By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Sacred, now streaming at https://www.pbs.org/wnet/sacred/sacred-full-episode/, views life cycle events and religious practices through the lenses of more than 40 videographers stationed on five continents – Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. We see not only the well known western and eastern religions, but also tribal and folk practices created to help participants navigate life’s journey, including birth, coming of age, marriage, holiday observances, preparing for death, and death itself. Director Thomas Lennon has skillfully created a colorful, kaleidoscopic montage of piety, celebration, happiness and sorrow in this documentary.
Although the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) documentary is divided into three major parts: “Initiation,” “Practice,” and “Passage,” the desire to show footage from as many venues as possible often deprives us of necessary context. Something interesting is happening there on screen, but what does it all mean? How do these ceremonies and rites fit into the overall religious practices of the depicted groups? For the most part, these answers are not forthcoming. We can evaluate this in at least two ways. One way would suggest that the documentary has stimulated our curiosity; if we see a ceremony, or practice that we would like to know more about, then we can “Google” it. According to this argument, we have benefitted from our initial exposure; the documentary may lead us onto the path of exploration. An opposite way of looking at it is that the documentary squandered its opportunity to teach us by trying to compress too many images into too little time. Instead of putting all the footage into a single documentary, it would have been better to create a series of documentaries, with each one providing necessary background and contextualization.
Jewish practice is well represented in the documentary. We see brit milah (ritual circumcision) ceremonies in New York and in Paris; a bar mitzvah in Jerusalem; and Haredi men praying and dancing ecstatically in Uman, Ukraine, site of the tomb of Rabbi Nachman. These pilgrims believe that Rabbi Nachman, the founder of the Breslov Hassidic sect, will intercede in behalf of the happiness of those who visit his tomb, especially on Rosh Hashanah. In contrast to this, we see a secular family at work and at play, in Kfar Uria, an Israeli moshav near Bet Shemesh.
Why do we Jews have a public circumcision ceremony at which the little boy’s father winces and his mother cries? We Jews know that the ceremony is to bring the boy into the Jewish covenant with God, as demanded by God in Genesis 17:10-13. And what of bar mitzvah? This is not a practice found in the Torah. It is a custom based on the concept in Jewish law that a child at age 13 becomes responsible for his actions; in the eyes of the law he is a man. As a man, he can lead public prayer, an idea that was ritualized in the Middle Ages with the development of a ceremony in which a 13-year-old boy reads a portion of the Torah for the congregation. Later on, the ceremony was extended to girls, who have a bat mitzvah. In the documentary, we see a bar mitzvah, but no context is provided. How much of this, then, will a non-Jew understand?
The answer is that they probably will not understand Jewish practice any better than we Jews will understand such religious practices as an elementary school aged child in Mandelay, Myanmar, being dressed up in finery, then having his head shaved before he is given the robes of a monk, so that he can spend a week in a monastery, practicing ascetism. We see, but we do not comprehend, a sunrise ceremony where a youngster in traditional Native American garb dances to a drum beat at the San Carlos Apache Reservation. We see, but are mystified, by a Spring Festival dance in Uttar Pradesh, India, in which participants celebrate as they are doused with colored powder. We wonder as a couple in Yamaguchi, Japan, purchase a phallic symbol, write their wish to meet their unborn child soon, and place the phallus inside a shrine. In Paucartambu, Peru, we witness a masked dance, in which some dancers appear as animals, others as humans, and try to comprehend the story behind the masks. We see a man wearing a hat that makes him look like a crocodile when he bows his head. He is engaged in a walk that will take nearly 1,000 days continuously circling Mt. Hiei, Japan. When he comes to a shrine, he rubs his beads together briefly, then continues his trek. What exactly is going on here?
There are many more religious ceremonies shown in this documentary. While they are a visual feast, they are an intellectual puzzle. In recommending that you take the time to watch this streaming documentary on your computer, I join those who say if the exposure leaves you wanting to learn more, then it is all to the good.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com