Spooky Talmud 🦇
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Happy Halloween to all who celebrate!
Why yes, I adore Halloween, and why yes, some Jews regard it as a forbidden pagan holiday. Lots of different ways to understand lots of things!
As I read it, Halloween now is a secular holiday; my kids haven’t once (yet) practiced necromancy while trick-or-treating. And, from my American perspective (engaging it as a secular holiday) it fills a needed place in our emotional calendar; a time to stand up to the monster in your dream and say, "You're not real." It can invite us to have space to befriend what we consider our shadow sides in a potentially useful way.
One of our family traditions, besides regarding costumes with the appropriate level of seriousness and usually DIYing them, is Scary Shabbos. The Shabbat before Halloween, we do a creepy menu: challah transformed into a big bug, stuffed peppers carved like jack-o-lanterns, monster green pasta with (veggie) meatballs that get turned into eyeballs with mozzarella and olive, and so on. This started in rabbinical school, when Halloween fell on a Friday night and I realized that since it was Shabbat I wasn’t going to make it to West Hollywood to be where Halloween got done right, I was going to have to bring Halloween to me. (Why yes, this is the same person who gave you a whole essay on rainbow unicorn Torah.) So before kids it was a fun thing to do with my, and then our, friends, and after kids it’s become a different kind of sweet tradition. Out of laziness, I guess, I haven’t really switched up the menu much year after year, but for my kids, by now, that’s part of the tradition. “Oh, good, there are the spiderweb eggs.” “You’re doing spaghetti and eyeballs again, right?”
Another innovation I can’t recommend enough if you have trick-or-treaters (or leftover candy from disseminating) is making Halloween cookies. Take a bunch of the best chocolate-based things and other things that’d bake well, chop them up into one big chaotic mess, use in lieu of chocolate chips. They’ve been coming in a bit overly sweet in recent years so I may do a basic muffin recipe this year rather than a cookie one; haven’t decided yet.
Also keep your eye out for the photos of mundane Halloween costumes that start to come out later in the day. This is a thread from last year with another thread embedded:
ANYWAY. Should we learn some Spooky Talmud??
Let’s learn some Spooky Talmud!!
We start in the very beginning of the Talmud, practically; page 6 of Tractate Brachot:
It was taught that Abba Binyamin says: If the eye was given permission to see, no creature would be able to handle the demons.
Abaye said: They are more numerous than we are and they stand over us like mounds of earth surrounding a pit.
Rav Huna said: Each and every one of us has a thousand demons to our left and ten thousand to our right.
Like: what?? There are so many demons out there in the world that nobody could deal if they could even see, and picture the way dirt surrounds a pit you dug out. That’s a lot of demons.
We continue:
Rava said: The crowding at the kalla, [the gatherings for Torah study during the months or Elul and Adar] is from the demons; those knees that are fatigued even though one did not exert himself is from the demons; those clothes of the Sages that wear out, [despite the fact that they do not engage in physical labor], is from friction with the demons; those feet that are in pain is from the demons.
So that claustrophobic feeling you get in crowded events? Demons. Your clothes wearing out too soon? Demons. Sore feet? Demons.
But wait, there’s more!
One who seeks to know [for themselves] should place fine ashes around their bed, and in the morning the demons’ footprints appear like chickens’ footprints in the ash.
They hang out at night and if you set things up, you can see their little chickeny footprints in the morning!!
One who seeks to see them should take the placenta of a firstborn female black cat, born to a firstborn female black cat, burn it in the fire, grind it and place it in their eyes, and they will see them. They must then place the ashes in an iron tube sealed with an iron seal [gushpanka] lest the demons steal it from them, and then seal the opening so they will not be harmed. Rav Beivai bar Abaye performed this procedure, saw the demons, and was harmed. The Sages prayed for mercy on his behalf and he was healed. (Talmud Brachot 6a)
Disclaimer: Life is a Sacred Text does not constitute medical advice in any way. Please consult your doctor to find out if putting ground-up cat placenta in your eye is right for you.
(Kids, don’t try this one at home. Not even Rav Beivai bar Abaye could pull it off without some last-minute intervention from his buddies, who have more advanced spiritual tools than most of us, I’d gander.)
I have heard that the ashes of a black cat were believed to have power in other ancient Near Eastern cultures, so that might be where this comes from.
But all this Talmudic demon talk could be surfacing something that was in the culture all along. It’s unclear how much demonology-type belief there was in the First or Second Temple period—not as much, for sure, but people speculate. Like the bells on the High Priest’s garment are similar to bells in other cultures that regard it as a noise that wards off demons; in the same vein, incense, wearable amulets sacred texts (that is, tefillin), and other things commanded in the Torah are used in other ancient Near Eastern cultures to ward off evil spirits.
But especially: the Rabbis of the Talmud were living in what’s now Iraq, under the Sasanian (aka Neo-Persian) Empire. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion, and there are many places where the Zoroastrian cultural influence can be felt on the Talmud itself. The further development of Jewish demonology like this passage above is widely regarded to be a result of contact with Zoroastrian culture. It’s like the Free Little Library, but with supernatural spirits: Take a demon, share a demon.
Let’s do a few more:
Our Rabbis taught: One should not drink water in the night; if they do drink, their blood is on their head, [you’re risking something major] for it is dangerous. What danger is there? The danger of Shabriri. But if they are thirsty, how should they do it right? — If there is another person there, they should wake them and say: 'I am athirst for water'. If not, let them knock with the lid on the jug and say to themself: 'Thou [giving their name] the child of [naming their mother], thy mother hath warned thee to guard thyself against Shabriri, briri, riri, iri, ri, found in white cups.' (Avodah Zarah 12b)
OK. First of all, you may or may not have noticed that I sometimes tinker with translations, to make them more gender-neutral, to make sure the wording is more accurately reflected in the Hebrew/Aramaic, whatever. But there are a few things in this one I will never change. “I am athirst for water.” Never changing that. It’s perfect. Use it next time you’re feeling athirst. Plus all the thous, which are most assuredly not reflected in the original text. But they add something, don’t they?
Second of all: If you’re thirsty in the middle of the night, bring a buddy. (Wake your poor sleeping buddy.) And if you’re alone, you do this knocking thing and this disappearing incantation to vanish the demon in the water. You just take away Shiribiri’s name until Shiribiri doesn’t exist anymore, basically.
What’s the danger? Wellllll, if you look at the other things happening above that little section on the page, it starts to feel a little clearer:
An early source (a baraita) is quoted: One may not place their mouth on a pipe and drink, due to the danger. The Talmudic voice inquires: What danger? And then answers: [the danger of accidentally swallowing a] leech. The Sages taught: A person should not drink water from rivers or from ponds either [directly] with their mouth, or with one hand. And if they drank [this way], their blood is upon their head, due to the danger. The Talmud explains: What danger? The danger of [swallowing] a leech. (Talmud Avodah Zarah 12b)
Yeahhhhhh water wasn’t so safe back in the day. There’s a reason why they drank wine a lot (even if it was this kind of watered-down stuff compared to what we’re used to today) and beer (often made from dates!), and other beverages, wasn’t only for the fun. So one might imagine why trying to drink in the middle of the night, with no electricity to help see and no Brita filter, might feel… dangerous. (Yes, it’s me, taking all the fun out of Demon Talmud. I’m sorry.)
Then there’s this next bit, always my favorite, based on a superstition that eating or drinking something in pairs (that is, even numbers, but especially two of something) was a bad, bad idea, makes you vulnerable to demon attack. (This superstition might have had Zoroastrian origins, iirc? Don’t remember.) So, like:
Abaye, when he would drink one cup, his mother would immediately place two cups in his two hands [so that he would not inadvertently drink only one more cup and thereby expose himself to the danger of drinking in pairs.] And similarly, when Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak would drink two cups, his attendant would immediately place one more cup in his hand, and if he would drink one cup, the attendant would place two cups in his two hands. (Talmud Pesachim 110a)
Got it? If you’re going to have that second drink, you better be willing to commit to that third one.
And yes, this is here because they want to know how on earth we can have four cups of wine at the Passover seder. There are of course multiple answers: a) Rav Nahman says that since Passover was a night of watching for God, God will protect us from demons. b) Rava says that since the third cup is for the Grace After Meals, not for the seder, it’s considered a separate commandment so it’s actually 3 cups and 1 cup, not 4 cups. c) Ravina says that each cup is its own commandment, so it’s not 4 cups, it’s 1 cup and then 1 cup and then 1 cup and then 1 cup.
ANYWAY. All of this pair worries brings us to this magical scene:
Rav Papa said, Joseph the demon told me: “For two [cups] we kill; for four we do not kill, [but] for four we harm [the drinker]. For two [we hurt] whether [they are drunk] unwittingly or deliberately; for four, only if it is deliberate, but not if it is unwitting [ie you thought it was number 3 or 5].” And if a person forgot themselves and happened to go out, what is the remedy? Let them take their right-hand thumb in their left hand and their left-hand thumb in their right hand and say: ‘You [two thumbs] and I, surely that is three!’
Got it? Grab your thumbs in the opposite hands and then thumb plus thumb plus you equals three. Demon can’t touch you, clearly. But wait! You’re not out of danger yet!
But if they hear [the demon] saying, ‘Ye and I, surely that is four!’ let him retort to him, ‘Ye and I are surely five!’
Yes. You being three, plus me, the demon, makes an odd number. So you then say, you’re four, plus me, equals five. Yes. This is what’s happening.
And if they hear [the demon] saying, ‘Ye and I are six,’ let them retort, ‘Ye and I are seven.’ This once happened until a hundred and one , and the demon burst. (Talmud Pesachim 110a)
Yes, these are not only instructions on how to keep a demon from zapping you on the road (because you are outside, a lil’ tipsy, a lil’ vulnerable, friends) but how to make that demon EXPLODE. More practical guidance here at Life is a Sacred Text! But I gander that if you’re a lil’ tipsy, managing to carry on back and forth and not mess it up until 101 might be a bit trickier than walking in a straight line.
Anyway. I could keep going for days on this, but I’ll end with one of my favorite early golem stories, and/or: how to magic up some snax when you’re a little noshy.
Rabbah created a man, and sent him to R. Zera. R. Zera spoke to him, but received no answer. Thereupon he said unto him: 'Thou art a creature of the magicians. Return to thy dust.' R. Hanina and R. Oshaia spent every Sabbath eve studying the 'Book of Creation', by means of which they created a third-grown calf and ate it. (Talmud Sanhedrin 65b)
I wonder what the best cooking recipes are for golem calf burgers. Do the cook at the same temperature? Do certain condiments work especially well? We’ll all just have to speculate together.
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Sending a big pile of blessings and goodness your way. 👻
Two friends from my Jewish congregation have artwork in a group show about superstitions. You can view artworks and writings from the show at the two links below.
......
Link # 1 of 2:
Art Catalogue from "Magical Thinking: Superstitions and Other Persistent Notions"
Exhibit dates: May 24 - Dec. 15, 2022
Dr. Bernard Heller Museum
Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion, New York
http://huc.edu/sites/default/files/0%20Superstition%20catalog%20FINAL%20LR%20for%20web.pdf
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Link # 2 of 2:
HUC's website page describing the show, with links to media coverage about it:
http://huc.edu/news/2022/05/10/magical-thinking-superstitions-and-other-persistent-notions
No apologies Rabbi. It's quite illuminating to learn about the real fears and dangers people experienced, like leeches, and doesn't take the fun out of Demon Talmud at all.