Status is sacrificed by many acts of worship, especially rituals that involve the body, like kneeling, bowing, and prostrating.34 Jesus famously washed the feet of his disciples. Even the simple act of wearing a yarmulke is understood as a symbolic way for Jews to humble themselves before God. Less symbolically, many practices also serve to stigmatize practitioners in the eyes of outsiders. By wearing “strange” clothes or refusing to eat from the same plates as secular folk, members of a given sect lose standing in broader society (while gaining it within the sect, of course).
