Behavior over Belief

One of the critical functions of ritual is to strengthen and sustain people. This is especially true during times of stress. However, simple daily rituals such as a quiet walk before work or reading before bedtime can be important in keeping one’s head together through the daily grind. For most us, ritual endurance is rarely a matter of life or death. But sometimes it is. When the forty-five passengers and crew of UAF Flight 571 took off from Montevideo, Uruguay in October of 1972, ritual endurance was the farthest thing from their minds. They were anticipating a jovial weekend getaway in Santiago, Chile. What they got instead was a harrowing ten week ordeal when their plane crashed in the Andes. Not long after the initial shock of the crash worn off, the survivors were faced with a grim reality: rescuers weren’t coming. They were on their own. The brutal conditions of their mountain “home” made cooperation and group solidarity necessities of survival. Either they work together and live; or they die as a disparate collection of bickering cliques.

It was here that ritual took on mortal significance. Ritual was the social glue bonding them to one another by constantly reminding them how much they needed each other; how much they loved each other; how strong they were as a team and how puny they were as individuals. Each night as the sun descended and the bitter cold grew, they gathered in the dark, broken hulk of the plane’s fuselage and together recited the rosary. Nothing extraordinary about this. They were Catholic schoolboys and rosary recitation was a routine part of their upbringing. But under these conditions the communal prayer’s symbolism had become an awful reality. They were the “banished children of Eve … mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.” Later, they would recount how as they prayed they felt an almost mystical unity among themselves; with God; and with their dead friends whose very bodies were providing them with sustenance. Whatever squabbles plagued them during the day fell to banal triviality as they prayed. “I am because we are…we stand or fall together.”

There were no confirmed atheists among the Andes survivors. But there were varying degrees of belief. Indeed, two of the group’s more significant members were borderline skeptics. One of them was Adolfo “Fito” Strauch, who, over time, had arisen to become of the group’s leaders. He had doubts about a personal God and tended to view rosary recitation as more mental relaxation than supernatural petition. Similarly, Fernando “Nando” Parrado, who along with Roberto Canessa trekked out of the Andes to get help, harbored similar reservations. He had lost his mother, sister, and best friend in the crash – something he found difficult to reconcile with the notion of an all-loving God. Neither, however, let their doubts disqualify them from the ritual. Ritual was bigger than their doubts.

Throughout most of our species’ history, ritual behavior has been far more critical than belief. Ritual solidified the group and the group was essential to everyone’s survival. In the past, a solitary human was a dead human. Our ancestors understood that brute fact. Believe what you want, but you will sing and dance with the tribe because without the tribe your life is worthless. And without you, the tribe is weakened. The Andes’ survivors were violently and shockingly transported back to that ancient calculus and they responded accordingly.

Fretting over correct belief is a recent and rather Christian obsession. In traditional Judaism, theological commitments take a back seat to behavior. A good Jew follows God’s laws. Whether he or she actually believes in God is secondary (not irrelevant or unimportant, but secondary). The same is true with ritual participation. While the beliefs behind ritual are not trivial, they are not the most important thing. What’s most important is that ritual is an acknowledgement of our communal dependency. No one is an island. Ritual reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves and that makes us stronger – doubts and all.