One of my duties with my rabbinic internship at a Reform temple is to write a monthly column for the congregational newsletter. This is the second column, for the month of October. After having taught at a good half-dozen religious school now – schools spanning the entire Reform/Conservative/Reconstructionist spectrum – I always find it interesting to see how congregations navigate the “Halloween dilemma.”
While on one hand few families I know seriously question whether they should allow their kids to dress up and go trick-or-treating, the religious schools that educate these kids often have very intense discussions about the holiday, especially when it lands on a school day. Should the kids be invited to come to school in a costume? How should teachers react if the kids aren’t invited to dress up, but show up in costumes anyway?
Most thorny of all: Should school be cancelled? On the one hand, if you cancel it, you’re basically sanctioning the observance of a pagan/Christian holiday. But if you don’t cancel it, half the kids will be absent! The most ingenious solution I once heard about was the congregation that scheduled a teacher’s meeting on Halloween. That way, the kids who wouldn’t have shown up anyway wouldn’t technically be absent, but the school wouldn’t technically be cancelled. Clever!
For my part, I love teaching religious school on Halloween because it gives me a chance to teach about one of my favorite topics: Judaism and magic. At first blush, people are often shocked to see these two words in the same subject line, but the truth is, our tradition has a long and rich magical tradition that began in the days of the Torah, became particularly rich in the middle ages, and in some communities, continues on even to this day! (Check out some practices found in certain Israeli Sephardic communities if you don’t believe me).
Jewish magic is mentioned as early as Deuteronomy 18, where various groups of diviners, astrologers and exorcists are named, and their ceremonies are prohibited as idolatrous. The fact these practices are derided so repeatedly in the biblical canon (Kings 21:6, II Chronicles 33:6, Micah 11, Jeremiah 26:9, and so on and so on) is evidence of just how widespread these practices actually were!
For all these instances of divination or magic being criticized, there are other instances in which similar-sounding acts are described as legitimate forms of worship, some even taking place in the Temple itself! The purifying ritual of the red heifer (Numbers 19) and the scapegoat ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16) depict what are essentially magical acts: the mysterious ability of ritual to effect change on a spiritual or cosmic plane. The Sotah ritual of a suspected adulteress in Numbers 5:11 is a particularly peculiar ritual in which a potion has the mysterious ability to reveal the truth – a soothsaying of sorts.
And let us not forget the very presence of the prophets themselves! While scripture goes to great lengths to admonish anyone who claims to predict or affect the future (“There shall not be found among you any one who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or a soothsayer, or an enchanter, or a magician, or a charmer, or a medium or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination to the Eternal!” Deut 18:10) – the entire second section of Tanakh is dedicated to the sermons of men doing precisely these things!
What is the difference between a prophet and a magician?
While on one hand few families I know seriously question whether they should allow their kids to dress up and go trick-or-treating, the religious schools that educate these kids often have very intense discussions about the holiday, especially when it lands on a school day. Should the kids be invited to come to school in a costume? How should teachers react if the kids aren’t invited to dress up, but show up in costumes anyway?
Most thorny of all: Should school be cancelled? On the one hand, if you cancel it, you’re basically sanctioning the observance of a pagan/Christian holiday. But if you don’t cancel it, half the kids will be absent! The most ingenious solution I once heard about was the congregation that scheduled a teacher’s meeting on Halloween. That way, the kids who wouldn’t have shown up anyway wouldn’t technically be absent, but the school wouldn’t technically be cancelled. Clever!
For my part, I love teaching religious school on Halloween because it gives me a chance to teach about one of my favorite topics: Judaism and magic. At first blush, people are often shocked to see these two words in the same subject line, but the truth is, our tradition has a long and rich magical tradition that began in the days of the Torah, became particularly rich in the middle ages, and in some communities, continues on even to this day! (Check out some practices found in certain Israeli Sephardic communities if you don’t believe me).
Jewish magic is mentioned as early as Deuteronomy 18, where various groups of diviners, astrologers and exorcists are named, and their ceremonies are prohibited as idolatrous. The fact these practices are derided so repeatedly in the biblical canon (Kings 21:6, II Chronicles 33:6, Micah 11, Jeremiah 26:9, and so on and so on) is evidence of just how widespread these practices actually were!
For all these instances of divination or magic being criticized, there are other instances in which similar-sounding acts are described as legitimate forms of worship, some even taking place in the Temple itself! The purifying ritual of the red heifer (Numbers 19) and the scapegoat ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16) depict what are essentially magical acts: the mysterious ability of ritual to effect change on a spiritual or cosmic plane. The Sotah ritual of a suspected adulteress in Numbers 5:11 is a particularly peculiar ritual in which a potion has the mysterious ability to reveal the truth – a soothsaying of sorts.
And let us not forget the very presence of the prophets themselves! While scripture goes to great lengths to admonish anyone who claims to predict or affect the future (“There shall not be found among you any one who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or a soothsayer, or an enchanter, or a magician, or a charmer, or a medium or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination to the Eternal!” Deut 18:10) – the entire second section of Tanakh is dedicated to the sermons of men doing precisely these things!
What is the difference between a prophet and a magician?
About the same difference as there is between an “environmentalist” and a “tree-hugger.” The truth is in the eye of the beholder. The person with the pen gets to decide which is a legitimate sign from God, and which is a divinatory act of “abomination.”
Not surprisingly, these lines are drawn in all the places you’d expect them to be. When the person doing the supernatural act is affiliated with the Temple cult or supports their agenda – they are receiving a sign from God. When the person engaging in divination is an outsider or even an opponent to the Temple-sanctioned polemic – it becomes magic.
I hope you enjoyed this short mini-lesson on magic and the Bible. The truth is, this only touches the tip of the textual iceberg! The Talmud, Apocryphal literature and medieval writings all reveal their own rich and fascinating versions of magic – and what better time of year to study some of these treasures than at Halloween!?
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