Textual healing: tailor-made kabbalistic therapeutics in Jerusalem

Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli, Asaf Sharabi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper, based on fieldwork conducted in a Jerusalem yeshiva, describes how the yeshiva, a traditional institute of religious studies, also serves as an institution of healing and personal therapy in which sacred religious texts assume a central place. The article focuses on personal sessions between the rabbi who heads the yeshiva, and his audience of believers who turn to him for help in coping with personal hardships and tribulations. The paper contextualizes and elaborates upon the concept of ‘deep healing’ to describe how the rabbi uses his regular ‘tool kit’ to diagnose the problems of the person facing him and to offer optimal, personalized therapy. The rabbi uses religious texts to create textual deep healing processes that are tailor-made for the individual supplicant and are intended to accompany supplicants for a long period of time.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)244-258
Number of pages15
JournalAnthropology and Medicine
Volume26
Issue number2
Early online dateOct 2017
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2019

Keywords

  • Ritual healing
  • deep healing
  • ethnography
  • personal symbol
  • text

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
  • Anthropology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

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