Sympathy for the Devil: Ha-Satan in Jewish Scripture

Maybe concepts like... horns, goats, upside-down stars, fallen angels, pitchforks, spiky tails, sacrifices or witchcraft, AKA Christian beliefs. Or maybe fire and brimstone and demons, both Christian and Islamic beliefs. Or maybe the one belief that ties Jews, Christians, and Muslims: temptation.

Maybe you think of the Satanic Panic of the 80s or the antisemitic canard that Jews are in league with the devil.

This is the common idea of Satan in popular culture - a malevolent demonic creature intent on destroying humanity.

When we look at Jewish practice, though, we get a very different picture (as is often the case). The "ha-Satan" of the Tanakh has no red horns or goat head; instead, Satan has the ultimate dirty job: acting as heaven's greatest prosecutor.

Ha-Satan in the Tanakh
Ha-Satan is one of only three B'nai Elohim named in the Torah, along with Michael and Gavriel. The B'nai Elohim, or children of G-d, are commonly referred to collectively as angels (though to call them all malachim would technically be incorrect but that's another source sheet). While ha-Satan gets the honor of being named with the other two major angelic figures, there's actually a possibility that Satan may not be a proper name at all.

Satan translates to "adversary" in Hebrew, from the Hebrew root שט meaning "to turn aside." While some mentions of ha-Satan in the Tanakh are interpreted to be referring to a specific angel, some may be referring to a generic adversary (especially where it's given in plural as satanim).

Our biggest primary textual sources for ha-Satan are Job, Zechariah, and Chronicles. Ha-Satan gets to be the supporting star (or antagonist!) in the book of Job, and this story gives us a good look at the Jewish interpretation of such a being.

In Jewish tradition, Satan is subservient to G-d, but with enough intelligence to come up with tests for G-d's people. Later rabbinic commentary treats Satan as shockingly anthropomorphic, even laying out Satan's thoughts and feelings.

We see above that Satan takes G-d's words of Job's greatness as a challenge of temptation. Below Satan turns its sights on David Hamelech and causes him to sin by conducting a census.

Our last mention of Satan is in these two verses of Zechariah. Verse 2 below is also included in the nighttime Sh'ma, as a safeguard against Satan trying to tempt us in our modern life.

While it may not seem like much, Midrash and the Rabbis of the Talmud took the above and ran with it to flesh out the character of the Accuser.

Satan in Rabbinic Thought: A Heavenly Prosecutor

Based on the sources above, Satan quickly caught on in the rabbinic mind as [G-d]'s prosecuting attorney, tempting people to sin as a test and then indicting them and demanding their punishment. It is a bit like heavenly "entrapment."

However, Satan's identity is variable at different times in different texts - it is sometimes also identified as the angel Samael or the Angel of Death.

Through creative interpretation, Satan became the catalyst for many of the sins of the characters in the Torah, helping explain why our righteous forefathers erred.

Sins Satan was said to incite: the sin of Adam and Chava, introducing Noah to wine (Tanh. Noah 13), the sin of the golden calf (Shab 89a), luring David into a confrontation with Goliath's brother (Sanh. 45a), and more. According to the mystical text Sefer Hechalot, Satan spends his days with the angels Samael and Dumiel compiling a list of Am Yisrael's sins. But every evening G-d sends fiery angels called seraphim to take the records and burn them to a crisp. (RH 8a-b).

Satan's temptation was still a very real threat even in the time of the Rabbis of the Talmud.

Furthermore, Satan's influence was even a concern for the entire Am Yisrael, especially on Yom Kippur when G-d's judgement is front of mind.

But even with all this fear of Satan's ministrations, some Rabbis saw past the negativity of Satan's job to its important purpose in the universe.

Satan In Middle Ages Folk Practice
Joshua Trachtenberg sums up Satan's role in the Middle Ages eloquently in his thesis Jewish Magic and Superstition: "Satan himself, king of the underworld, though he made frequent appearances in the moralizing literature of the period, possessed none of the vividness, the immediacy of his Christian counterpart. He was little more than a word, a shade whose impression on life was real enough, but whom one could hardly hope to identify from the vague, colorless comments about his person and activity. Quite probably he stood out more clearly in the popular conception than in the literature (he was not a personage of theological import, as in medieval Christianity); but that conception did not impress itself so deeply on the folk-mind as to find its way into the literature as well. Satan in medieval Jewish thought was little more than an allegory, whose moral was the prevalence of sin."

This didn't stop the folk practice of avoiding him! As Jews interacted with other peoples and their folkloric beliefs, the concern over demon and evil spirits became a major concern. With that emphasis on avoiding demons, Satan's role became more like a malevolent figure and specific actions were believed to keep Satan from interfering in your life.

Studying Torah and other theological writings is the best prophylactic against Satan's influence: 'As soon as a man has ceased his preoccupation with the words of Torah Satan has permission to attack'. In fact, some sources claim that the reason we read the first verse of Genesis immediately upon reading the last verse of Deuteronomy is so "that the rehearsal of G-d's law may not be interrupted even for a moment, and Satan get his chance."

Tefillin were thought to be anti-demonic (the Sh'ma itself has anti-demonic properties), but this belief ultimately boiled down to the idea that one who is pious won't be harassed by the Accuser.

Psalm 91 was known to protect against demons, and specifically if riding across a bridge one should recite it to stop Satan from causing harm.


According to medieval authorities, salt must be set on a table before a meal is begun "to protect one against Satan's denunciations." In Kabbalistic thought, salt "is the mathematical equivalent of three [tetragrammatons]; therefore one should dip the piece of bread over which the benediction is recited, three times into salt."

The night before the circumcision a child must be constantly watched because "Satan strives to harm the child and to prevent it from experiencing the religious rite or circumcision, for he is very much provoked that Jews should keep the commandment by whose edict they are saved from Gehinnom."

Even the prayers developed refer to protection from Satan, as in the Hashkiveinu of Kriat Sh'ma below.

As folkloric belief faded in power, especially with the rabbinical edict to avoid any beliefs associated with antisemitism, the popular concern with Satan and demons declined, but ha-Satan has lived on in mystical thought as a moral teaching until today.

Ha-Satan in Mystical Belief

As Jewish mysticism began to be collated and fleshed out by the mystics of Safed in the 16th century, ha-Satan's role transitioned from an angelic creature to an abstract idea: the yetzer hara, or evil inclination. This belief lives on in Hasidism, which recognizes that every one has a yetzer hara which provides a very needed balance to the universe.

Chabad.org
"Another way the Talmud describes the satan is as one’s yetzer hara, the negative inclination—an internal counterbalance to one’s good inclination, both of which are under a person’s control. Rather than someone or something external to us, the satan, when understood this way, is part and parcel of our psycho-spiritual makeup. Similar to the stories and ideas explored above, our negative inclination is not an aberration but a necessary element of who we are. Without it, humanity would lose its free will, and, according to one teaching in the Midrash, even the desire to be creative and productive."

Modern Kabbalists view Satan in this way, as related deeply to the tests of our modern ego.

Rav Berg, Satan: An Autobiography
"The entire world has been cast under a spell - one so powerful, it blinded you to the true reality. The spell is called ego. And the nature of ego is to receive. Every action throughout history, every single thought and flow of consciousness, was grounded in self-interest. And this is why you have not experienced a world of peace and unending miracles... when you switch your consciousness from receiving and self interest (me) into unconditional sharing and selfless behavior (God), you tap the real fulfillment of life."

Inviting Satan to the Table
So what's the point of all of this? Why do we have ha-Satan at all?

As we work through this month of Elul and complete an accounting of our soul, we can account for the ways in which the adversary tests us day to day.

Or we can reflect on how our actions may be construed as evidence against us in a higher court.

Each test from ha-Satan is a chance to exhibit faith, in ourselves and in the Divine, and to put our Jewish values of selflessness, charity, and loving our neighbors into practice. When we invite Satan to the conversation and stare the accuser down by uncovering where our ego is holding us back, we break its hold over us and free up space to restore ourselves and the world.

Rav Berg, Satan: An Autobiography
"Life is about your wickedness. Your so-called sins. It's about uncovering all your egocentric traits. In other words, the key to life is finding me inside you... The search for happiness begins with the search for me! Ferreting out Satan is the path to the Light."