Everyday Rituals

We rebel against customs and rituals, but Katz shows their liberating power, the freedom to create within the structures of the old. A fascinating story, well told, with memorable examples and astonishing surprises, from sex to science.
â" John Mather, Astrophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (Physics) 2006
 

Every seminarian of every tradition should read this extremely insightful book.
â" Rabbi Robert Goldstein, D.Min., Rabbi Emeritus, Amherst, MA
 

Dr. Pearl Katz eloquently presents a compelling argument that rituals can transform everyday ordinary life to inspire imagination, creativity, innovation and change.

Her vivid descriptions of family routines, medical encounters, and death and dying illustrate how rituals enhance freedom of the mind.

Her interviews with young people about their sex lives and everyday family life during Covid reveal how the absence of rituals can restrict peopleâs freedom.

Dr. Katzs superb ability to observe and analyze gives new insights about the role of rituals in our lives.

â" Boris Draznin, M.D., Ph.D., The Celeste and Jack Grynberg Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
 

Katzâs compelling book argues that rituals dont constrain us but free our minds to wander and create. Whether its bedtime routines or 16,000 identical Starbucks, home births or the surgical suite, Drill Sergeant training or a raucous Irish wake, the emptiness of hookups or lonely death in the pandemic, she shows us in dazzling observations and interviews that rituals are as vital to modern life as to any traditional culture, and that weâd be far more trapped without them.
â" Melvin Konner, M.D., Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, Department of Anthropology, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology, Emory University
 

Filled with examples of how the structuring of life via rituals and habits frees the mind and spirit, paradoxically crafting freedom and creativity out of constraint, Everyday Rituals rediscovers Confucian and Taoist wisdom. It is going out toward others via organized social relations that creates the authentic self, not the American pop wisdom that we find the self within. This is the real lesson of life!
â" Arthur Kleinman, M.D., Ph.D., Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School