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2. A merchant whilst travelling, is asked by an innkeeper to be allowed to go with him. Near a town they meet a blind man. The merchant gives him something; the other refuses sayin...
A pious man owned a large tree in his garden. The tree was beautiful, its shade deep and cool — and a demon lived in it. This was not unusual in the ancient world. The sages accept...
16. A pious man, digging up the ground, found a marble statue. It spoke to the man and asked to be cleaned and to be placed in the house in a clean place, promising riches. One day...
King David once asked God what good there was in gnats, spiders and fools. One day, fleeing from Saul, he hid in a cave and a spider quickly covered the opening with its web. Saul,...
Rebuke not the wicked lest you make an enemy. Having thus spent all his money he went to another town. There a man asked a scribe to write a petition, offer- ding a small coin. The...
The story continues as follows:— 184— The frog, which is none other than a child of the demon Lilith teaches Johanan the knowledge of all the languages and before leaving, calls al...
The Romans had issued evil decrees against the Jewish people — banning Torah study, forbidding circumcision, outlawing the observance of the Sabbath. The sages were desperate. Some...
Eleazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, inherited more than his father's brilliance in Torah. He was endowed with staggering physical strength — the kind of strength that seeme...
Rabbi Akiba taught that visiting the sick was not merely a kindness — it was a matter of life and death. The Talmud (Nedarim 40a) records his dramatic demonstration of this princip...
Demon in Tree. Ben Atar, No. 15. Maase Buch No. 190. Ben Gorion II, p. 203, 353- cf. Aesop, Fab. 21. Babrius, Fables, No. 1 19. Benfey, Pantschat. I, 476 f; II, 321. Finamore, Trad...
A king once raised a boy in total isolation, keeping him locked away from birth so that he would never see a woman. According to a tale preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (comp...
The folk traditions of Israel contain many tales of encounters between ordinary Jews and the demons that inhabit the hidden corners of the world. The story known as "The Demon and ...
In the distant lands of Persia, where fire altars burned day and night in honor of the elements, the Jewish communities faced a peculiar danger that was not from human persecutors ...
The verse in Deuteronomy asks a haunting question: "How could one pursue a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight?" (Deuteronomy 32:30). The answer, the Torah says, is that G...
Three maxims were given to a man — three simple rules for living — and his obedience to these maxims saved his life. The tale, found in Jewish and comparative folklore collections,...
A Jewish man and a gentile once made a wager about whose religion was true. Satan, disguised as an ordinary man, appeared and ruled in favor of the gentile, who took all the money....
Angelology constitutes the theological branch examining "superhuman beings dwelling in heaven, who, on occasion, reveal to man God's will and execute His commands." This doctrine d...
This comprehensive article examines demons across biblical, rabbinical, and comparative religious contexts, written by Emil G. Hirsch, Richard Gottheil, Kaufmann Kohler, and Isaac ...
This comprehensive article examines cosmogony (theories of universe origin) across biblical, post-biblical, and rabbinical Jewish traditions, comparing them with Babylonian and oth...
Lilith is described as a female demon in Jewish tradition. The name appears in (Isaiah 34:14) and derives from Assyrian demon mythology, though scholars debate whether it connects ...
In early biblical usage, Satan functioned primarily as "an adversary" in various contexts—military enemies, courtroom accusers, or obstacles. The Book of Job represents a pivotal s...
Dreams have at all times and among all peoples received much attention. In the youth of a nation, as in the youth of an individual, dreams are so vivid that they appear to be hardl...
Name of the prince of demons. The meaning of the name and the identity of the two forms here given are still in dispute. Asmodeus first appears in the Book of Tobit. According to T...
Prince of the demons, and an important figure both in Talmudic and in post-Talmudic literature, where he appears as accuser, seducer, and destroyer. His name is etymologized as = "...
The name of a supernatural being mentioned in connection with the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi.). After Satan, for whom he was in some degree a preparation, Azazel enjo...
Two words haunted ancient Israel: shedim (demons) and se'irim. The Israelites were forbidden from sacrificing to either. They sacrificed anyway. The se'irim were the hairy ones, sa...
Divination using the deceased was reportedly widespread among Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The Israelites likely adopted this practice from Persian sources and engaged in it exten...
A class of celestial beings appears only once in the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the prophet Isaiah's visionary experience (Isaiah 6:2 onwards). Isaiah observed multiple seraphim...
The cherub represents a winged celestial being frequently referenced throughout Scripture. According to the prophet Ezekiel's vision, cherubim appear as a group of four living crea...
"Behemoth" denotes the hippopotamus, though the Biblical description contains mythical elements suggesting these were not ordinary animals. The creatures appear in Job xl, where be...
The concept of soul in Jewish tradition derives from Genesis, where God endows humans with "spirit or breath" (ruah). Initially, this spirit was "inseparably connected, if not whol...
Magic is described as "the pretended art of producing preternatural effects," constituting one of two principal divisions of occultism alongside divination. Effects produced may be...
Israel in exile speaks like a child who has finally stopped lying. "Master of the Universe, at first I said 'I have not sinned,' and You brought suffering upon me. Now I say: I hav...
When Israel does the will of the Almighty, they rise like ministering angels. This is Aggadat Bereshit's boldest claim about obedience — not that it earns reward, but that it trans...
Rachel had watched her sister enter the wedding canopy and had not envied her — not then. But when the children came, one after another from Leah's womb, Rachel's patience broke. "...
One small Hebrew word — kalot, "completed" — carries an entire wedding, an entire exorcism, and the steadying of the whole world. In Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:5, the sages pry open (...
A pious couple in the Gaster manuscripts had been childless for many years. The husband, desperate, went to the cemetery and prayed at the tombs of the righteous through a long nig...
The Rabbis teach that King Solomon, for all his wisdom, committed three transgressions of kingship that the Torah had warned against. He multiplied horses. He multiplied wives. He ...
A ma'aseh preserved in the Gaster manuscripts describes a strange people in a distant country who had built their religion around fire. Every morning at dawn they lit one great sta...
The wicked kingdom once decreed that the Jews should no longer keep the Sabbath, nor circumcise their sons, nor observe the laws of ritual purity the Torah commands. Three commandm...
A poor fisherman cast his net and pulled up a great fish. As he lifted it from the water, the fish spoke. Cut me open, it said. Gather my blood in three bottles. Keep them safely. ...
Ashmedai, king of the demons, wanted to humiliate Solomon, whose wisdom was famous in every kingdom. So Ashmedai brought up from the netherworld a man with two heads, a living curi...
When Solomon set out to build the Temple, he faced a strange obstacle hidden in plain sight in the Torah. Scripture says that "the house, when it was in building, was built of ston...
Simeon ben Shetach, president of the Sanhedrin in the first century BCE, had a problem in Ashkelon: eighty witches living together in a cave, working malevolent magic that terroriz...
A lame Jew in a pagan city heard a rumor about a local idol. The idol, people said, had been healing lame people. Those who slept in its temple overnight woke with their legs strai...
When Solomon needed the king of the demons to help build the Temple without iron, he sent his captain Benaiah son of Jehoiada into the wilderness. Benaiah carried two weapons that ...
Rabbah bar Nachmani ran one of the great academies of Babylonia, and twice a year — in the month before Passover and the month before the Feast of Tabernacles — thousands of Jews t...
A pious man had a magnificent tree in his garden. For years it had been the pride of his land — tall, shady, heavy with fruit. Travelers and neighbors loved to rest beneath it. But...
