While Halloween is certainly NOT a Jewish holiday, our tradition is not lacking in stories and lessons from ghosts, demons, and other spooky creatures. For a little pre-Halloween fun this week, we’ll look at some of the characters and stories that haunt—and help—in our texts.
And, if you want to know all there is to know about demonology and magic in Jewish tradition, check out the Throwing Sheyd podcast.
If you have ever met my son, even for a moment, you probably know that he loves Harry Potter. His imagination often takes him to Hogwarts Castle where, like Harry, he imagines himself embroiled in battle against He Who Shall Not Be Named. Ask him, and he’ll be happy to tell you about Fluffy, the three-headed dog whom Harry must subdue. Unlike Cerberus, on whom Fluffy is based, Fluffy guards the Philosopher’s Stone, not the gates to the underworld.
While not a three-headed dog, the Talmud does tell the story of a scholar bravely defeating a frightening creature. You see, there was a demon haunting Abaye’s study hall—a demon so powerful that even if two students entered together, they would face harm. Upon hearing that a great scholar, Aha bar Ya’akov, was coming to town, Abaye basically conspires to ensure that bar Ya’akov would have to spend the night in the study hall…alone. Bar Ya’akov, he reasons, is a righteous man. Maybe he can bring about a miracle, and we can get rid of this demon once and for all.
You can probably guess what happens next. Bar Ya’akov does spend the night in the Beit Midrash, and the demon does appear. In fact, the demon appears as a serpent with 7 heads. Bar Ya’akov does the only thing he can think of to do—he begins to pray. And each time he bows in prayer, one of the demon’s heads falls off. Over and over again, until finally, the demon is defeated.
Fluffy, it turns out, is subdued by music. The serpent-demon of our Talmudic tale by prayer. And in the end, Harry learns that the greatest force against evil is love. Music, prayer, and love—lessons from sacred and popular texts, offering a similar message. While the gifts of science and medicine have given us additional and necessary ways to fight our own demons, music, prayer, and love sure can’t hurt.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer