Spiritual Expression Research Articles

Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy by Chaim Waxman

Reviewed by: Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy by Chaim Waxman David Ellenson Chaim Waxman . Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy . Liverpool : Littman Library of Jewish Civilization , 2017 . vi + 226 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009420000604 In 1967, the famed sociologist Peter Berger declared that "secularization has resulted in a widespread collapse of the plausibility of traditional religious definitions of reality." 1 Almost five decades later, in 2014, Berger was moved to conclude that this observation was simply wrong. He candidly admitted, [End Page 198] "So-called secularization theory was mistaken in the assumption that modernity necessarily leads to a decline in religion." 2 In his later work, Berger argued that the pluralism and fragmentation that marked the modern social condition led to the resurgence of traditional religion and a renewed quest for spiritual expression and meaning in the modern context. This development serves as a decisive backdrop for understanding the substance and importance of Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy by Chaim Waxman. Waxman, who (along with Samuel Heilman) is the foremost contemporary sociological commentator on the state of Orthodox Judaism, writes as the paradigmatic "insider-outsider" in all his writings on Orthodox Judaism in the contemporary setting. In this volume, he draws brilliantly on this lifetime of scholarship to illuminate the history and character of Orthodox Judaism in America in a time of religious revival. His framework is self-consciously "sociological rather than ideological or religious-legal" (3). He emphasizes throughout his book that Orthodox Judaism cannot be understood apart from the contours of the sociological and historical contexts in which Orthodox Jews and their institutions find themselves. Waxman's portrait of American Orthodox Judaism shows what distinguishes Orthodox Jews and Judaism from non-Orthodox Jews and Judaism in this nation while highlighting the breadth and diversity of American Orthodox Judaism itself. At the very outset of this volume, Waxman employs the familiar categories of "Modern Orthodox" and "ultra-Orthodox" as "ideal-types" for comprehending the nature of Orthodox Judaism both past and present in America. While each group displays a commitment to halakhic observance, the birthrates of each group, their economic success in American society, and their attitudes toward a whole host of social and cultural issues demonstrate the diversity of Orthodox opinions and practices. Waxman illuminates what distinguishes all circles of American Orthodox Jews from the non-Orthodox by highlighting their demographic, political, and cultural-religious differences. He points out that in the New York area, the birthrate in the ultra-Orthodox community is twelve times that of the non-Orthodox world and that Modern Orthodox Jews have more than double the birthrate of Reform and Conservative Jews nationwide. Politically, the Orthodox world is much more heavily Republican than the non-Orthodox one, and it fails to support the traditional wall of separation between religion and state that is championed by a majority of American Jews. While Orthodox Jews have an average income lower than non-Orthodox Jews, Waxman reports that there are proportionately a larger number of households with annual incomes of more than $150,000 in the Modern Orthodox community than exist in the non-Orthodox Jewish world. This affluence among the Modern Orthodox, combined with bloc-voting among the ultra-Orthodox that assures patronage and grants from state and local governments, play key roles in sustaining ever-burgeoning Orthodox institutions and schools. Waxman pays careful attention to history by pointing out how the immigration of Rabbi Aharon Kotler to the United States in 1941 and his establishment of [End Page 199] the ultra-Orthodox Lakewood Yeshiva, along with the arrival of 140,000 Hungarian ultra-Orthodox Jews on these shores in the aftermath of the Holocaust, combined with the current-day economic and political developments mentioned above to strengthen all sectors of American Orthodox Judaism. The result of these demographic, cultural, religious, and economic factors is that Jewish day school education has become standard among the overwhelming number of Orthodox Jews in America, whether Modern or ultra-Orthodox. Orthodox Jews, unlike most of their non-Orthodox counterparts, therefore currently inhabit what can be described anthropologically as a "thick Jewish culture." The phenomenon of "nonobservant Orthodox Jews"—who belong...

A Primer on Celtic Spirituality With Recommendations for Counseling Practice

Research suggests that expressions of Celtic spirituality are widespread among the U.S. populace (e.g., Pew Research Center, 2014; Sullivan, 2016). Adherents vary in their commitment levels, ranging from informal cultural participants to followers of structured forms of the faith tradition (e.g., Celtic Christianity, Wicca, Paganism). The counseling literature provides scant information on this movement and germane approaches to support clients who identify with this spirituality. To respond to this deficiency, we address the topic by contextualizing Celtic spirituality from definitional, historical, and thematic perspectives. Next, we consider implications for spiritually sensitive counseling practice. We include a case study, exemplifying potential adaptive counseling processes and interventions.

Pharmacists’ spiritual care perspectives and experiences: Qualitative findings from a statewide survey

ObjectivePharmacists are encouraged to provide whole-person care. Because holistic care is conceptualized as including spiritual care (SC), this study investigated the experiences and perspectives of pharmacists regarding SC in pharmacy practice. MethodsData for this cross-sectional, qualitative study were collected from a survey mailed to 1000 randomly selected registered pharmacists in California in 2019. The data reported here are the responses to open-ended questions eliciting information about the last time the pharmacists provided SC to a patient, indicators that a patient needs spiritual assistance, and religious beliefs thought to be harmful. The data were content-analyzed by 2 investigators. ResultsAlthough 215 pharmacists responded to the survey, only 141 responded to the open-ended questions. Most of the respondents were women (58%), Christian (70%), religious (73%), attended religious services (78%), and practiced in an urban setting (56%). The themes observed indicated that these pharmacists prayed with, and for, patients; talked to patients about God and religion; referred patients to spiritual services; were sensitive to patients’ spiritual or religious beliefs; and listened to patients’ expressions of spirituality. Some respondents, however, avoided religious conversations and requests; some also reported unwillingness to provide SC to patients. The pharmacists had limited education, knowledge, and awareness about SC. ConclusionsThe pharmacists in this sample reported diverse perspectives about SC that ranged from acceptance to rejection of SC in patient care. Pharmacists are not fully engaged in providing SC because of several challenges, including limited education and training on SC. Scholarly inquiry is needed to examine how pharmacists can best provide SC in pharmacy practice.

Review: Lara Medina and Martha R. Gonzales’s Voices from the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices

Review: Lara Medina and Martha R. Gonzales’s <i>Voices from the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices</i>

Islam Toleran: Membangun Harmoni Beragama Berbasis Spiritual

Many methods have been tried and pursued in order to build a tolerant Islam in Indonesia. The various methods that have been tried are dialogue with its various models, ethnic communication, religious harmony, and cooperation. Theoretically, several approaches have been taken and implemented in order to build genuine tolerance. One of the significant and contextual theoretical approaches in building tolerant Islam in Indonesia is through the Sufism approach or the Islamic spiritual path. Spiritual expression emphasizes harmony, openness and acceptance of others which is true, without further ado or false tolerance. Spirituality is the core of diversity in Indonesia that can be offered to the world.

Encountering transgenerational trauma through analytical music therapy

ABSTRACT Introduction: Transgenerational trauma is a theory asserting that traumatic experiences, including grief and loss, can be transferred from the initial generation of survivors to subsequent generations via complex post-traumatic stress disorder mechanisms. This applies to persecutory circumstances and genocidal events, which leave their mark and continue to resonate actively within the consciousness of descendants. Method: This article explores the role of analytical music therapy in working with transgenerational trauma. Illustrations of this work are provided via two first-person, retrospective vignettes of the author’s self-experiences in analytical music therapy, rooted in the author’s Jewish cultural identity, and in the inherited experiences of ancestors who faced existential threats of ethnic persecution in Eastern Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The reflective process employed here serves to contribute to the development of a larger theoretical perspective on the role of music as a matrix for accessing, confronting, and working through elements of transgenerational trauma. Results: Each vignette provides ways in which the author’s own transgenerational trauma – as it manifested in his everyday life in various ways – was accessed and engaged through the relational, creative spaces of analytical music therapy. Each vignette also addresses how certain transpersonal resources discovered within these working spaces – each one meaningfully reflecting certain expressions of Jewish mysticism and spirituality – were mobilized by the author with personal and professional impact. Discussion: Clinical and cultural implications for future practice and research in this area are considered.

New Life of Old Mongolian Demons

New Life of Old Mongolian Demons Alevtina Solovyeva (bio) Introduction: Demons under Research In contemporary Mongolian culture, traditional supernatural characters and phenomena are very popular and significant figures in different spheres of life, playing various roles and supplying diverse meanings to personal and public issues. Following the collapse of the socialist regime in the 1990s and the end of its 70-year span of official atheism and restrictions on spiritual expressions, all sorts of deities, spirits, and demons returned to everyday life, aided by the waves of religious revival, openness (glasnost), and new ideologies that favored “traditional roots.” Old traditional characters have kicked the dust from their shoes and flowed into new contexts in this period of drastic and rapid change, and they have provided forms and interpretations for personal experiences (Honko) and collective challenges (Valk, “Ghostly”). In this article, I discuss two sorts of supernatural entity active in Mongolian contemporary life: moving lights and a running woman.1 These are old traditional figures, part of road and travel beliefs and landscape mythology, who were popular in former times and remain so today.2 They are known in every local narrative tradition in Mongolia and present intriguing examples of contemporization. I will describe the specific features of their images and plots and the modifications [End Page 281] they underwent to stay relevant to the conditions and issues of the present. I also discuss their updated meanings and functions in today’s narrative culture and discursive practices. I collected the contemporary data by examining these supernatural entities in personal and public discourses, in narratives of different genres that I drew from media sources (newspapers and internet), and from fieldwork interviews in Mongolia during annual research visits beginning in 2007. To trace the existence of these entities in the past and investigate their trajectories by comparative analysis, I turned to previous published and unpublished written sources, generally represented by narrative collections of scholars and travelers dating back to the close of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Inasmuch as the goals of my research include investigating these characters and phenomena in their textual and social dimensions, I use a combination of approaches to analyze structural and semantic characteristics of these narrative examples (Propp; Neklyudov, “Zametki”; Levkievskai͡a), their modes of transformation, and the dynamics of their pragmatics, functions, and social representations (Ben-Amos; Honko; Valk, “Ontological”). Moving Lights My first set of examples: moving lights/marsh lights that mislead night travelers, a phenomenon also known in many other traditions.3 In Mongolian folklore, this phenomenon, known as chötgöriin gal (demonic fire, ghost light(s), demonic lights),4 can be seen as moving around the steppe, chasing night travelers (and eluding them), talking, being noisy, and even (in some rare cases) physically affecting the person who might accidentally touch them. In contemporary folk traditions, these motifs appear in two basic forms. The first of these has much in common with examples found in earlier folklore collections (Hangalov; Potanin): Chötgöriin gal, demonic lights, exist, they show up at night on the steppe. Once I met such light. I was returning from my brother’s family, it was already dark, suddenly the light appeared. I wondered what it could be and tried to approach it, but the light did not let me come closer and kept escaping. I felt uncomfortable and continued on my way. Then this light started to follow me, keeping at a distance: when I moved, it moved too, when I stopped, it stopped. The light was [End Page 282] following me to my village, before it suddenly fell over a bush and disappeared. People often see such lights, and sometimes hear something calling them by name. (Tsermaa 18) Another variant, more popular nowadays, contains a number of substantial modifications: Once we went with my wife to visit her relatives and were returning late in the evening. Suddenly in the middle of the way back we saw that bad light. My wife first saw it. I did not believe her, but then I too saw the strange light. It was coming to us from the right side of the road. It looks like a...

“Vai viņa daļa dzīvo manī?” Smokija Mo dziesmas “Kas ir radītājs” interpretācija popkultūras un reliģijas studiju kontekstā

The Russian hip hop artist Smoki Mo has frequently referenced religious and spiritual topics in his lyrics. The composition “Who is the creator” discusses the positive and negative replies to this question. The lyrics are interpreted as a popular culture text with the aim to discover how popular culture texts can function as religious ones and how popular culture can function as religion. The article employs a functional definition of religion to explore how the studied text discusses existential questions and struggle with identity that religion also is concerned with. The popular culture itself is understood in the article as the meaning and value that people ascribe to mass culture products, such as popular music, in their everyday lives. The article also summarizes the possible issues with reading popular culture texts as religious ones to avoid misinterpretation due to researcher’s indebtedness to traditional religious definitions or to scholarly traditions of interpretation. The article also employs the notion of spirituality to connect the ideas expressed in Smoki Mo’s lyrics to a relevant ideological framework. The understanding of the “creator”, “God” and other theological notions in the lyrics is closely related to the broad features of modern spirituality that include the focus on the individual self and universal statements rather than particular religious traditions. In this way, the studied composition in itself is an expression of modern spirituality dealing with existential questions.

Alfombrismo: Ephimeral Art Utopia

The way in which we experience public space is closely related to the sociocultural and environmental conditions of the context. Similar to the garden – in the strict philosophical sense- Traditional Tapestry ephemeral art represents a utopia; it stands for an aesthetic theory of beauty and a vision of happiness. Traditional ephemeral art is conceptualized as a utopian space where diverse elements, people, as well as a wide variety of activities converge; those are the ones who transform reality through cultural expression, exploring habits and values which pursue a common goal in a livingly way, and improve social coexistence. Tapestry ephemeral art temporarily and actively transforms their surroundings. It is in that public space where it is embraced that a dialogue is modelled; a dialogue where not only formal appearance but also designing constructive one converge, as an artistic, philosophical, and spiritual expression of its community itself. Such artistic intervention allows physical proximity; in a whole overview vision of urban context, design displays Mexican art values and transforms public space. The greater the proximity, the greater the change in the scale of the work, therefore, it is possible to feel immersed in the piece and identify the natural material, which in its arrangement and place, reveals the garden utopia –symbol of harmony between itself and the atmosphere portrayed in a living work of art. Nowadays, the isolated streets in many different parts of the world reflect a universal reality which urges a re-connection with the natural environment to which we belong, as well as a transformation of the sociocultural interactions that emerge from responsibility, equality and the common good.

Investigating the effect of meditation on spiritual wellbeing of Type-2 diabetic amputees: A clinical trial study

ObjectivesDiabetes is a chronic, progressive and life-threatening metabolic syndrome that causes physical complications such as amputation, psychological complications and crisis in one's life, which leads to increased expression of spirituality and increased use of spiritual support as a coping mechanism. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of spiritual care on the spiritual wellbeing of type-2 diabetic amputees. Materials and methodsIn the present clinical trial study, 54 type-2 diabetic amputees were randomly divided into two groups; namely, experimental and control in 2014 and underwent meditation in three sessions. The 20-item spiritual well-being scale (SWBS) (Paloutzian and Ellision), which measures the spiritual well-being dimensions, was completed by patients before and after the intervention. Data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential methods (paired T-test, independent t-test, Fisher's exact test, mann-whitney test, and chi-square) in SPSS ver. 16. ResultsThe results showed no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of mean spiritual wellbeing before the intervention, but, the post-intervention mean spiritual wellbeing score in the control and experimental groups was 97.82 ± 9.25 and 88.40 ± 9.47, respectively. (α = 0.05) (P = 0.001). ConclusionAccording to the results of the present study, it seems that spiritual care is able to improve the spiritual wellbeing status of individuals.

Evoking the spiritual through phenomenology: using the written anecdotes of adults to access children’s expressions of spirituality

ABSTRACT As an effective tool used within the evocative method of phenomenological inquiry, this paper argues for, and details the use of the written anecdotes of adults as one means by which to access children’s expressions of spirituality. The phenomenological framework out of which the evocative method emanates is described. Two examples from the author’s recent research with adults using written anecdotes to describe occasions on which children may have been expressing aspects of their spirituality, as well as a short analysis of what was revealed through a reflection on these anecdotes, is presented. The paper makes a significant contribution in detailing methods that may enable adults who work with children in a variety of contexts to recall and reflect on children’s expressions of their spirituality.

Contemporary Bushman Art: The Work of the !Xun Artist Flai Shipipa

Contemporary !Xun artists of South Africa’s Northern Cape Province have produced art that has been described as nostalgic and primitive. Yet the content of these artworks highlights astute political commentary, asserting belonging and immediacy in a political milieu where historically Bushman groups have been ostracized and delegitimized. The !Xun artist Flai Shipipa has created art that is a hybrid spiritual expression with inferences to Bushman cosmology and Christianity. Through this religio-political imagery Shipipa’s canvases are a tangible cultural record of assertions of identity, authenticity, belonging, faith, ambiguity and memory.

Understanding Fanny

Abstract Though there has been recent interest in how Jane Austen’s faith influenced her novels, scholars have generally looked to her reading in philosophy and sermons, her spiritual expression, or her Anglicanism, and have neglected the more direct influence of the Bible. Yet judging from Austen’s lifelong church attendance and her reading of the Book of Common Prayer, we can conclude that she would have heard the Psalms read entirely through once every month of her forty-one years. This paper explores the resemblance between the psalmists and Fanny Price in terms of their shared experience of exile, their patterns of lament and reminder, their long wait for deliverance, and their final homecoming. Comparing Fanny Price’s character to the psalmists recasts her as a heroine in the Hebrew tradition, offering a new understanding of her passivity and suggesting that her author was more influenced by scriptural patterns than has been heretofore understood.

Dancing in two worlds: Experiencing n/om inside the Ju/’hoan Bushman dance

The Ju/’hoan Bushmen or San of southern Africa host one of the oldest surviving dance forms. Openly conducted in public for the whole community, the dance serves as the primary locus for healing, conflict resolution, wellbeing, rejuvenation, social reunion, spiritual expression and performance art. Central to the dance is awakening n/om, what the Bushmen regard as a vibrational force that resides in the body of the strongest dancers. Often described as an energy or power that makes the body shake, n/om is more accurately a blend of somatic vibration, heightened emotion and sacred song. N/om is also the source of a dancer’s capacity to heal sickness in themselves and others. The following composite account of an insider’s perspective of the n/om dance is based on decades of field research interviews with Ju/’hoan n/om dancers and our own experience as accepted members of several Bushman dance communities. We focus on the experience of n/om in the body and how this enables the dancer to dance between two worlds – that of everyday knowing and the ineffable spiritual realm or what the Ju/’hoansi call second creation and first creation, respectively.

THE PENINSULAR MAYA’S UNFINISHED SPIRITUAL CONQUEST

Do Maya sacred artistic manifestations in sixteenth to eighteenth-century Franciscan convents, churches, and chapels reflect native ideological persistence, a Maya and Christian amalgamation, or a European Catholic subsumed spiritual meld? This study explores the sculptural and painted expressions that adorn Colonial religious architecture found in the Yucatan Peninsula. Ethnohistoric sources, historic documents, physical geographical location, and spatial layout for these buildings, their sculptural programs and mural painting iconographic motifs, and spiritual spaces surrounding those edifices erected by natives subsequent to European contact, conquest, and colonization provide a more complete basis from which to address such philosophical and anthropological concepts of religious permanence, syncretism, and/or fusion. These particular evidentiary aspects assess Maya sacred built space environments found in the Cehpech, Cochuah, Cupul, and Tases provinces prior to European contact and conquest. This paper will focus on twospecific areas: the municipal seat church and convent complex in one autonomous political jurisdiction near the Spanish viceregal administrative seat in Mérida, and will then compare/contrast those area-specific religious representations with built spaces and interior/exterior embellishments near the Spanish viceregal enclave at Valladolid, Yucatan, as well as in other indigenous community visita churches under this and Tizimin’s Missions ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the northeastern rural peninsular Maya hinterlands. Combined data sets from both regions suggest a more autonomously derived divine substrate to characterize viceroyalty period Maya religious practice, rather than a Roman Catholic and Maya syncretism or Catholic synthesis of autonomous ideological philosophy, and point to an unfinished evangelical conquest that flew under the ecclesiastical and Spanish administrative radar at that time. In some select cases these same hallowed essence and practices continue to present. Those spiritual expressions that embellish built environments with autonomous religious undercurrents also help to explain the repeated yet unsuccessful Franciscan endeavors to ultimately quash idolatry in the peninsular region.

Procedures of Westernization for Legend In Iraqi Theater Show

Art of legend was arisen out of pillars of theatre which casts light on those legends that were written to glorify powers and situations surpass level of human beings . So we find that legend was transformed through its doctrine sides over level of concept and realization on field of subjects where by which Greek theatre was founded . As soon as it was adopted by drama art as legendary ritual phenomena with its stories . With that modes of social , spiritual expressions were differentiated within communities , peoples over all different countries and civilizations . This explains us the apparent difference in cases of legends , alike if they were within thoughtful , social or cultural sides between civilizations . Since drama art is mirror of peoples that reduces inside it tribes , rites , religion celebrations and legendary tales . We find significant necessity to research , to uncover mechanisms of construct legend , from another hand to tackle it by some drama directors , who added aesthetic , creative conceptions for their drama shows through two notions which are legend and westernization Key words : Procedures of Westernization , legend , civilization , Iraqi theatre

An Exploration of the Relationship Between Spirituality, Religion and Mental Health Among Youth Who Identify as LGBT+: A Systematic Literature Review.

There is a growing interest in addressing spirituality in health care with evidence emerging that personal spiritual and religious practices, and support of these, can influence mental health in a positive way. However, there can be distinct challenges to spiritual expression and mental health issues for youth who identify as LGBT+. The goal of this paper was to undertake a systematic review of the available evidence to investigate the relationship between mental health, spirituality and religion as experienced by LGBT+ youth. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using medical and psychological databases that focused on spirituality, mental health and LGBT+ youth. The search yielded a total of ten articles published in English between May 2008 and June 2018. The key findings highlighted issues around discriminatory attitudes, shame related to disclosure, spirituality as a supportive resource, internalised conflict and external factors around sexual orientation concerns. The psychological, social and health implications are presented and discussed.

Suspense as a literary device in English literature

As being the oldest and most widely used genres of oral literature, proverbs are expressions of the ethical, spiritual, moral, and social expression of the people, which have been tested in centuries-old life experiences, and the wise conclusions of the people, which provide accurate and accurate solutions to life issues.

The interpretation of loneliness in Uzbek and world proverbs

As being the oldest and most widely used genres of oral literature, proverbs are expressions of the ethical, spiritual, moral, and social expression of the people, which have been tested in centuries-old life experiences, and the wise conclusions of the people, which provide accurate and accurate solutions to life issues.

Terminalidade, morte e luto na pandemia de COVID-19: demandas psicológicas emergentes e implicações práticas

Resumo A doença causada pelo novo coronavírus (COVID-19) tem sido considerada uma grave crise sob o ponto de vista epidemiológico e, também, psicológico. Além das perdas em massa em curto espaço de tempo, as dificuldades para realização de rituais de despedida entre pessoas na iminência da morte e seus familiares, bem como de rituais funerários, podem dificultar a experiência de luto. O objetivo deste estudo é sistematizar conhecimentos sobre os processos de terminalidade, morte e luto no contexto da pandemia de COVID-19. Por meio de revisão narrativa da literatura, foram sumarizadas experiências relatadas em diferentes países durante a pandemia. Apresentam-se características das demandas psicológicas emergentes e implicações para a prática profissional do psicólogo. Considerando que expressões de afeto, condolências e espiritualidade sofrem alterações nesse cenário, discute-se a importância de potencializar formas alternativas e respeitosas para ritualização dos processos vividos, o que parece essencial para ressignificar perdas e enfrentar desafios durante e após a vigência da pandemia.