Inward Acculturation: Using the Vernacular Blog for the Benefit of Judaism

Marcus, "Introduction," "Birth, Bris, Schooling"

According to Ivan G. Marcus, “Jewish rites not only emerge and develop over time, but they are diverse at any one point in time” (Marcus 9). With such a statement, Marcus sets out to map examples of change in Jewish practices throughout the thousands of years of Jewish history. Marcus focuses largely on how change in Jewish ritual derives from other cultures. Through “inward acculturation” (Marcus 4), he claims, Jews have negotiated their rituals with that of majority cultures’, incorporating foreign rituals into Judiasm where they benefit Judaism and rejecting foreign rituals where they would be detrimental to Judaism. New ritual becomes increasingly acculturated as it is passed down from generation to generation. One form of inward acculturation can be seen as the adaptation of vernacular practices from outside cultures for practical reasons. This, in turn, can influence the logistics of religious ritual practices. Another form of inward acculturation is the repetition and reinterpretation of ritual from outside customs. Jews have also shaped outside ritual that they disagree with into ritual following Jewish beliefs as a sort of rebellion against the adapted ritual. While inward acculturation transforms Judaism into heightened forms of itself, “outward acculturation” (Marcus 5) exists as the adaptation of outside culture at the expense of Jewish growth. When Jewish society undergoes “outward acculturation,” it separates its religious identity from its other identities, such as national, gender, and political, and gets rid of the aspects of Judaism that do not fit with new ideals. In Marcus’s analysis of acculturation, he considers how Jews can be seen and have seen themselves as a separate community from the majority culture, founded on a rich history and on a belief in the exclusivity of their nation in God’s sight.

Marcus’s explanation of the change of Jewish rites of passage throughout time largely parallels with Driver’s views on ritual transformation. Marcus’s inward and outward acculturation can be compared to Driver’s strong and weak dialectic, respectively. In inward acculturation, the association of unfamiliar practices can be seen as an entrance into liminality. When that unfamiliar becomes familiar in future generations, a Jewish rite has been transformed. Outward acculturation remains weak, as it fails to incorporate the liminality of outside ritual into Jewish practice. Judaism thus remains static and personally meaningless. While Driver discusses ritualization not only as the transformation of ritual but as the transformation of the performers of ritual, Marcus mentions Arnold van Gennep’s division of rites of passage into separation, transition, and incorporation. According to van Gennep, Jewish rites of passage begin with the separation of an individual from meaningful society. In order to achieve that access to meaning, the individual must enter a transition, or perhaps a liminal, space in which ritual is performed. The performer then leaves that space with the liminal incorporated into his or her life. The performer has thus been transformed. With every necessary Jewish passage, from weddings, to circumcision, to a first haircut, Jews have the chance to provoke a strong dialectic within their own lives.

By performing and altering ritual, Jews are constantly accomplishing “performative Midrash” (Marcus 10). Through ritual, they have the chance to constantly interpret the Torah in a way that provides meaning and transformation in their lives. Furthermore, they can adapt ritual in order to confess to the world their stance on religion. By explaining ritual in such a way, Marcus outlines Driver’s ritual, performance, and confessional modes. Perhaps Marcus's views can even be expanded into the ethical mode with a hope that inward acculturation can lead to better intercultural understanding and enhanced religious identity among individuals, providing them with the spiritual impetus to change the world according to their beliefs.

In “Birth, Bris, and Schooling,” Marcus mentions rituals that began hundreds or thousands of years ago and were only put into place again during this century. As Marcus lays out guidelines for inward acculturation, I wonder what his guidelines would be for a sort of internal acculturation, how Jews learn from their ancestors and their current peers in order to shape new ritual.