SHABBAT READING
From Despair to Hope: Beha’alotecha . 5776 – 5783 – The Rabbi Sacks Legacy, Covenant & Conversation — There have been times when one passage in this week’s parsha was, for me, little less than lifesaving. No leadership position is easy. Leading Jews is harder still. And spiritual leadership can be hardest of them all. Leaders have a public face that is usually calm, upbeat, optimistic, and relaxed. But behind the façade we can all experience storms of emotion as we realise how deep are the divisions between people, how intractable are the problems we face, and how thin the ice on which we stand. Perhaps we all experience such moments at some point in our lives, when we know where we are and where we want to be, but simply cannot see a route from here to there. That is the prelude to despair.
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A MIDDLE WORLD
Jewish Magic and Superstition: 3: The Powers of Evil: The Middle World, Sacred Texts, no date — THE basis of Jewish magic lay the belief in a vast, teeming “middle world,” a world neither of the flesh nor altogether and exclusively of the spirit. Demons and angels, to be counted only in myriads, populated that world; through their intermediacy the powers of magic were brought into operation.
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Jewish Demons: Maoz Kahana, Tablet, May 31, 2023
The Vigil: Jewish Horror Movie About Demons Gets a Lot Right: Rabbi Menachem Weiman, Aish, no date
A Visual Guide to the Demons that Spooked the Jews of Babylon: Nir Hasson, Haaretz, Mar. 21, 2017
Does the Bible Believe in the Evil Eye?: Dr. Nicole L. Tilford, The Torah.com, Apr. 28, 2022
FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:
Israeli Archaeologists Present 1,800-Year-Old Gold Protective Jewelry: Jerusalem Post staff, Jerusalem Post, Apr. 3, 2023— Gold jewelry dating from the days of the Roman Empire is being displayed for the first time by the Israel Antiquities Authority at the 48th Archaeology Congress in Jerusalem.
Jewish Amulet Against ‘Evil Eye’ Offers Insight into Talmudic Israel Life: Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2021 — A necklace pendant dating back some 1,500 years has offered new insights into the daily life of Jews in the Land of Israel during the Byzantine period.
The Talmud’s Demonology Resembles the Schlocky Inventiveness of ‘Dune’ or ‘The Lord of the Rings’: Adam Kirsch, Tablet, Feb. 25, 2016 — One of the challenging things about the reading the Talmud is the way it combines the most painstaking rationality with the most florid superstition.
The Golem of Montreal: Allan Nadler, Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2022 — In one of the most bizarre, yet deadly serious rulings (about the undead) in the vast literature of rabbinic responsa (She’elot u-Teshuvot), the renowned seventeenth-century sage of Amsterdam and London, Hakham Zvi Ashkenazi, was asked whether one may count a golem for a minyan.
