Brettschneider v. Ochs: Political v. Spiritual Change

Brettschneider: “Ritual Encounters of a Queer Kind”
Ochs: Pg. 1-55

Both Brettschneider and Ochs take Driver’s call for ritualization to their own personal levels. Both authors speak of the transformation of self and the community that Driver champions. Both grapple with the extent to which order can and should be manipulated in ritual. Brettschneider calls for “coming out” rituals for lesbians, and Ochs calls for rituals for whoever feels the need for new ritual.

The striking difference between the authors’ perspectives is Brettschneider’s call for ritual to provoke outward change and Ochs’s call for ritual to provide inward change. Brettschneider focuses on the individual’s never-ending process of “becoming out,” of confessing to the world his or her personal identity and taking the according action. Thus, Brettschneider touches on Driver’s confessional modes and feeds into the ethical while calling for the according performative rituals. Ochs, on the other hand, focuses on the inward change that eventually causes outward change. She writes that rituals “confirm a sacred presence in the world, and move us to live in ways that are more moral and more righteous” (Ochs 31). While Brettschneider focuses more on the liminality of queers as a parallel to the liminality of Judaism and of ritual, Ochs focuses on the liminality aspects of ritual such as texts, ritual actions, and ritual objects. Brettschneider’s ritual changes the world directly, while Ochs’s ritual brings change into perspective or inspires spiritual change.