch w pismach Andrzeja Towiańskiego

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Marek Stanisz
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Material World ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Will ◽  
Spiritual Reality ◽  
The One ◽  
Christian Perfection ◽  
Full Maturity

Body and spirit in Towiański’s writings Relationship between the body and the soul is one of the crucial issues that romantic anthropology, whose representatives included Andrzej Towiański, is concerned with. The founder of Koło Sprawy Bożej was convinced, just like other romanticists, that material world was subordinate to spiritual reality, as well as that the spirit unquestionably preceded over the body. Towiański underscored the key role that the body should play in one’s striving to achieve Christian perfection, which he believed to be a state of full maturity of a human being. According to Towiański, the body can only serve a man appropriately, when it is subject to the will of the spirit. Thus, the body should be appreciated and seen as a means to spiritual improvement and the entrance gate to a higher reality. On the one hand, this improvement should be achieved through offering a ‘three-fold Christian sacrifice’, recognising God’s intention in suffering that is being experienced and observing strict ethics in marital life, and on the other hand appreciation of bodily needs: cultural entertainment, proper fun and fitness.

Surface assemblages. Towards an archaeology in and of the present

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Harrison
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Material World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Surface Survey ◽  
The One ◽  
Contemporary Past

AbstractThis paper explores a central paradox in the aims of the archaeology of the contemporary past as they have been articulated by its practitioners. On the one hand, its aim has been expressed as one of making the familiar ‘unfamiliar’, of distancing the observer from their own material world; a work of alienation. On the other hand, it has also aimed to make the past more accessible and egalitarian; to recover lost, subaltern voices and in this way to close the distance between past and present. I suggest that this paradox has stymied its development and promoted a culture of self-justification for a subfield which has already become well established within archaeology over the course of three decades. I argue that this paradox arises from archaeology's relationship with modernity and the past itself, as a result of its investment in the modernist trope of archaeology-as-excavation and the idea of a past which is buried and hidden. One way of overcoming this paradox would be to emphasize an alternative trope of archaeology-as-surface-survey and a process of assembling/reassembling, and indeed to shift away from the idea of an ‘archaeology of the contemporary past’ to speak instead of an archaeology ‘in and of the present’. This would reorient archaeology so that it is seen primarily as a creative engagement with the present and only subsequently as a consideration of the intervention of traces of the past within it. It is only by doing this that archaeology will develop into a discipline which can successfully address itself to the present and future concerns of contemporary societies. Such a move not only has implications for archaeologies of the present and recent past, but concerns the very nature and practice of archaeology as a discipline in its broadest sense in the 21st century.

scholarly journals Ku wolności wyzwolił nas Chrystus (Ga 5,1). Teologiczne aspekty ludzkiej wolności

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Janusz Królikowski
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Saint Paul ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The discovery of universal freedom is an achievement of Saint Paul, and an achievement of the Church is a consequent propagation of this fact throughout the centuries. The Christian character of this discovery was already noticed by Hegel. In today’s world, so strongly marked by the search of freedom it is necessary to reiterate the Christian vision of freedom which is a universal one. This vision is profoundly theological in character and deeply rooted in the mystery of redemption brought by Jesus Christ. This article touches upon this fact and points out its certain aspects, especially the soteriological one. Bearing in mind the theology of freedom we cannot ignore its abundant anthropological references. The article recalls the proposition of St. Thomas Aquinas, which has been largely accepted by Catholic theology and constitutes a benchmark of anthropological philosophy which has a special application in ethics. Christian tradition stresses the fact that for a human, freedom is above all “a vocation”. Therefore, on the one hand God’s definite design through Jesus Christ concerning man has to find its eschatological realization, on the other hand man’s freedom which is solidifying in this design has to revel and show itself to the full. Undoubtedly, the eschatological issue in Christian vision of freedom is worth mentioning as well.

scholarly journals Taras Shevchenko’s Сhristian cordocentrism

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-250
Author(s):  
Olga Bigun
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Cultural Methods ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
Individual Style

The article deals with adoption of Christian tradition in poetry of Taras Shevchenko. Theoretical basis includes methodological principles of hermeneutics, the philosophicoaesthetic approach to art, cross-cultural methods. On the one hand, the sources of the creative components by Shevchenko’s ethics and aesthetics are related in Christian tradition. On the other hand, as a result of cordocentrist intention of the Ukrainian ethnos, Christian canon was deprived of the big part of rigorism in Old-Kyiv period. Shevchenko’s aesthetic theology is insufficiently investigated but it characterizes the absence of stark categories, dogmas and rituals. It gives an opportunity to speak about the apophatic approach in Shevchenko’s dialectic of God-seeking which appears in the apophatic approach of individual style which also you can find in Old Kyivan authors’ works. The outcome of our investigation proves that the Shevchenko’s adoption of Christian tradition shows the priority of aesthetic and cultural landmarks of Kyiv Christianity.

Hoover’s Judeo-Christians

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Imhoff
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
American Judaism ◽  
American Values ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

This chapter considers the FBI's ambivalent relationship to Jews and Judaism during the 1940s through the 1960s. It explains how could Jews be seen as unAmerican while Judaism was believed to play a foundational part in sustaining American values. On the one hand, mid-century antisemitism and Cold War ideologies combined to create suspicion of Jewish leftists, as the antagonistic relationship between the FBI and Hollywood demonstrated. On the other hand, "Judeo-Christian" rhetoric and the embrace of a "Judeo-Christian" tradition became an essential part of what differentiated America from the supposedly godless USSR for Hoover and many other Cold War era Americans. The author Sarah Imhoff, a scholar of American Judaism, explores this tension as she traces the fraught role of Jews in the FBI culture of the Hoover era.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document