Festivals and Rituals

This chapter covers that dimension of Jewish therapeutic practices which encompassed daily and annual rites, rituals, and customs. Among the customs and traditions mentioned in the chapter is the interesting folk rite Pesach, which involved young men roaming the streets of their town looking for fellow residents with skin diseases. Anyone who answered to the description would be presented with a train ticket accompanied by the recommendation that they pack their bags quickly because the train to Egypt would not be waiting long. The chapter also talks about the Seder meal. Certain traditions connected with the Seder were interpreted specifically as prophylactic. It also talks about the cycle of autumn festivals which is of great importance for matters of health. It mentions the Days of Awe and the widespread custom of measuring the cemetery and graves with string to be later used to make wicks for candles. It also talks about the solemn significance and the Four species, a bundle composed of four types of plant: a date palm frond (lulav), three myrtle branches, and two willow branches, all bound up with palm rings, and an etrog (citron). The chapter discusses human life, understood by traditional Jewish society as being divided into successive stages, each of which was marked by important ritual events. It looks at the health-related justifications for the rituals that God-fearing Jews were required to perform, and it emphasizes the ubiquity in Jewish folk medicine of elements of the sabbath and festival liturgy, and of objects used in religious rites.