Published by Princeton University Press July 2005, 2005
ISBN 10: 0691116091 ISBN 13: 9780691116099
Seller: Fallen Leaf Books, Nashville, IN, U.S.A.
Trade Paperback. Condition: Very Good.
Published by Princeton University Press July 2005, 2005
ISBN 10: 0691114447 ISBN 13: 9780691114446
Seller: Eighth Day Books, LLC, Wichita, KS, U.S.A.
Paper Back. Condition: New. 'The question of tears.is an obscure matter and hard to analyze,' writes St. John Climacus. A passage from the Talmud offers, 'But though the gates of prayer (sha'are tefillah) are closed, the gates of weeping (sha'are dim'ahi) are not closed.' Though tears may be a form of liquid entreaty, they are not utterance. They are alternately messy, inchoate, a posture of sorrow, or an indication of despair. Tears are often associated with certain personality types and attributed to one gender more than another. But can they supersede prayer, as the Talmud suggests? This collection of essays is a panoramic view on the question of tears and the place of weeping in the religious imagination, encompassing an incredible (and sometimes esoteric) range of subjects including ritualized weeping in Japan, tears in the Mexican tradition, ritual tears in the Greek funerary traditions, the role of tears in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sufism, weeping in Jewish sources and the Warsaw ghetto, tears as transformation in South Asian Majlis poetry and as a marital rite of passage among the Oyo-Yoruba of Nigeria, the tears of Mary Magdalene and Margery Kempe, the mystery of tears in Eastern Orthodox spirituality, and a powerful (if somewhat controversial) discussion of God's weeping at Ground Zero following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Though uneven in parts, this rare collection essentially agrees with editor Kimberley Patton's assessment that 'rather than depleting the weeper and the well of human experience, tears generate the kingdom of God.'.