NDLI: “I’ll Say a Mi Sheberach for You”: Prayer, Healing and Identity Among Liberal American Jews

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Silverman, Gila
Copyright Year	2016
Abstract	Modern American Judaism is often characterized by complex negotiations about practices, beliefs, affiliations and identities. This article uses ethnographic research on one ritual practice—the Mi Sheberach prayer for healing—to explore these processes of meaning-making and identity construction, through the lens of lived experience. While survey data tell us which practices, beliefs and affiliations are most commonly adopted by liberal American Jews, this ethnographic research examines why these choices are made, what they represent, and how they are integrated into the broader lifeworlds of this population. I demonstrate that prayers for healing are an inherently social process, inextricably linked to relationships with other people, the community, God, and tradition. Prayer means something different to each of the participants in this study, yet for all, the Mi Sheberach becomes one site, among many, through which relationships to Judaism and Jewishness are negotiated and constructed. Study participants choose, and maintain, those Jewish practices, like the Mi Sheberach, that resonate emotionally and/or spiritually and that fit within the larger context of their lifeworld—in this case, the search for meaning, comfort, strength and connection during times of illness and healing. Yet at the same time, an essential part of this resonance is the experience of community, connection and tradition. The individual’s search for meaning is synthesized with the collectivist nature of Judaism, in an ongoing and continually evolving process of interpretive interaction between text, tradition and personal experience.
Starting Page	169
Ending Page	185
Page Count	17
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01471694
Journal	Contemporary Jewry
Volume Number	36
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	18765165
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2016-03-31
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Healing Prayer Anthropology American Jewish identity Sociology of Religion Religious Studies Social Sciences
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Religious Studies History Anthropology Cultural Studies

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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