In regards to Aroma

By -

 

Image owned by: Marco Verch

Well there's no denying the fact this book was a lot different from the ones I usually read but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. In fact, I found myself being quite interested through out a lot of the earlier sections of the book BECAUSE I've never read anything like it before so that was a nice experience at the very least. Towards the ending though, my feelings were a bit different but overall not that negative. On the plus side, I did like the ideas being presented and how Green gave the reader a chance to see how the rabbis back in the day thought while also dumbing down the stories for people like me who wouldn't get it. On the down side, apart of me couldn't help but feel like there was some serious repetition along the way and as a result the ending became a bit tough to get through in my opinion. 

That being said, seeing how the rabbis chose to interpret these stories and how they relate to God, his relationship with Israel, his love of smells, and how they all had such differing views was very interesting. It really reminded me of all the times I've seen people interpret the Bible and god's teachings whenever I went to church. Although the message is usually the same, I noticed over the years that the church back at home kind of had different takes from the church my Grandma in New Jersey goes too. 

Back home, on Nantucket, the sermons and story interpretation focused more on how we need more kindness or to be more aware of our actions in order to do the right thing. Basically..."What would Jesus do?" was kind of the theme behind most of those Sunday sermons. Meanwhile in New Jersey, the stories were focused more on how people in the Bible struggled a lot and how in life, struggling is just another part of it. It should be noted that the church in NJ is 100% black so when it comes to struggles it specifically came from a place of being a black person in America. And then there's the Rabbis in Israel, who believed certain stories/characters referred to the good things and bad things they had to deal with like the Romans, "the other", devotion to god, devotion to his teachings. etc. 

Though what makes them so different from anything I've ever heard is that they incorporate things such as aroma and god's desires into their interpretations and beliefs. Usually god is seen as more of an abstract force while Jesus gets most of the humanizing traits but there takes both focus on how pleasant and foul orders play a role in their beliefs while also humanizing God to such an extent. That's not something you see much in Christian representations of god. Or at the very least it's not something I've seen very often.

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausFebruary 25, 2022 at 12:51 PM

    Love your observations and comparisons! It's precisely God's abstractness, I think, that lead different religious traditions to find different ways to make God (or the gods) more palpable. So if it's not smells, or the memories of smells evoked in the rabbinic interpretations that do this, maybe it's something else. Is there singing, and/or calls and responses that sort of triggers a sense of God's presence, or a least of some sort of extraordinary "holy" experiences through what you _hear_ in the churches you describe in Nantucket and New Jersey?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amidst the Pandemic

By -
Image
I think having the opportunity to take Smells and Bells and then experiencing a worldwide pandemic came with good timing. Oftentimes, we’re so rushed to get from one one place to another that we miss out on what happens around us. We’re so accustomed to the lifestyle of being busy that it has become the norm for many of us. However, the pandemic has forced us to slow down. We’re now appreciating everything that we had previously taken for granted and noticing things in our surroundings that we have never noticed before.  Take this quarantining/social distancing as an opportunity to be more aware of what you experience through the senses. I don’t think my senses have necessarily heightened over the past 5 weeks, but I am actively making the choice to pay more attention to what I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. I like going on nature/mindfulness walks and basking in the sunshine out in my backyard. This morning, I could hear a faint noise from the wind, hear the birds chirpin...
Read more

Food in the Afterlife

By -
Image
In Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Perez talks of Ashabi and her grandchildren providing food offerings to their ancestors. This immediately reminded me of the practice of food sacrifice in early China. I've taken Chinese language classes for about 7 years now and in one of the lessons, we learned about food as well as the history of food in Chinese culture. Ashabi and her grandchildren would give food offerings to their ancestors every day. This included nine beverages (coffee, liquor, and water mixed with sugar and molasses) and nine square pieces of coconut topped with red palm oil and guinea pepper. The offerings would also include whatever food was dropped on the ground. In their house, food dropping on the floor signified more than it would in common American households. It signified that the ancestors wanted that food and had willingly made it fall to the floor. They also used dishware that had been chipped which was...
Read more