On Organology, Tikkun and Baraka: The Venerated Lives of North African Torah Scrolls (Dr Ilana Webster-Kogen, SOAS)

For Jews all over the world, the Torah scroll is the height of holiness, framed as the carefully designed and produced word of God. Jews give great attention to the care of Torah scrolls, ensuring they are maintained and protected so that they can be used for ritually chanting the Torah portion at regular intervals. North African Jews stand out in their use of Torah scrolls in the breadth of their veneration practices, practices that celebrate the Torah and its role as divine intermediary, and Jews from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya will often frame the scroll in terms that are kabbalistic (based in Jewish mysticism) or informed by Sufi ritual habits. It is like a member of the community, referred to in the Bible and in liturgy as the “Tree of Life” (Etz Hayim) and often described anthropomorphically as having clothing (me’il) and a birthday (Simhat Torah). This presentation explores the many ways that North African communities anthropomorphize Torah scrolls, treating them in ways that to an observer would clearly suggest semi-human agency and its own life cycle. Within this framework of anthropomorphism, we consider the ontological status of the scroll from the perspectives of organology, mysticism, and ritual healing. As we query the broad suggestion in the literature of the Torah scroll as a gendered, male space, we examine the ways that women put faith in its healing and productive power. By examining a veneration habitus that centres anthropomorphism, organology, mystical repair (tikkun) and divine blessings (baraka), we propose a ritual reconsideration of human-object interstices.

ILANA WEBSTER-KOGEN is the Joe Loss Reader in Jewish Music at SOAS University of London, where she is the Head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics. She is the author of the award-winning book Citizen Azmari: Making Ethiopian Music in Tel Aviv, published in 2018 by Wesleyan University Press. She publishes primarily in the disciplines of Ethnomusicology, Jewish Studies, and Middle East Studies, and she has been awarded visiting positions at Yale, UPenn and NYU Abu Dhabi. Her presentation today comes from her next book manuscript, entitled Traders, Chanters and Mystics: the Networked Afterlives of North African Torah Scrolls.