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Venerating the graves of Hasidic tzaddiks in the 21st century. Pilgrimage Practices
https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2020-5-140-161
Abstract
The Jewish tradition has ambivalent attitudes toward cemeteries: they are treated at the same time as sacred loci (in Yiddish the cemetery is called a “holy place”, heilik ort) and as places of impurity, associated with the impurity of dead bodies. The article discusses the practices associated with the pilgrimage to the graves of Hasidic tzaddiks, currently common in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and the United States. In most cases, we are dealing with different variations of the veneration of the righteous in Hasidism, and many individual practices at the graves of tzaddiks echo historical and memorial testimonies of worship of those same people during their lifetimes. On the graves people leave notes asking for help, sometimes they put coins and various objects that require blessing. Coming to the burial place, pilgrims observe the rules of behavior established by the tzaddik themselves: they don’t turn their backs to the grave, take off their leather shoes, read certain psalms and prayers. A special place in the article is devoted to pilgrim practices toward the substitutes of the graves of the righteous: to the places of the former burial place transferred to another country or to the grave of the wife of the righteous, which is in another country.
About the Author
M. M. KaspinaRussian Federation
Maria M. Kaspina, Cand. of Sci. (Philology)
bld. 6, Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125993
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Supplementary files
For citation: Kaspina M.M. Venerating the graves of Hasidic tzaddiks in the 21st century. Pilgrimage Practices. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2020;(5):140-161. https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2020-5-140-161
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