Ritual objects for the feast of sukkot: Theoretical analysis of the Talmudic prescriptions and some of their ethnographical achievements in the Balkans

Abstract

Can we think of the artifact as an integral part of an anthropology of life as it has developed in the wake of the anthropology of nature founded by Philippe Descola? Judaism clearly fits within this perspective since a vast body of normative texts, notably the Babylonian Talmud, defines and discusses the jewishness of artifacts - whether ritual or everyday - by endeavoring to determine their correct position on a graduated scale ranging from nature to artifice, understood here as emic categories. This article aims to support this reflection by studying two ritual objects related to the festival of Sukkot: the skhakh, the roof of the sukka hut, and the lulav, the bouquet of the four species. As we shall see, the making of the ritual object according to specific rules shows us its place in the encounter with the supernatural, the goal towards which any ritual device aspires. After a theoretical analysis of the Talmudic prescriptions, we will look at some of the practical ways in which the Sukkot hut can be documented photographically in the Balkans, in the broadest sense of the term. We will present examples from Greece, Romania and Bulgaria.

Keywords

• rabbinic judaism
• ritual object
• anthropology
• nature
• artifice
• sukkot
• lulav
• skhakh
• descola