HeritageandHistory Zurich

The spiritual aspect of our existence is based on an ancestral connection, through a shared past and an immaterial present, invoked and bestowed by a supernatural being. The expression “our God and God of our patriarchs and our matriarchs” reveals this timeless and continuous connection, with origin and without end. 

Spirituality, as known or desired by human beings, is independent of our ingenuity. The material world, however, is the elementary manifestation of the human ability to create and experience, to express oneself and relate to one’s surroundings and fellow human beings. The production of a screw or a painting is a result of our particular ability to observe, understand and interact.

Objects of ceremonial or ritual use are found at the tangent of these two worlds, the spiritual and the material. They are our reminders of an untouchable layer of existence. 

In Judaism, these objects are not intrinsically sacred. They are definitely not sacred. Even the Tablets of the Law, objects coming directly from God, were broken by Moses when he came down from Mount Sinai for the first time and saw the people worshiping the golden calf. The biblical account, even in the face of this dramatic and threatening moment, does not preserve the Tablets, and melts the calf!

The biblical text is full of descriptive details about buildings, utensils, behaviors, purity of things and people. None of this is a condition or manifestation of God, but it puts the man/woman in the exact tune to recognize, honor and insert themselves into Divine Creation.

Time x space

The Jewish calendar is more than a chronological organization of festivals and events. It was conceived as a structure for interaction with the world. Time in Judaism is sacred: we sanctify Shabbat, the seventh day, a period in time, not a place.

And time is sanctified by the verb, which expresses or provokes an action at a given moment. Divine Creation is executed through the word. The verb — invocation of spirituality — differentiates times. And times mark spaces.

The centrality of Zion and Jerusalem for the Israelite people is irrefutable, even if associated with a specific place. Eretz Israel is not a vehicle to reach the spiritual dimension, but the spiritual element itself, indicated by God and fundamental to the existence of Judaism. Just as body and soul are inseparable, so are Israel and her people. Through the centuries of diaspora, there was no collective abandonment of Israel nor disassociation from that historical place, both in the liturgy and in the daily life of the Israelite. 

Time is also emphasized here: we close the Pessach Seder with “leshana habaa birushalaim” (next year in Jerusalem) — we are specific with the coming year, a renewed desire/promise. We hold on to time and escalate events. And, for this, the objects that surround us help us.

Action x intention 

Neither the cup nor the wine is sacred. They are vehicles used by human beings to recognize and exalt Divine Creation in words (bracha).

The tabernacle in the desert is only sacred when used with a holy purpose, in a specific time, which must be captured by the human action of, in that exact second, reconnecting with Creation. A construction or object will only be ritual if inserted in a context of sanctification of Creation through the verb.

Materiality serves the human being to the same extent that the human being must serve spirituality. The chalice of noble material distinguishes man. The quality of wine and grapes distinguishes man. The blessing of Kiddush¹ sanctifies, in that instant, Creation. The opposite path is not confirmed: Creation exists independently of nobility or even the existence of the chalice or wine.

The eight-branched candelabrum that we use at the Chanukah festival (chanukia) is not holy during the eight days of the festival nor in the display case or shelf where we keep it throughout the year. Neither are the candles, the oil, or the light they produce. But united and activated with the verb of the brachot, they are powerful tools that awes and enchant us, that transport us.

This is how we must face the aesthetic beauty, the nobility of the materials and the skill and creativity of the hands that designed such objects: they are reminders in our material world of a spiritual connection with Creation. They are means and not ends. They are our human and unique way of valuing a moment with the elements available to us in the world.

The very scroll that supports the Divine Law — Sefer Torah — loses its function in ritual use when the verb is tainted, when the letters that carry the ultimate codex are corrupted. The scroll becomes unfit (passul) and no longer serves its holy purpose. The stain is material, but the damage is spiritual in nature.

The drama of the museums

Museums have been going through their puberty for a few decades now, taken by an intense and almost uncontrollable transformative force of abandoning their previous way of accumulating, stacking, exhibiting, to embrace their catalytic mission of fostering transformations in thought and, thus, in society.

Museums are spaces for mobilization. The materiality of its collections, in addition to impressing, informing and educating, must awaken and provoke the human soul to action.

The return to their countries of origin of pieces stolen from the Islamic world or Africa by collectors, mostly European, is not just an attempt to settle an account with the colonizing and extractive past. These pieces have lost their meaning for the visitor to a museum in a European town. Mere observation, knowledge or personal interest in a certain civilization or art do not constitute the Memory of that country. They are certainly part of its history, but they are not (or do not want to be) components of its collective identity.

It is a fact that mobility and easier access to travel contributed to the democratization of visits to distant countries. The desire to “fix” the narrative of History and, through this process, restructure Memory also persists. Do not modify or delete it.

Museums will continue to collect objects. And they must. The discourse on its materiality, however, has evolved. More than ever, museums must be permeable structures in society. Even its architecture, most of which is now airy, transparent and “touchable”, in contrast to neoclassical, hermetic, distant and dominant buildings in the urban landscape, reflects this transformation, and not just a fashion or style.

In 2022, the National Historical Museum of Rio de Janeiro (MHN) included an unprecedented piece in its collection: an etrog holder donated by the Associação Religiosa Israelita do Rio de Janeiro (ARI). This piece inserts immigration and the presence of Jews in the History of Brazil through the institution responsible for the narrative of the constitution of the Brazilian nation.

The processes of formation of Memory equip a people with constituent elements of their identity. Memory transforms identity into something flexible and permeable, yet robust and indissoluble.

It is not possible or desirable to dissociate our rituals from our objects. And it is also an aspiration that we invest resources and efforts so that they are aesthetically beautiful and in accordance with the style, time and place where they were and are manufactured. These objects should also stimulate our senses, make us happy, move us. They are witnesses to our history—where we have been, what times we have lived in, how prosperous we have been, how dedicated we have been to the service of Torah and the fulfillment of our mitzvot.

The destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians and later by the Romans, the taking of the Temple objects from Jerusalem to Rome, as carved in the Arch of Titus, the incineration of our books and our synagogues in the 20th century, and many times before in the Middle Ages, the theft of our chanukiot, candelabra, Kiddush cups, objects used in the synagogue and in the home — none of this shook the verb. And every time Jews rise again in the river of History, we are Memory and, through the word, we invoke the sanctification of this moment, with new and shiny accessories.

1. Blessing spoken over the wine ↩︎