Ritual Failure and the Court’s Power to Change Ritual
A third way in which the ritual narratives give authority to the Court is by describing the Court making changes in ritual procedure when ritual fails.24 According to the Mishnah, the Court is the body with the authority to make a change in how a ritual is performed every year. The role of the court in changing Temple ritual because of failure can be seen in a small section of the narrative describing the Day of Atonement ritual in the Temple, Yoma 2:1–2:2, a section that focuses on the regular clearing of the altar’s ashes:
פרק ב’ בראשונה כל מי שהוא רוצה לתרום את המזבח תורם בזמן שהן
מרובין רצין ועולין בכבש וכל הקודם את חבירו לתוך [ארבע] אמות זכה
אם היו שנים שוין הממונה אומ’ להן הצביעו ומה הן מוציאין אחת או
שתים ואין מוציאין אגודל במקדש ב’ מעשה שהיו שנ[י]ם שווין רצים
ועולים בכבש ודחף אחד מהן את חבירו ונשברה רגלו וכשראו בית דין
שהן באין לידי סכנה התקינו שלא יהו [תורמין] את המזבח אלא בפייס
(2:1) At first, whoever wanted to clear the ashes off the altar would clear off the ashes. When there were many interested [priests], they would run and go up the ramp of the altar, and whoever reached within four cubits first, won. If they were tied, the appointed one [mĕmuneh] would say to them, “Raise fingers!” [to decide the winner]. And what would they bring out? One or two [fingers], but they do not bring out a thumb in the Temple.
(2:2) It once happened that two who were equal were running and going up the altar, and one pushed the other and he broke his leg. And when the Court saw that they had come to danger, they decreed that henceforth they would determine who cleared the ashes by lots.
A useful framework for interpreting this and other accounts of ritual failure in the Temple ritual narratives can be provided by the theoretical study of what Ronald Grimes terms “infelicitous performances” of ritual.25 As Grimes shows, ritual can fail in many different ways, which, in his perspective, means that it can fail to achieve the desired result, ranging from “flaws” or “hitches” in the procedure to “abuses” or “omissions.” More recently, Edward Schieffelin has argued that any account of ritual failure must acknowledge different ways of defining the phenomenon, both among ritualists and among theorists. In Schieffelin’s view, there are two fundamentally different ways ritual is thought to fail: the ritual performance can fail; or the ritual can fail to achieve its desired ends. The latter is a matter of “process” and the former a matter of “outcome.”26
In Yoma 2:2, the ashes-clearing ritual has failed because it devolved into violence. One priest aggressively pushed another and caused an injury simply to win the right to perform the ritual. This suggests that the cause of the failure was a combination of a flaw in the procedure and a natural human tendency toward competition and conflict. The performance of the ritual failed because of the way the ritual was set up as a race and because one person executing the ritual acted inappropriately.27 But this may be a matter of a failed outcome as well. The daily sacrificial rituals, following biblical ideology, were meant to ensure God’s presence and God’s favor, and the Day of Atonement ritual to effect purgation or atonement. Yet the way violence is pictured suddenly breaking out may suggest that this ritual is also normally meant to contain human conflict (through the ritual process itself).28 But it did not in this case. As a result of failure of performance and the result of violence (whether or not this was a failure of the desired ends), the Court, according to the narrative, intervened and permanently changed the procedure to stem the violence and the “danger” it posed. A similar process of failure and the very same response can be seen in the example of the ritual for distributing lulāvim (ritual palm branches) in Sukkah 4:4:
מצות הלולב כיצד כל העם מוליכין את לולביהם להר הבית והחזנים
מקבלים מידם וסודרין על גג האיסטווה והזקנים מניחין את שלהן בלשכה
ומלמדין אותם לומר כל מי שהגיע לולבי בידו הרי הוא לו מתנה למחרת
משכימים ובאין והחזנים מזרקין לפניהם והן מחטפין ומכין איש את
חבירו וכשראו בית דין שהן באין לידי סכנה התקינו שיהא כל אחד
ואחד נוטל בביתו
The ritual of the lulāv [palm branch], how so?29 The entire nation brings their lulāvim to the Temple Mount [on the day before the festival that coincided with the Sabbath]. And the superintendents used to receive [the lulāvim] and arrange them on the roof of the stoa. And the elders leave their [lulāvim] in the chamber [of hewn stone]. And they teach [the people] to say, “Whoever gets my lulāv, it is a gift for him.”
The next morning, they would arise early and come [to the Temple] and the superintendents throw [the lulāvim] to them, and they grab and hit one another.
And when the bēit din [Court] saw that they had come to danger, they decreed that henceforth each person shall ritually take the lulāv at home.
In this example, there is an apparent flaw in the procedure, which, because the people have a strong desire to get their own lulāv back, allows and even seems to encourage them to grab and beat one another up in attempt to get the one they want. Here, the violence and the danger it poses are prevented by the change that the Court makes to the procedure. The change corrects the apparent flaw and ensures that the natural competitiveness that leads to violence will be kept in check.
The question for my study of why ritual has failed in these mishnaic narratives is not a matter of social dynamics and ritual dynamics, as it would be for a cultural anthropologist or ritual theorist. The questions are not: How do the rituals function? What do the rituals do? Rather, because Temple ritual narratives are rabbinic representations of Temple ritual, the question of why ritual failed is more a matter of how and why the mishnaic authors claimed that Temple ritual failed.
As Grimes points out in his analysis of infelicitous ritual performance, ritual failure is a matter of judgment. For him, this is a theoretical problem. Yet for the study of a text as discourse, this is precisely what is of interest: Why do the rabbinic authors of these narratives engage in what Grimes terms “ritual criticism,” or judging the rite and its effectiveness?30 Most fundamentally, as I have suggested, the rabbis’ portrayal of ritual failure asserts the authority of the Court to fix the ritual. The details of the ritual failure as narrated suggest certain nuances in the authority being claimed here. In imagining the court responding to the ritual failures and thus correcting the flaws, preventing improper actions by the ritualists, and ensuring that competitiveness and violence are contained, the narratives suggest that the Court had the authority to determine the details of the ritual procedure, to control the ritual actors, and to ensure harmony among the people of