The Ritual Houses

This chapter discusses the four places: the local, Jerusalem and the land of Israel, the Hebrew Bible, and god's presence— of belonging and aims to reveal some of their inscriptive methods so that the four places become visible and their concurrent presence through the ritual houses are made apparent. The ritual houses as a group provide spaces for collective memory and hence a source that assists the individual in comprehending abstract places that might otherwise be inaccessible. The selection criteria for the chosen objects are their portability and their existence solely as a ritual house. The smaller ritual houses — the rings with a house, the besommim, the rimmonim, and the hanukkiyyot — have been analyzed in the context of art history. The ritual houses are like nomadic architecture sitting on top of the landscape without penetrating deeply into preexisting structures or landscapes.