Jewish Halloween: Sources and Stories

A Joke:

Q: What happens if you don’t pay your dybbuk exorciser on time?

A: You get repossessed!

Jewish Halloween “on one foot”:

Judaism, like other ancient cultures, has a rich tradition of explaining things that go wrong as being the work of demons. Other characters, such as witches, ghosts, and mindless golems, have also entered the Jewish folklore tradition. Dybbuks, presumed to be spirits of the dead who take over living people due to unfinished business, may have been an explanation for schizophrenia or Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The Torah’s Take

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, when Moses and Aaron first go to Pharaoh to try to free the Israelite slaves. The text seems to suggest that magic, either illusionary or real, exists, but it is not Jewish and should not be confused with Divine miracles.

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Leviticus, right after the description of Yom Kippur in the time of the Torah. It is saying that all sacrifices must be brought to the Tabernacle, now that it’s up and running, and that hopefully this will keep people from sacrificing to the goat-demons any longer. It must not have totally stamped out the Israelite interest in these goat-demons; in II Chronicles 11:14-16 we learn that when Jereboam separated the Northern Kingdom of Israel from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, he appointed priests for the goat-demons and anybody who wanted to pray to G-d had to leave the country to go to Jerusalem.

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Leviticus, from “the Holiness Code” of Chapter 19. The chapter’s thesis is “You shall be holy because I the Lord your G-d am holy”. Therefore, this suggests that turning to “ghosts” (related to the word for “ancestors”) and “familiar spirits” (meaning “spirits of those deceased whom are known to you” and related to the word for “known”) keeps you from being holy (so no seances). Again, not something Jewish to do.

Jewish Sources about Witches

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of First Samuel. King Saul is concerned because the Philistines are attacking. Normally he would ask G-d what to do, but G-d isn’t answering him this time, so he decides to ask the prophet Samuel, who is dead. This requires finding somebody who can contact the dead, which is a problem because he made that process illegal (per the Torah). This woman is usually referred to as “the witch of En-Dor”, though the text does not specifically refer to her as a “witch”. In the sitcom "Bewitched" (1960s-70s), the witch's mother is named "Endora" in a reference to this story.

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Pesachim, which is about Passover. The Gemara is discussing whether drinking the Four Cups puts one in danger from demons, because they are more likely to show up when you do things in pairs. Various solutions are presented for how to deal with the demons, and this leads to our text about witches.

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, from a general list of “Do”s and “Don’t”s. If the (authors of the) Torah did not believe that sorceresses / witches were real, this rule would not have been included. (Kippa tip to The Witch of Woodland, by Laurel Snyder (2023), about a girl who is navigating middle school and her Bat-Mitzvah process and happens to be a witch)

Jewish Sources About Demons

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Brachot, which is about blessings and prayers. A few teachings about prayers are provided by Abba Binyamin, and while they were on the subject of his teachings we get this text which was also taught by him.

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Gittin, which is about divorce. Here we have a text from the Mishnah which seeks to avoid an “Agunah”, a chained woman who can’t remarry because her husband never gave her a “get” (divorce document). The rabbis of the Gemara worry that if he’s talking from a pit where he has no chance of getting out, maybe it’s actually a demon down there.

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Kiddushin, which is about marriage. The Gemara says that a parent must ensure that their child gets married, but also learn to swim, learn a trade, and learn Torah. It then goes on to discuss what happens if there is limited funds for Torah study and the son shows no aptitude for study while the father is good at studying Torah. This happened when Rav Aha bar Ya’akov’s son, who flunked out of studying with Abaye. Rav Aha taught his son a trade and then went to study with Abaye, which leads us to this text.

Context: This is from the post-Biblical Book of Tobit, part of the Apocrypha (Tobit was written between 225 and 175 BCE, probably in Mesopotamia). Asmodeus was considered to be the King of the Demons. According to the Talmud, King Solomon needed the Shamir, a mythical worm that could cut stone (Pirkei Avot 5:6) because he couldn’t use metal due to its use in war. Solomon managed to capture Asmodeus to find out where the Shamir was (Gittin 68a:5-68b:20).

Jewish Sources about Ghosts

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Brachot, which is about blessings and prayers. The first Mishnah in Chapter 3 talks about which blessings and prayers one is exempt from before one has buried a loved one (answer, according the Mishnah: Shema, Amidah, tefillin, and all positive commandments in the Torah). The Gemara discusses this and how it is inappropriate to wear tefillin while standing by a grave because the dead can’t wear tefillin anymore and this might make them feel bad. Rabbi Yonatan cites Ecclesiastes 9:5, that the dead don’t know anything. This leads to this story.

Context: This text follows the previous one from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Brachot.

Jewish Sources About Golems

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Sanhedrin, which is about the judicial system. Here is it talking about the punishments for necromancers, and whether righteous people can also bring people to life. The term "golem" comes up twice in the rabbinic description of Adam's creation as referring to his state before he was a 100% human (Sanhedrin 38b:2 and Vayikra Rabba 29:1, though the texts don't agree at which "hour" Adam was a golem). For a modern young adult book involving golems (and dybbuks and ghosts), see Naomi Teitelbaum Ends the World, by Samara Shanker.

Jewish Vampires

- Sefer Hasidim, a 1200s German Jewish book attributed to Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg, talks about estries.

- Estries are Jewish female vampires who are also shape-shifters (and they only feed on adult Jews).

- They fly using their unbound hair, which was a big deal at a time when a married woman could be divorced for not covering her hair.

- According to Rabbi Menahim Zioni, a 1300s Kabbalist, estries come from those who had the chutzpah, the audacity, to build the Tower of Babel.

- Others think they are the children of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, or that they were created right before Shabbat during Creation but they didn’t get finished in time so they can change shape and have no souls.

- If an estrie attacks you, try three things: 1. Tie her hair back so she can’t fly. 2. Cover all your skin so she has nowhere to bite. 3. Kill her by hitting or looking at her.

- If an estrie attacks you, don’t do the following: 1. Give her any food after you hit her, even if she changes form. 2. Give her a blessing, even if she comes up to you in synagogue. 3. Bury her with her mouth not filled up with dirt.

https://www.heyalma.com/the-history-of-estries-aka-jewish-vampires/

Jewish Sources About Pumpkins

Context: This is from the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law written by Rabbi Joseph Caro in 1563. It’s from a Sephardic perspective, so Rabbi Moses Isserles (the “Rama”) wrote a gloss which provides an Ashkenazic perspective on each part. There are 4 parts to the Shulchan Aruch, and this text is from the Orach Chayim, which is about things related to prayer, synagogues, and holidays (including Shabbat). This text is talking about the custom of a “Rosh Hashanah Seder”, eating symbolic foods usually chosen because of Hebrew puns.

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Brachot, which is about blessings and prayers. It is commenting on a mishnah about when one must say prayers of thanks to G-d. Rav Yehudah, citing Rav, puts several categories together in order to say something about what all of them have in common (the categories of people who must “bentch gomel” after they have survived a life-threatening experience). The Gemara then cites other times that Rav Yehudah clumps categories together, including saying that “Good kings, good years, and good dreams only come from G-d”. This leads to an extended discussion about interpreting dreams.

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sukkah, which is about Sukkot (logically enough). This saying is at the end of a discussion about how the different groups of priests divided up the “showbread” in the Temple when Shabbat was near a holiday like Sukkot. This is the Talmudic version of the saying “A bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush” (a saying first written down in the 1500s).

“The Secret Sephardic History of the Pumpkin”

Quite soon after Europeans discovered pumpkin from the Americas — as early as the mid-16th century, in fact — they began planting this hardy and easy-to-grow crop, which had the additional benefit of keeping for months in storage during the cold winter. But, despite these attributes, most European consumers remained wary of actually eating pumpkin. In France, for example, pumpkins were used mainly as animal fodder. In Italy, pumpkin was thought of contemptuously as food for the poor. In The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, Gil Marks notes that, by contrast, Iberian Jews quickly embraced pumpkin as a culinary ingredient.

The Sephardim who fled to nearby Italy from Spain brought pumpkin with them and soon Italian Jews began trading in pumpkins as well as cooking with them. This trade was facilitated in part by diaspora Jews’ continued connection to Spain through the Marranos — Christian converts who remained in Spain and often still secretly practiced Judaism. In The Book of Jewish Food, Claudia Roden points out that since it first appeared in Italy, pumpkin has been associated with the Jews. Ravioli filled with pumpkin — a familiar dish to anyone who frequents Italian restaurants at this time of year — was originally a Sephardic creation. Italian Jews also developed recipes for pumpkin puree, pumpkin flan, and pumpkin fritters, a Hanukkah delicacy.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-nosher/the-secret-sephardic-history-of-the-pumpkin/

Jewish Sources About Giving Out Candy

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Genesis, right after Abraham gives himself a circumcision at age 99. Rashi, a 10-century French commentator on the Bible and Talmud, wants to know why Abraham is sitting in the doorway instead of recovering on his bed, and assumes that it is so that he can welcome visitors (who do in fact show up immediately thereafter). This is the classic text on “Hachnasat Orchim”, welcoming guests.

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Gittin, which is about divorce. The sages put in certain rules about how divorces played out solely for the betterment of the world. Then Mishnah goes on to say that there were other rules that the sages put in place solely “mipnei darchei shalom”, for the sake of peace, particularly with non-Jews. In the Babylonian Talmud, Abaye points out the everything in the Torah is for the sake of peace (the verse he cites from Proverbs is in the prayer "Eitz Chayim"). In the Jerusalem Talmud, they expand on a point in the Mishnah to say that you do things with non-Jews for the sake of peace.

Rabbi Michael Broyde

The question of whether one can give out candy to people who come to the door is a different one [from whether one can go out seeking candy], as there are significant reasons based on (a) darkai shalom (preserving communal peace), (b) eva (the creation of unneeded hatred towards the Jewish people) and other secondary rationales that allow one to distribute candy to people who will be insulted or angry if no candy is given. This is even more so true when the community -- Jewish and Gentile -- are unaware of the halachic problems associated with the conduct, and the common practice even within many Jewish communities is to "celebrate" the holiday. Thus, one may give candy to children who come to one's house to "trick or treat" if one feels that this is necessary.

Context: Rabbi Michael Broyde is a 20th century rabbi who was the first rabbi of Young Israel in Toco Hills (Atlanta), GA. He resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) when it was discovered that he had used a pseudonym to infiltrate the members-only section of the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF). Here, he is contrasting giving out candy to seeking candy, which he thinks falls under the category of “acting like Amorites” and shouldn’t be done because it comes from a pagan custom.

Jewish Sources on Pranks and Damages

Context: This is from the Shulchan Aruch, written by Rabbi Joseph Caro in 1563 in Tzfat. There are 4 sections to the Shulchan Aruch, and this comes from the 4th one. The Choshen Mishpat section is about financial disputes, damages, courts, and witnesses. The text is pretty clear that toilet papering someone’s trees or egging their house is not kosher.

Jewish Sources About Haunted Houses

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Brachot, which is about prayers and blessings. The story is told that Rabbi Yosei went into a ruin to pray, and the Prophet Elijah rebuked him for doing that on grounds that 1. The ruin might fall on him. 2. Others might think he was going in to meet with a prostitute 3. There might be demons in the ruins. The Talmud then asks if having a second person with you is enough to ward off demons, and the answer is “Yes, unless you are going into a place known to be haunted, in which case a second person isn’t going to cut it.”

Jewish Sources About Evil Spirits and Hell

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of First Samuel. King Saul has depression, and it is assumed to be an evil spirit, which must be under G-d’s command. This set of verses leads into David coming into King Saul’s house to play the harp and calm his spirit. This idea of the “Ruach Ra” (Evil Spirit) is why we wash our hands when we wake up - to remove the Evil Spirit from clinging to us. The “Ruach Ra” is not the same thing as demons, though.

Context: This is from the Tanchuma, which is a book of midrashic interpretation of the Torah. It was written sometime between 500 and 800 CE in Babylonia and/or Israel and/or Italy — scholars aren’t sure. Here, it is commenting on the building of the Mishkan / Tabernacle in Parashat Pekudei (in Exodus), and saying that the process was like the process of “building” a human in the womb. The Tanchuma then goes on to imagine that souls are given a tour of two possible destinations and told that in both places are other souls who were born just like this one is going to be, and either were or weren’t good people. Note that the Talmud (Chagigah 27a:7-8) also talks about the fires of Hell (Gehenom).

Jewish Sources About Satan

Context: This is from the beginning of the Biblical Book of Job. “Satan” is not co-equal with G-d here, but rather only does what G-d lets him do.

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Zechariah. Here Satan is presented more as a prosecuting angel. This text is found in the Haftarah for Parashat Beha’alotcha and Shabbat Chanukah 1.

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of First Chronicles. It is trying to explain why King David would have done a census when G-d didn’t want that, and it blames Satan for this. The text stands in contrast to the same episode in II Samuel 24:1, where it’s blamed on G-d being angry at the Jewish people and telling King David to take a census (so G-d could then punish King David for doing so).

Some Story "Skeletons"

A Jewish Ghost Story

- Chaim the Pauper died and didn't have enough money for a proper funeral.

- Mendel heard about this and paid for him to have a proper funeral.

- Three years later, Mendel was at sea during a storm when a wave swept him overboard.

- A great white eagle rescued him from the waves and took him to dry land.

- The eagle said, "I am the ghost of Chaim. Now that I have repaid your kindness, my spirit can rest".

- The end.

Context: This is found in Josepha Sherman’s Rachel the Clever and Other Jewish Folktales. It teaches the importance of doing the right thing, particularly giving tzedakah and assisting with the dead. Some Jewish ghosts are considered “ibbur”s, friendly spirits who take up residence in something living in order to be helpful. Others are dybbuks, from the Hebrew word “Daveik”, meaning to “cleave”. These are souls who don’t get returned to G-d and take up residence in a body, often a woman or child, in order to cause problems. Sometimes they are a punishment for something the host has done wrong, or they are using the host to deal with unfinished business from before they died. A dybbuk can be expelled by the name of G-d or by really loud noises.

A Jewish Witch Story

- The town of Ashkelon was beset by 29 witches.

- They made life miserable all the time, but it was really bad during a full moon except when it was raining.

- Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach gathered 29 brave young men to get rid of them.

- One rainy full moon, he gave each of them a dry white robe inside a covered clay pot and led them to the witches’ cave.

- He gave them a code: One whistle meant to put on their robe, and the second whistle meant to come inside the cave.

- Shimon ben Shetach put on his robe and entered the cave.

- The witches asked who he was and he said that he was a witch who had walked between the raindrops.

- He asked them to show him magic and they produced a feast.

- They asked him to show them magic and he promised 29 young men to dance with them.

- He whistled twice and the white-clad young men entered the cave.

- Each one whisked a witch off her feet and danced with her.

- Then they each whirled their partners outside, where they melted in the rain.

- The townspeople came to eat the feast and the next month they enjoyed their first full moon.

- The end.

Context: This story is not only told in Marilyn Hirsch’s The Rabbi and the Twenty-nine Witches, but also in Howard Schwartz’s Elijah Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales. The original source is Rashi’s commentary on Sanhedrin 44b:13:3. The story is a reaction to the powerlessness against things that go wrong for unexplainable reasons.

A Jewish Monster Story

- In 1580, the Jews of Prague were being attacked by thugs whenever they went out.

- The Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew, went down to the riverbank one night and made a large person out of clay.

- He put a magical incantation under the person’s tongue and wrote aleph-mem-tav, emet (Truth), on the forehead.

- The golem followed the Maharal home.

- Whenever people tried to attack the Jews, the golem intervened.

- One night, the golem saw three men taking the dead body of a Christian child into the synagogue courtyard.

- The golem tied them up and brought them to the palace, where they confessed that they were going to blame the Jews for killing the child so they could use its blood for matzah.

- King Rudolph II made a new law that the Jews were to be left alone.

- After a few months of quiet under the new law, the Maharal took the golem down to the riverbank.

- He removed the magical incantation and erased the aleph, leaving mem-tav, meit (Death).

- The golem became a pile of clay again.

- Because nobody knew this had happened, the Jews remained safe due to the golem’s reputation and the new law.

- The end.

Context: This story is found in Pinchas Sadeh’s Jewish Folktales. It is probably a reaction to Jewish powerlessness during the blood libel accusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for matzah.

A Jewish Zombie Story

- A man was engaged to be married, but he didn’t think the words at a wedding were very important.

- When he saw a finger sticking up out of the ground, he put the wedding ring for his fiancée on the finger and said the words that he was going to say at the wedding.

- The finger sank into the ground, taking the ring with it.

- The man got another ring but didn’t tell anybody what had happened.

- At the wedding, the man was about to put his ring on his bride’s finger when the doors burst open and a female zombie came in.

- She announced, “That man is married to me already” and showed his ring.

- Everybody screamed and ran out of the room except for the man, his bride, and the rabbi.

- The rabbi asked the man if this was true, and the man explained what had happened.

- The rabbi said that the man was indeed legally married to the zombie, so he wrote a get (Jewish divorce document) and gave it to the man who gave it to the zombie.

- The zombie left and the man married his bride.

- The end.

Context: This story is in A Journey to Paradise and Other Jewish Tales, by Howard Schwartz. He cites it as coming from “Shivhei ha-Ari”, compiled by Shlomo Meinsterl in Jerusalem in 1905. A variation of this story is in The Wonder Child and Other Jewish Fairy Tales by Howard Schwartz. There the story continues into a Jewish version of Rumpelstiltskin. The origin of this story is “Nifla’ot ha-Tzaddikim” (Hebrew) (Piotrow: 1911). The story is also in Jewish Folktales, by Pinchas Sadeh. He cites “a nineteenth-century volume published in Warsaw”, though he says the original source was “a collection of tales publishes in Italy”. The message of the story seems to be to take wedding language seriously.

A Jewish Demon Story

- A midwife always took care of a black cat who came to visit her.

- One day the black cat didn’t come, but a white cat did.

- The white cat rubbed against her leg and stalked off, looking behind to see if the midwife was following.

- They walked for a very long time until they got to a cave.

- The white cat went inside, but when the midwife followed there was a man there instead of a cat.

- The man asked the midwife to help his wife give birth and she did.

- The mother told the midwife that she was amongst demons, but because she had taken care of the mother in her form of a black cat she would be protected.

- After the demon child was born, the mother told the midwife to refuse all food or drink.

- The demon father tried to get the midwife to eat or drink or at least accept payment, but she refused.

- Finally, he gave her a clove of garlic, changed into a cat, and led her home.

- The next morning, the clove of garlic had turned into gold.

- The end.

Context: This story can be found in The Book of Jewish Women's Tales, by Barbara Rush. From her research, the story first appears in the Israeli Folklore Archives as told by a Kurdish Jewish woman from the town of Zakho in northern Iraq. Another woman from the same town told this story to Barbara Rush herself. A Moroccan woman told this story to Barbara too, saying that it was about her great-grandmother. The story is known in Ashkenazi circles as well. It is generally transmitted from one woman to another and usually the telling includes directions about how to act when encountering a strange man (don't panic or show fear, listen, think about what to do).

This story is also found in The Wonder Child and Other Jewish Fairy Tales, by Howard Schwartz. He attributes it to an oral tradition from Morocco. In Howard Schwartz’s A Journey to Paradise and Other Jewish Tales he attributes this to a Yemenite story, found in Israel Folktale Archives (#13676), collected by Hadara Sela from her mother, Rachel Tzabari.

This story teaches the importance of taking care of animals and of assisting with births. It touches on several Jewish texts: 1. The reward of a good deed is the deed itself (Pirkei Avot 4:2) 2. In the merit of the righteous women of that generation (like the midwives Shifra and Pua), the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt (Sotah 11b:4) 3. Good deeds deter even the most blood-thirsty of demons, the Angel of Death (Proverbs 11:4).

A Jewish Werewolf Story

- A rabbi was well-known for communing with G-d in the forest and for generously giving tzedakah.

- His wife despised him for both.

- One day in the forest, he found a ring.

- To see if it was a magic ring, he tried a spell he once read: “Ring of gold, ring of old, do my bidding, as you’re told.” Then he wished for a bag of tzedakah money.

- It appeared!

- His wife asked him about how he got the money, but he feared what she would do with the ring so he didn’t tell her.

- She nagged him for months until he finally told her.

- She immediately snatched it and wished for 10 servants, but nothing happened.

- She nagged him that he didn’t love her and kept that up for months until he told her the magic saying.

- When he took a Shabbat rest, she stole the ring, said the formula, and and then said, “Since he loves the forest, I wish my husband was a werewolf”. And he became one.

- Nobody came to Shabbat evening services after that, for everybody was afraid of being out at dark with the werewolf around.

- With the husband gone, she wished for more money, a bigger house, servants, furs, and jewels, but she turned away anybody who needed some financial help.

- The next night that there was a full moon, the rabbi-wolf came to his house when his wife was asleep and took back the ring in his mouth.

- He howled and barked the magic words and wished to become human again, and he did.

- Then he wished for his wife to turn into a donkey and she did.

- Finally he threw away the ring deep in the forest.

- When he emerged out of the forest, his community asked about him and he said that he had been lost in the woods for a long time.

- They nursed him back to health and then told him that his wife had disappeared one day, but that a donkey kept coming by so they put it with the other donkeys that he had.

- From then on, the rabbi continued to give tzedakah generously, though he stayed out of the forest for quite a while.

- The end.

Context: This story can be found in Howard Schwartz’s The Wonder Child and Other Jewish Fairy Tales. He cites it as an Eastern European story, coming from “Maaseh Buch” (Yiddish), published in Basel in 1602 (AT 555: The Fisher and His Wife; AT 560: The Magic Ring). Although this is the best-known werewolf story of Jewish folklore, there is also one involving the Ba’al Shem Tov who encountered one and defeated its darkness (see “The Boy Israel and the Werewolf” in Howard Schwartz’s “Lilith’s Cave”). This story teaches the moral of staying away from wild animals and of the importance of giving tzedakah.

A Jewish Grim Reaper Story

- Once there was an arrogant 20-year old new police officer.

- He tried to force an old man to leave an alley because he was “loitering”, and when the old man wouldn’t leave he killed him.

- With his dying breath, the old man said “I curse you with the Curse of Blessings” - on the first day you don’t say a blessing you will die.

- That night, the police officer started to feel a chill creep into his body, so he thanked G-d for his ears and the chill vanished.

- The next night, when he started to feel the chill, he thanked G-d for his eyelashes, and the chill vanished.

- The next morning, he thanked G-d for his elbows, and the chill never came.

- Each day he thanked G-d for a body part, then for things in his house, and then for people in his life.

- As he developed an attitude of gratitude, people started to like to be around him.

- Every day, for 100 years, he said a blessing.

- On his 120th birthday, he decided to not say a blessing and instead went over all the blessings in his life.

- As the sun went down, he started to feel the chill come into his body.

- As the chill advanced in his body, he saw the old man from 100 years before and asked who he was.

- The old man said, “I am the Angel of Death. One hundred years ago, I was sent to take your soul, but you had no soul. Now you have a beautiful soul and it is time for it to take its rightful place in the world to come.”

- And with that, the police officer’s soul went with the Angel of Death.

- The end.

Context: This story was first heard by David Schwartz at Camp Ramah Darom, where it was told by Justin Sackett. The story teaches about how having an attitude of gratitude makes people want to be around you, and it is also about dying gracefully.

A Jewish Goblin Story

With appreciation to: Nelly Altenburger, David Siff, Tzvi Fischer, Koby Geller, Robby Medwed. Rabbi Adam Bellows, David Neff, Rabbi Dina Rosenberg, Miron Hirsch, Yoni Dahlen, Cantor Neil Schwartz, HeyAlma

Appendix A: Specific Demons to Know About

Meet Judaism’s Demons, Spirits, Witches & Ghosts

Jewish texts have a surprising number of hair-raising spooky stories.

By Arielle Kaplan October 28, 2020

It’s no secret that the Torah abhors goblins and ghouls. In Exodus, the text states, “You shall not allow a witch to live,” and just take a look at this passage from Deuteronomy:

“Let no one be found among you who consigns his son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquiries of the dead.”

Biblical prohibitions against necromancy and witchcraft aside — who’s going to tell God there’s a witch in the Torah? — supernatural beings, from vampires and succubi to sea monsters and Satan, come alive in ancient scripture. Where the Torah stops short on shedim (the biblical word for demons, also used to describe foreign gods like Moloch, the child eater) the Talmud practically word vomits them. Demons fill houses of study when sexual energy isn’t properly channeled, and spirits haunt every crevice of dark places. Kabbalistic demonology expands even further, providing a breadth of hair-raising spooky stories.

Beyond the Yiddish ogre named Shrek and 30 Rock’s spooky scary “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah,” here are 14 Jewish demons, spirits, and miscellaneous monsters you need to know.

1. Lilith

Spirit of darkness and a figure of uncontrolled female sexuality, Lilith is the most notorious baby-snatching anthropomorphic demoness in Jewish mythology. Portrayed in pop culture as a femme fatale, the succubus is associated with many biblical creatures, including the serpent from the Garden of Eden and the Queen of Sheba.

Ala known as the “screech owl,” Lilith is the cause of wet dreams in teen boys. At night, she collects their spilled seed — a sin in Judaism — and impregnates herself via demonic IVF to birth her legion of demons.

Lilith’s evil nature is not for naught and stems from a grudge against God. The anonymous Jewish text, the Alphabet of Ben Sira, tells the origin of our Jewish demoness as Adam’s first wife, i.e the prototype of Eve. Immediately after God created Lilith, the legend explains, Adam demanded they bone in missionary position. Appalled by her husband’s domineering nature, Lilith, the trailblazing feminist, suggested she be on top. The newlyweds bickered and quarreled until the bride couldn’t take it anymore and “uttered the Divine name and flew up into the air and fled.” As punishment, God curses Lilith so that 100 of her offspring die every day. In turn, Lilith vows to torture Adam and Eve’s offspring and becomes the mistress of miscarriages and stillborn births to exact revenge against man for her curse from God.

The Zohar also paints Lilith as the most prominent of four demonic wives and Queens of Hell who fuck around with Samael, one of many princes of demons. Unfortunately for Lilith and her sister wives, another reason for outsourcing semen is because God castrated Samael and drained his supply.

2. Agrat bat Mahlat

Don’t venture alone at night on Wednesdays and Shabbat, the rabbis warn, or you’ll catch Agrat bat Mahlat haunting the skies with her chariot and crew of 18 angels of spiritual destruction. Known as the “the dancing roof demon,” the Queen of Hell’s name literally translates to “Agrat, daughter of Mahlat.” Who is Mahlat, I rhetorically ask, dear reader? She’s probably a variation of Lilith, which makes the screech owl Agrat’s mother, or possibly grandmother. While Agrat dances on the roof, Lilith howls. A demoness of many names, Agrat is also “the mistress of sorceresses” who taught forbidden magic to Amemar, a Jewish sage.

There’s a sexy story in the Kabbalah about the time King David boned Agrat and the demoness gave birth to Asmodeus, AKA King of Demons. Some historians believe the biblical term “Nephilim” describes the children of demons/angels and humans, while others think it translates as “giants.

3. Naamah

The third queen of demons in the Zohar is Naamah (which translates to “pleasant”), but before her namesake got her into trouble for seducing people into singing sweet nothings to pagan gods, she was Noah’s wife. Yes, the Noah with the ark.

Here’s the deal: A midrash was created to explain God’s reckless decision to reboot the universe via the great flood. Humanity quickly turned evil, and it was Naamah’s fault! It was her sex appeal that seduced the angels into copulating with her, after all, and their offspring were e-v-i-l. And that’s how Noah’s wife came to be Lilith’s partner in crime, abusing people in their sleep and snatching babies from their cribs.

An even juicier story in the Zohar relates that after Cain killed his brother Abel, Adam and Eve split up for 130 years. For over a decade, Lilith and Naamah shtupped Adam and their children became the Plagues of Mankind. Bereshit Rabbah relates a slightly different tale regarding Adam’s demonic children:

“During those 130 years Chavah produced male spirits whereas Adam produced female spirits seeing they had been brought to erotic stimulation by female and male stimuli respectively.”

A seducer of men and demons, Naamah is also sometimes attributed as Ashmedai’s mother, which makes the Jewish demon family tree quite confusing to follow. Did Agrat give birth to Ashmedai, or was it Naamah? Flip a shekel and call it a day — demon queens are interchangeable and all lead back to Lilith.

4. Eisheth

The fourth and last queen of demons is Eisheth, fellow sister-succubi to Lilith, Naamah, and Agrat bat Mahlat. She’s nicknamed the “Woman of Whoredom,” her diet consists of the souls of the damned, and that’s pretty much all we know!

On the succubus demon queens, Rabbi Simeon said: “Woe unto those who are ignorant and therefore unable to avert and ward off the influence of these defiling elemental beings that swarm in their myriads throughout the world. If it were permitted to behold them, we should be amazed and confounded and wonder how the world could continue to exist.

5. Alukah — “Horse Leech”

Don’t dwell on the disappointing truth that the origins of vampires in pop culture can be traced back to an antisemitic 12th-century conspiracy theory that claims Jews kill Christian babies for ritual sacrifice. Instead, focus on Alukah (“horse leech”), the vampire/succubus in Jewish mythology untainted by boring blood libel!

Sefer Chasidim, a 13th-century German text that ushered in Jewish mysticism, describes Alukah as a blood-sucking witch who can fly like a bat when her hair is let loose and shapeshift into a wolf. A seductress with two demon daughters who cry “Give, give,” Alukah will die if her supply of blood is cut off. To prevent the vampire from turning into a demon, she has to be buried with her mouth stuffed with dirt. Wait, so is she a demon, a vampire, or a witch? A true bang for your shekel, the sex-crazed Alukah is all three and more.

In a riddle in Proverbs, King Solomon namedrops Alukah and reveals her favorite pastime: cursing wombs. Sound familiar? Well, it should, because the Hebrew succubus is thought to be Lilith’s daughter.

6. Ashmedai

Sometimes called Ashmedai, and other times Asmodeus, this curious creature is best known as the “king of demons.” There’s a famous legend in the Talmud about how King Solomon outsmarted Ashmedai by tricking the demon into constructing the first Temple

7. Azazel

Azazel is believed to be a satyr, a goat-like demon. Featured in post-biblical texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and I Enoch, Azazel is most famously depicted as one of God’s angels who fell from heaven because of beautiful women like Naamah. In other tales, he’s the angel who spilled the beans to humanity about the impure arts of war, and the Talmud straight up characterizes him as a demon. In one midrash, Azazel is said to be the serpent from the Garden of Eden, but so is every demon and their mother.

On Yom Kippur, observant Jews perform a “scapegoat” ritual where the kohen gadol, the high priest, whispers everyone’s sins into a goat’s ear and thereafter sends the sacrifice into the wilderness, or in Hebrew, the “azazel.” A midrash offers a background story to lend credence to the wacky ritual: Every year under God’s command, the Israelites offered Satan/Samael a goat as a bribe to ensure he’d give the Jews an A+ review at the annual celestial court.

8. Mazzikim

Up until the construction of Solomon’s Temple curbed their power, mazzikim ruled the world. Classified as invisible demons, they’re not as scary as other creatures in Jewish lore. On the flip side, these evil spirits are really fucking annoying and cause minor trouble in our daily lives. Superstitions and amulets might help fend them off, but it’s best to learn how to live with them.

Like most demons and spirits in Jewish folklore, mazzikim are born out of “spilled seed.” See, God has baby fever, and masturbating or having sex merely for the pleasure of it is a slap in his face. Take the prophet Onan, for example: God gave him the boot for “wasting the seed.

9. Dybbuk

Shiver me timbers, it’s time for a ghost story! But first, a note on Jewish spirits: Kabbalistic demonology explains that supernatural creatures are a reaction to a life-energy gone wrong. My Jewish Learning author Jay Michaelson describes the phenomena concisely:

“In the proper functioning of the cosmos, energy flows like a cycle: down from heaven, then back up in the form of proper ritual action. But when the energy is misappropriated, as in masturbation or rebellion, its intense power falls into the realm of shadow.”

Enter dybbukim, the infamous spirits of Jewish folklore. Technically a “clinging demon,” dybbukim come from Sitra Achra, the kabbalistic term to describe hell, and roam the earth in search of a suitable living body to penetrate. These malicious spirits tended to possess women and children, and were thought to be the cause of mental illnesses like dissociative identity disorder. Fortunately, Jewish folklore relates a cure to the dybbuk dilemma — an exorcism led by a rabbi, usually including the blowing of a shofar! Fun!

(Read more about Post Malone and the Yiddish ghost of Jewish lore here.

10. The Golem

Unlike a dybbuk, the golem isn’t an evil spirit. Made out of clay and brought to life by magic, the golem’s sole purpose is to serve and protect its creator. The best-known legend of the playdough creature dates back to 1580 when the Jews of Prague battled the ridiculous conspiracy theory that is the blood libel. Rabbi Judah Leow ben Bezalel, fondly called the Maharal of Prague, needed a secret weapon to protect his community, and, in the form of a dream, God told him how to create a golem.

In need of a pogrom busting magical creature? The instructions are found in Sefer Yetzirah, the “Book of Formation”:

Step 1: Mold an adorable golem out of soil or clay.

Step 2: Write “Emet” (life) on its forehead to bring to life.

Step 3: Once the golem completes its duty, erase the first letter on its forehead so it reads as “met” (death).

11. Shirika Panda

Shirika Panda is the Talmud’s subjectively adorable toilet demon — yes, really. To avoid an attack from the lion-bodied lavatory lurker, be mindful that you poop alone, and quietly. Take heed, or the scary Panda might afflict you with a stroke or a random fall. Oh, and if you have sex within a half-mile of the shitter, the Jewish demon will curse your kids with epilepsy, apparently?

Superstitious folk would be wise to try this protection spell from the Gemera: “On the head of a lion and on the nose of a lioness we found the demon named bar Shirika Panda. With a bed of leeks I felled him, and with the jaw of the donkey I struck him.

12. Demonic doubles

Warning: If you believe in soulmates, proceed with caution. Jewish folklore holds that when humans are born, a demon is made in their likeness, and a month after birth the heavens announce the human’s soulmate. If the demonic doppelganger catches the prophetic declaration, it’ll shapeshift into the soulmate as a means of fucking up the lives and marriages of their victims who will then be dragged to hell. A deeply troubling legend, this demon is the cause of society’s high divorce rate. Try explaining that to your separated parents…

13. Witch of Endor

I told you there was a witch in the Torah! In I Samuel 28, the mood rings that helped guide King Saul in battle — the Urim and Thummim — tapped out, and Saul desperately needed help. After exiling all witches from his kingdom, Saul the hypocrite enlists the help of “a woman of Endor.” Grudges aside, the witch contacted the ghost of Samuel, the prophet who anointed Saul as king. The seance was a total flop — the phantom prophet was pissed at the king for using witchcraft and warned Saul that his army wouldn’t survive the battle. The prophecy was realized, but on the plus side, our sweet Witch of Endor fed Saul one last meal before he fell on his own sword. Phallic imagery for the win!

14. Leviathan

When God created the world, as the Midrash relates, he made two mythical sea monsters: a female sea monster, and a male sea monster. But then he killed the female leviathan to avoid the chance of offspring — classic biblical sexism, we hate to see it! The “Dragon of the sea” is also featured in a bonkers story in the Talmud about the messianic age. When the nation of Israel returns to the Promised Land, the Mashiach will slay the leviathan, build a sukkah out of its skin, and invite all the righteous folk to enjoy a Michelin star plate of sea-monster meat. Scrumptious!

https://www.heyalma.com/meet-judaisms-demons-spirits-witches-ghosts/

Arielle Kaplan

Arielle Kaplan (she/her) makes content for horny Jews. Brooklyn based, she co-hosts Oral History, a podcast on seductresses from Cleopatra to Jessica Rabbit, and moonlights as a sex influencer as Whoregasmic on Instagram. Find her bylines on Salty Magazine, Kveller, The Nosher, and JTA.

Appendix B: Another Recap of the Categories

Dybbuk or Demon: Knowing Your Jewish Ghosts and Ghouls

Shoshana Kessock

Sun Oct 28, 2012

Every year, horror fans are treated to a smattering of books and films that attempt to innovate the genre. Maybe they find a new way to repackage slasher films, like Joss Whedon did in Cabin in the Woods, or they find a new way to present their story, like the “found footage” format of Paranormal Activity. One way to spice up tried and true tropes is to draw on different source material to craft your story.

The western horror tradition draws on a shared body of common folklore standardized by western society and pop culture to create its tales of suspense and terror. But, if you want a rich body of folklore chock-full of the strange and supernatural that isn’t as familiar or well understood, you only have to look towards Jewish mythology for new ways of exploring the supernatural. Creative forces in Hollywood have discovered the power of Jewish folklore, as is evident from big budget movies like the recent The Possession and 2009’s The Unborn. But do they get their stories straight? For example, what is a dybbuk and can it really live in a box? And what about a golem? Let’s take a look at some of the denizens of the darkest parts of Jewish tradition to see what goes bump in the night.

It’s important to note that when talking about the supernatural in relation to Jewish tradition, there is some historical context to the way that these stories have evolved. Jewish religious tradition has a very serious belief in the supernatural going back to ancient times: Biblical texts include allusions to kings and prophets speaking to ghosts or dealing with demons, straight through the transition from the Torah (Old Testament) into the later rabbinic texts. In the medieval period, however, an age of “rationalization” arose, leading to a decline in religious belief in ghosts, demons, and the supernatural out of Jewish practice. Still, certain stories persisted down in the folklore and folk practice, emerging in anecdotal tales that later became fodder for great Jewish writers like Isaac Beshever Singer. If one follows the thread of creature-feature talk in Judaism back through the past, though, one finds important distinctions between several kinds of supernatural beings. They break down into three categories: spirits, demons, and weird others.

Spirits: Dybbuks, Ibbur, and Ru’ah Ra’ah

Ghosts or spirits in Jewish folklore break down into a few different types. The most well-known of these is the fiercely misunderstood and misrepresented dybbuk. Recently, the horror film The Possession presented audiences with a story about a little girl who buys a mysterious box at a yard sale and becomes possessed by a demon known as a dybbuk. The movie was meant to be loosely based upon a true account about a box sold on eBay (“the Dybbuk Box”) which was said to contain an evil spirit. Yet both The Possession and the book The Dybbuk Box grossly misrepresent the actual mythology of the dybbuk. A dybbuk is actually a ghost that sticks around after death to possess the body of the living for malevolent purposes. The stories state that it is either a malevolent spirit out to harm an innocent person, or a more neutral spirit out to punish a wicked person for their transgressions. Either way, the defining factor that represent a dybbuk is that they are out to cause harm to their host. They are not demonic, as presented in The Possession, and there is very little indication, traditionally, of dybbuks being attached to locations or items so much as individual people.

The Dybbuk Box itself

Another kind of possession talked about in Jewish stories is represented by the dybbuk’s exact opposite, known as an ibbur. The term is used for a spirit that nests or incubates inside a host in an attempt to help the host body along. It is considered a benevolent spirit, usually one which was particularly righteous or holy in their lifetime. These ghostly ride-alongs are said to stick around and possess a person so that they can help them achieve their goals in this life, acting as a wise helper to guide their host toward achieving success. This story got twisted into the horror film The Unborn, in which a spirit incubates in the body of a young woman in an attempt to become reborn again, with some terrifying consequences. Once again, however, the ibbur has never been considered malevolent, like the dybbuk.

These are the two major concepts of Jewish ghosts that circulate in early stories. In fact, the term for human ghosts didn’t seem to become well defined in Jewish discussion until Rabbi Hayyim Vital coined the term Ru’ah Ra’ah (literally translated into “evil wind”) in the sixteenth century. However, stories of possession in Judaism often get their wires crossed with another element of Jewish tradition and folklore—specifically, stories about demons.

Three Flavors of Evil: Demons in Jewish Myth

If you want to talk about possession, supernatural terror, and general badness in Jewish folklore, you can’t go far without talking about demons. Demons are classified as supernatural beings that have the power to harm people. Jewish tradition has several terms to discuss demons of different sorts, and there are more stories about demons and demonic bedevilment than there seem to be about ghosts. Often times, the definitions for these terms will change from one source to another, causing overlap and confusion which sometimes even overlap into discussion about ghosts. The term Mazzikin, for example, is used in some cases to talk about destructive spirits of the dead, but can also refer to destructive spirits created on the eve of the last day of creation in the biblical story of Genesis. The concept of destructive creatures created at the very end of the Six Days of Creation also finds expression in creatures known as Shedim, which are also alternately called Lillin when they’re described as being the descendants of the mythological figure Lilith. These demons are described as “serpent-like” and are sometimes depicted with human forms with wings, as well. The stories often include descriptions of children being killed in their cradles or some kind of sexualized element, much like traditional succubi or incubi. Then there are Ruhot, formless spirits described in some stories as creatures one could bind into a form to make them speak prophecy or perform a task for the binder.

That last scenario might sound familiar to anyone who has ever heard the story of….

The Golem

The golem ranks right up there with the dybbuk when it comes to being a misrepresented Jewish “monster.” The common conception is that a golem is a man-made monster, sort of like Frankenstein’s creation, which can be made out of clay and given life. The truth of the folk stories is a little more complicated. The golem is described in Jewish tradition as a creature created by a rabbi to serve the Jewish community, often in times of great need. The creature is said to have been made of earth and brought to life by the use of alchemical-like formulas described in holy texts. The creature is not possessed by a spirit or ghost exactly, but driven by the ritual to follow the rabbi’s commands and serve the community until such time as he is not needed. The tale of the Golem of Prague is the most well-known golem story, in which a famous and powerful rabbi saw that his community was being persecuted and created a golem to protect his people. The story caught on to such and extent that the golem has become a staple supernatural creature, featuring in fantasy stories and role-playing games as a popular “monster” when in fact its role was that of guardian.

Golem the Pokemon… ’nuff said.

Jewish tradition is chock-full of other kinds of strange and unusual things, like giant sea serpents and gigantic flying creatures, but it’s mainly the dybbuk and the golem and some of the demonic classifications that have made their way into the mainstream popular horror culture. Whether or not they’ll ever be translated correctly, however, relies on whether or not there are writers willing to take the time to offer an authentic representation, rather than another Hollywood rework. In the meantime, some creative license may be taken along the way….

https://www.tor.com/2012/10/28/dybbuk-or-demon-knowing-your-jewish-ghosts-and-ghouls/

Appendix C: The Origins of Halloween

Origins

HALLOWE’EN, or ALL HALLOWS EVE, the name given to the 31st of October as the vigil of Hallowmas or All Saints’ Day. Though now known as little else but the eve of the Christian festival, Hallowe’en and its formerly attendant ceremonies long antedate Christianity.

The two chief characteristics of ancient Hallowe’en were the lighting of bonfires and the belief that of all nights in the year this is the one during which ghosts and witches are most likely to wander abroad. Now on or about the 1st of November the Druids held their great autumn festival and lighted fires in honour of the Sun-god in thanksgiving for the harvest. Further, it was a Druidic belief that on the eve of this festival Saman, lord of death, called together the wicked souls that within the past twelve months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals. Thus it is clear that the main celebrations of Hallowe’en were purely Druidical, and this is further proved by the fact that in parts of Ireland the 31st of October was, and even still is, known as Oidhche Shamhna, “Vigil of Saman.”

On the Druidic ceremonies were grafted some of the characteristics of the Roman festival in honour of Pomona held about the 1st of November, in which nuts and apples, as representing the winter store of fruits, played an important part. Thus the roasting of nuts and the sport known as “apple-ducking”—attempting to seize with the teeth an apple floating in a tub of water,—were once the universal occupation of the young folk in medieval England on the 31st of October.

During the Samhain festival the souls of those who had died were believed to return to visit their homes, and those who had died during the year were believed to journey to the otherworld. People set bonfires on hilltops for relighting their hearth fires for the winter and to frighten away evil spirits, and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises to avoid being recognized by the ghosts thought to be present. It was in those ways that beings such as witches, hobgoblins, fairies, and demons came to be associated with the day. The period was also thought to be favourable for divination on matters such as marriage, health, and death. When the Romans conquered the Celts in the 1st century CE, they added their own festivals of Feralia, commemorating the passing of the dead, and of Pomona, the goddess of the harvest.

In the 7th century CE Pope Boniface IV established All Saints’ Day, originally on May 13, and in the following century, perhaps in an effort to supplant the pagan holiday with a Christian observance, it was moved to November 1. The evening before All Saints’ Day became a holy, or hallowed, eve and thus Halloween. By the end of the Middle Ages, the secular and the sacred days had merged.

The Reformation essentially put an end to the religious holiday among Protestants, although in Britain especially Halloween continued to be celebrated as a secular holiday. Along with other festivities, the celebration of Halloween was largely forbidden among the early American colonists, although in the 1800s there developed festivals that marked the harvest and incorporated elements of Halloween. When large numbers of immigrants, including the Irish, went to the United States beginning in the mid 19th century, they took their Halloween customs with them, and in the 20th century Halloween became one of the principal U.S. holidays, particularly among children.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13 Edition

Appendix D: Sources Why Some Jews Don’t Celebrate Halloween

Rabbi Michael Broyde ~

Applying these halachic rules to Halloween leads to the conclusion that participation in Halloween celebrations – i.e. collecting candy is when one is wearing a costume -- is prohibited. Halloween, since it has its origins in a pagan practice, and lacks any overt rationale reason for its celebration other than its pagan origins or the Catholic response to it, is governed by the statement of the above mentioned Shulchan Aruch code that such conduct is prohibited as its origins taint it. One should not send one's children out to trick or treat on Halloween, or otherwise celebrate the holiday.

The question of whether one can give out candy to people who come to the door is a different one, as there are significant reasons based on (a) darkai shalom (preserving communal peace), (b) eva (the creation of unneeded hatred towards the Jewish people) and other secondary rationales that allow one to distribute candy to people who will be insulted or angry if no candy is given. This is even more so true when the community -- Jewish and Gentile -- are unaware of the halachic problems associated with the conduct, and the common practice even within many Jewish communities is to "celebrate" the holiday. Thus, one may give candy to children who come to one's house to "trick or treat" if one feels that this is necessary.