View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RERO DOC Digital Library Published in Outlines. Critical Practice Studies 8, issue 2, 59-75, 2006 1 which should be used for any reference to this work Difficult secularity: Talmud as symbolic resource Tania Zittoun Summary Religious systems are organised semiotic structures pro- groups, while others leave religious commu- viding people with values and rules, identities, regular- nities to join secular life. Some people stay out ity, and meaning. Consequently, a person moving out of such communities, but mobilise religious of a religious system might be exposed to meaning-rup- values or fragments of systems to engage in tures. The paper presents the situation of young people a “religious bricolage”, the self-making of a who have been in Yeshiva, a rabbinic high-school, and who have to join secular university life. It analyses the personalised religious kit (Campiche, 1997). changes to which they are exposed. On the bases of However, joining a religious system, leaving this case study, the paper examines the following ques- it, or having access to religious narrative, sym- tions: can the religious symbolic system internalised by bolic objects or values do not necessarily and a person in a religious sphere of experience be mobil- immediately solve meaning needs; moreover, ised as a symbolic resource once the person moves to a these movements in themselves create rup- secular environment? If yes, how do religious symbolic resources facilitate the transition to a secular life? And tures and call for meaning-making. How is if not, what other symbolic and social resources might a religious system functioning as a symbolic facilitate such transitions? system satisfying people’s need for orienta- tion and meaning? How does it function when the person is exposed to a situation for which People have to deal with the unpredictability she has not been prepared within her religious and the uncertainty of the diversity of modern environment? And what happens if a person secular lives, and often strive for meaning and cannot mobilise her religious system to ad- values. Cultural and religious systems provide dress successfully ruptures with which she is people with structures that bring regularity, confronted? orientation, community and meaning. Con- To address these questions, the following temporary societies put inclusive cultural or theoretical proposition is made: rather than ex- religious systems at stake. Also, in the current amining religious systems and their symbolic balance of social forces, extreme religiosity components per se, one needs to examine how might appear as a threat to occidental, liberal a given person actually uses them as symbolic values. Consequently, the adhesion to religious resources as she is intentionally engaged in values or to an inclusive religious system is addressing specific issues (Zittoun, Duveen, not necessarily taken for granted. Some people Gillespie, Ivinson and Psaltis, 2003; Zittoun, convert to religion, join sects and religious 2006). The questions to be examined are thus 2 the following: how can a person mobilise parts indicates general issues raised by this case of an internalised religious symbolic system study. as resources to address issues external to her religious experience? And which other social A semiotic psychological and symbolic resources can she use to address ruptures to which she is exposed? approach to change From a cultural psychological perspective, the The present contribution to the question of use world in which people constitute themselves of religious systems as symbolic resources is as human is inhabited by symbols encapsulat- limited to a single case. This paper is based ing meaning, and circulating through time and on the observation of a small group of ortho- space (Benson, 2001; Cole, 1996; Markovà, dox Jews who left the inclusive sphere of ex- 2003; Valsiner, 2005; Wertsch, 1998). Soci- perience of a Yeshiva, a rabbinic school, in eties thus provide individuals with semiotic order to study in a secular university. Jewish devices that they can use to confer meaning to orthodoxy offers a very strong corpus of texts their lives, and it is through expressive sym- and rules, and teaches hermeneutic competen- bolic means that individuals participate in so- cies: a set of heuristics of thought, that allow ciety. Symbolic activities are thus the locus of scholars to induce and deduce other cases, or encounter between what is most peculiar to to interpret some new events or cases in the individual’s interiority, and the shared knowl- light of canonical situations (see for ex. Billig, edge and understanding of societies (Obeye- 1987; Levinas, 1982; Ouaknin, 1986; Zittoun, sekere, 1977; Winnicott, 1971). 1999). In theory, an orthodox Jew, expert in these matters, should be able to link any new, Cultural elements and symbolic resources unexpected situation to the corpus, to elaborate The notion of cultural element can be used as a multi-voiced meaning of it, thus interpreting a generic to designate any complex constella- it in the light of the tradition. However, once tion of semiotic units (signs that carry shared confronted with the secular world, the young meaning), distinct from other constellations, persons observed here did not use religious organised and structured in particular ways. resources: they mobilised non-religious cul- Here two main categories of cultural elements tural elements to confer meaning to their new will be considered. life situations. A first category is that of cultural elements that have their meaning given by their inscrip- The first section of this paper presents the tion in a particular symbolic system. Religious key notions of this psychological approach. books, objects, or sets of beliefs, are thus cul- It details the notions of transitions following tural elements that can be part of a bounded ruptures of the taken-for-granted in people’s religious symbolic system. Such a system is lives, and of resources which might facilitate diffracted upon various interdependent sup- these; it also exposes the problem of leaving ports, and is regulated by some authorities religion. The second section presents the meth- (or “warden of the frame”, Grossen and Per- odology of the case study of young orthodox ret-Clermont, 1992) who define what belongs Jews coming back fromYeshiva to secular life. to the symbolic system and what does not. The third section examines the rupture these Judaism is such a bounded symbolic system; young people experience, and the fourth sec- it includes texts of reference, various cultural tion highlights various resources they use to objects, rules and norms, social regulations deal with newness. The fifth section finally and forms of authorities, which all take their 3 meanings from their location in that given sys- A second type of cultural elements are bounded tem. The rules, norms and principles can be or limited by a material support – e.g., books, described as hierarchically organised (Geertz, films, songs, or paintings. These, too, are or- 1972; Valsiner, 2001, 2005). In the case of or- ganised constellations of semiotic units, but thodox Jews, such a system can tentatively be their material support fixes their boundaries. described as follows: Cultural elements “exist” for people who “experience” them – reading a novel, partici- Level 1: At a first level, specific rules are pating in a rite – that is, when they link them guiding concrete, embodied actions and with their embodied memories and feelings. perceptions (e.g., praying, not eating Thus, cultural elements always refer simulta- pork, not looking at young girls’ exposed neously to something in the real world, and to shoulders); how other people have related to it. Level 2: The tradition defines rules and in- Experiences of cultural elements of both tentions for classes of actions and typical types eventually become internalised and con- situations (e.g., suggesting the study of stitutive of people’s personal culture (Valsiner, specific texts; preventing from eating lunch 1998). They can thus extend the range of peo- in a non kosher place); ple’s experience, and their knowledge, skills, Level 3: The tradition offers principles that images and emotions, about themselves, the have constraining forces. Such commit- world or others (Vygotsky, 1934; Winnicott, ments or meta rules include the value of 1971). learning and of studying religious texts; the Cultural elements can be objects of experi- value of the otherness; the value of improv- ence as such, that is, for their explicit function ing oneself; these are likely to canalise and or meaning – reading a novel for the fictional organise certain types of activities; experience it offers, participating to a rite in Level 4: The tradition defines fundamental be- order to participate to that rite – but also, they liefs: there is one God, and it is an honour can be used in relationship to something else. and a duty to respect the very special rela- Cultural elements used in relation to some- tionship between God and his creatures. thing that exceeds their intended meaning can be said to be used as symbolic resources.A Level 4 is a basic assumption in a given symbolic resource can thus be defined as a community and is bonded to identity. Level cultural element used by a person intending 3 meta-rules, as means to respect the latter, something beyond the meaning or aesthetic are diffracted within the texts and in everyday qualities of the cultural experience itself, just situations, guiding practices at level 2 and 1. as any cultural tool can be used (Brentano, In a Jewish orthodox milieu, such rules are 1874; Vygotsky and Luria, 1994; Zittoun et likely to be strongly actualised, re-enacted and al., 2003). For example, a book can be read in reassessed within the social field and the inter- order to get some sense of a foreign country to personal relationships (meals, prayers, familial which one will travel (Gillespie, 2006).