Yom Kippur sermon one

Exit Though the Gift-shop

The architecture of many museums, art galleries, and other places of artistic or cultural significance is often configured in such away that at the end of a tour or visit, before leaving and returning to the world beyond the gallery's door, one passes though the gift-shop. This commercialisation of culture is of very necessary from the perspective of the individual institution, as it is though such commercial enterprises that they meet much of their running costs, if not in fact funding their war-chest for the acquisition of new artefacts for their collections and for the nation. In the case of some major British museums one of the senior management team will be in charge of and responsible for the smooth running of the museum-shop. These shops have both expanded, great and altered since my time visiting them on school-outings. Both the range and quality of their merchandise has changed, almost in fact beyond recognition. The British Museum for example has serval shops from one in which you can buy the normal range of post cards, pen, pencils, and other assorted odds and ends aimed at children and priced accordingly though to a shop which specialises in replicas of some of the sculptures housed in the hallowed halls of the museum which a well-to-do visitor may well have seen and loved so much that they wont one for their very own. As an aside as a boy from Stoke-on-Trent I am gratified that their most expensive item is replica of the Portland verse made to order by Wedgwood.

And as the adage goes, 'if you have to ask the price, then you cannot afford it'.

But whether small or large, priced in pennies or in hundreds (or even thousands) of pounds the basic principle underlying the transaction is the same.

Nor is the museum-shop as exit unique to England, indeed I think it must be rather universal.

During my year in Israel I had the opportunity of visiting a fairly largely number of museums there, from the Israel Museum and Bialik's house though to minor art galleries and archaeological sites tucked away in small places in the peripheries of the county. In Israel too one exited though the gift shop, only there the gifts on offer were different. Some where common to all Israeli museums. Olive-wood in various shapes and forms, small bottles of oil scent with frankincense. Other girts however, were more connected with the place. I still have my hamsa from Binyamina and as a result remember the museum about the history of the town. 

Again the basic idea underlying these museum-door transactions is a straightforward one. The museum gains valuable funds, but museum goer has perhaps gained even more than the museum has. 

The art gallery or museum goer, has encountered the other. They might even have come to a deeper understanding of themselves. Yet, they must return to world outside the walls of the museum, the perches of something, anything, from the museum shop is an attempt to take something of the museum experience away with us, and indeed to pass it on to someone else.

From the time of the Enlightenment onwards, certainly from the time of French Revaluation onwards, trips to galleries and museums has largely replaced the classical idea of the religious pilgrimage. Far more people have been to museums than have gone on pilgrimage.

The medieval pilgrimage too, would have concluded with the opportunity for the pilgrim to buy keepsakes of their their pilgrimage. In the Jewish tradition, from the Biblical period onwards, had three main pilgrimages. Passover, Shavout, and Succot.

Succot brings the period of the High Holy Days to a close, and in biblical times many, many people would have already been in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year.  

It is now almost two thousand years since the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of pilgrimage as a major theme in Judaism.

To be sure some elements of pilgrimage continued, and continue in Judaism. To the grave sites of famous rabbis and to various Biblical locations, not to mention the interesting phenomenon of the 'secular Jewish pilgrimage'.

Nevertheless and all that said, pilgrimages slipped from the Jewish mainstream.

The rabbis who invented, or re-invented Judaism had to copy with the lost of the martial and physical.

In the place sacrifices, liturgy. In place of passover in the Temple the remarkable achievement that is seder shell pasche.

Each festival was given something unique, and new something which reflected its past but something which had be transformed.

Rosh Hashanah, has the sound of the shofar, Yom Kippur has, among other things Kol Nidrei.

There is a much used metaphor for the Days of awe, that of a journey. And it is much used because it is both powerful and accurate. Taken together Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the days between take us, if we let them, on a journey.

Unlike our ancient counterparts we have untaken a virtual we have not walked to Jerusalem to Temple to make our offerings see the rituals performed and then return changed. We have rather, prayed, study and mediated together and individually.

The word Teshuvah normally translated as repentance, in Hebrew contains the word for return, however transforming the Days of Awe are, however much they are a journey, in the end we need to return to world outside of the synagogue.

Just as those who came before, had to return from Jerusalem to their homes. From sacred places and holy times, to the secular and the mundane. I am sure that in ancient times there were people ready and willing to sell the pilgrims moments to help them hold onto something of their experiences.

There are no market stools at the end of our journey from which we could buy mementos, nor when the journey ends as it will shortly we will not leave though any gift-shops. We can however, take something of the season and from our journey with us.

If we can carry some fragments from our journey during the days of awe into our day-to-day lives. Then when the last note of last shofar call has faded away, and we have returned then our journey together will most assuredly not have been wasted.

גמר חתימה טובה