Excrement and the Construction of the Praying Body in Rabbinic Literature

This article addresses the construction of prayer and of the defecating body in rabbinic literature. As opposed to viewing prayer as a spiritual and interior expression of religion and of one’s innermost depths, this study situates prayer within the context of actual bodies—that defecate, flatulate, urinate, spit, and sneeze—precisely at the moment when they wish to stand before the divine. Through a close reading of overlooked meticulous rabbinic discussions regarding cleansing the body before prayer, I examine both the rabbinic theory of prayer as well as the rabbis’ theory of the body while situating their approach within broader perceptions of “bodily bursts” in late antiquity. Instead of an idealized interiority, prominent in contemporary discourses on prayer, the rabbis are engaged in a detailed and ugly examination of their concrete interiority—and with the theological and anthropological meaning of their inability to completely regulate their own bodily activities.