ritual Archives - Journal of Contemplative Studies

Review of Night of Beginnings: A Passover Haggadah

This review discusses Marcia Falk’s Night of Beginnings, a reimagined Passover Haggadah designed to inspire contemplative practice. Falk combines poetic liturgy, gender-inclusive language, and mystical reflections to offer new interpretations of traditional Jewish texts. She emphasizes the importance of personal and communal transformation, focusing on connection, humility, and compassion rather than power and exclusion. Through her creative blessings, storytelling, and visual art, Falk invites readers to experience the Passover Seder as a dynamic ritual filled with beauty, renewal, and spiritual depth.

Practicing the “Threefold Mystery”: Rethinking a Shingon Ritual from Dichotomy to Dialectic

After a century and a half of focus on Buddhist doctrine, academic attention is increasingly being paid to practice. What remains undertheorized, however, is the relation between the two. Despite its prevalence, the dichotomous representation of doctrine and practice is methodologically dysfunctional. As an alternative, it is proposed that the relation between doctrine and practice is better understood as dialectical, sometimes represented in Buddhist literature by the image of “the two wings of a bird.” This relation is explored by examining a particular tantric ritual, a Shingon homa.