“Religions have a particular habit of collecting yesterday’s technologies and holding on to them long after they’ve faded from use and collective memory”

Religions have a particular habit of collecting yesterday’s technologies and holding on to them long after they’ve faded from use and collective memory. There’s a simple logic to this behavior: Obsolescence confers a post-facto distinctiveness on religious objects, which is just what the doctor ordered if you’re trying to telegraph tradition, continuity or sanctity to practitioners.

David Zvi Kalman, “The Strange and Violent History of the Ordinary Grogger”, Forward (20 March 2016) [http://forward.com/culture/jewishness/335491/the-strange-and-violent-history-of-the-ordinary-grogger]