ABSTRACT
In Jewish devotional practice, there are passionate repetitions of key moments of Jewish scriptural history, such as Passover, that reaffirm the structure of belief on which Jewish life and religion rest. The key word and key concept in the representation, memorialization, and reaffirmation of sacred Jewish purposes is the word mitzvah (plural: mitzvot) and the ideas it signifies. It means “commandment” and also “good deed.” The notion of the mitzvah has also come to include those acts that carry the spirit of the law “beyond mere legal duty,” endowing deeds with a surplus of affect that makes knowing what is right feel right too. The performance is intimately part of what is being remembered and acknowledged. This connects rather seamlessly to reenactment, recalling that the term’s first definition (in the Oxford English Dictionary) is “when a law or regulation is observed (and veritably brought to life) again.”
