Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

I sit with open-mouthed incredulity before the television programs featuring "psychics.” I watch and listen to people who appear on the growing number of programs featuring persons willing to pay for the wisdom they receive from the psychics and offering testimony to their effectiveness. Earnest people confess that when it comes to important decisions in their lives, be it in the affairs of the heart, the choices of mates, decisions in business, they do nothing without consulting a psychic.

It is more than a show and more than mere entertainment. The popularity and proliferation of these programs touch upon something more significant in the human psyche than the susceptibility of commercial exploitation.

What do people want? What do people believe? What are they willing to pay for? Not truth, not wisdom, not ethics, not liberty. People want magic. Dostoyevsky's, "The Grand Inquisitor" in The Brothers Karamazov cuts to the core of the matter: "Do you think that people want freedom of conscience, that they want the truth, that they want the ability to choose, to make decisions, to be free?" The Grand Inquisitor, who should know, understands that there are three things that people truly want. Dostoyevsky italicized them: Miracle, Mystery, Authority.

People want magic. They have always wanted it and they continue to want it. That is the pervasive struggle within religion. Do you give people what they want? Then give them miracle, mystery, authority. Or do you recognize in those temptations the enslavement of the human mind and the bondage of the human spirit?

People want magic and Moses knew it. When God tells him to free the Israelites to teach them freedom, Moses answers, "God, they will not believe me. They will not listen to my voice. They will say 'The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.'" And God knows that Moses will have to convince the slave people through the seductions of theurgy.

"And the Lord said unto Moses, 'What is in your hand?' and he said, 'A rod.' And the Lord said 'Cast it down on the ground.' And Moses cast it on the ground and it became a serpent. And the Lord said 'Pick it up by its tail.' And Moses put forth his hand and it became a rod in his hand." All this was done "that they may believe that the Lord, the God of Israel sent Moses.” To further gain the attention and credulity of the people, "And God again said to Moses 'Put your hand in your bosom.' And when Moses took it out behold it was leprous and white as snow. And God said 'Put your hand back into your bosom.' And lo it was turned again as his other flesh."

Magic works and on both sides. For what Moses and Aaron did with the rod Pharaoh also could do (Exodus 7:11).  "Pharaoh called for the wise men and the sorcerers and also the magicians of Egypt did in like manner with their secret arts. They cast down every man his rod and they became serpents." Snake charming is widespread in the East – ancient and modern.

Then Moses and Aaron lifted up the rod, smote the waters that were in the river, and all the waters turned to blood. "And the magicians of Egypt did in like manner with their secret arts." Then Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. "And the magicians did in like manner with their secret arts and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt." Magic against magic ends in a draw. Moses in the beginning plays the magician game. But ultimately the impasse of competing theurgies must be broken by a moral faith.

Faith is not magic. Miracle is not magic. The God of creation and the Lord of history is not a magician. Throughout the Bible, there is a depth struggle between faith and magic. "There is no enchantment in Jacob, neither is there any divination in Israel; at the right time it is said to him what God doeth" (Numbers 23:23). In Deuteronomy 18:9-12 we hear a blunt warning:  "When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one that uses divination, a soothsayer or an enchanter or a sorcerer or a charmer nor one that consults a ghost or a familiar spirit or a necromancer. For whosoever doeth these things is an abomination unto the Lord."

Why this reiterated opposition to magic? What dangers do the seductiveness of magic threaten? Magic uses means such as charms or spells that are believe to have supernatural control over natural forces. Magic promises results. Magic is amorally pragmatic. Recite the proper formula, chant the correct incantation, sacrifice your wealth, your son or your daughter, and you will receive the secrets that will gain you access to the result. In magic,  the result is all important. The means to achieve that result are morally indifferent. You may kill your son or daughter, ply the sorcerer with bribes.  Magic is amoral and so is the magician. Magic has nothing to do with the morality of its means or ends. Unlike faith, magic has no interest in the character of the petitioner or the practitioner. Magic asks only that you submit to the magic maker. You do not have to know how the magic takes place. It is not in the interest of the magician that you know. You do not question the wizard. On the contrary, the magician calls for a sacraficium intellectus, a sacrifice of the intelligence of the petitioner. For magic to succeed, reason must fail. Against the magicization of God, that Moses, the man of faith, confronts the magicians, and the master magician, Pharaoh. For the man of faith, the goal is the freedom of the people. Not physical freedom alone, but spiritual, intellectual and moral freedom. It is not enough to take the Jew out of Egypt. The ghosts of magic must be exorcised.

THE PASSOVER STORY

The Talmud Pesachim (109) reports that there was fear of even numbers among Jews. Even numbers could be divided, split, and broken. Therefore, the popular superstition of that time was not to serve foods in even numbers, not two, four or eight courses in the meal, not two, four or eight drinks of wine. But on the Passover, which is the holiday that struggles against magic and superstition around the Passover meal, there are four cups of wine and four questions, four sons. In defiance of the superstitious fear that even numbers render us vulnerable, four is the reiterated number of the Passover Seder. This is the night of freedom, and even the bedtime prayer calling upon angelic protection is not recited. Passover is the celebration of freedom from the masters of manipulation.

Judaism is rooted in the sanctity of human freedom. It is the premise of the commandments: "I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage." The first attribute assigned to God is that of Liberator. In the third book of the Guide to the Perplexed, chapter 32, Maimonides responds to the typical inquiry:  why did God have to lead the people in the desert circuitously? "God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistine although that was near; for God said 'Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt'." (Exodus 13:17) Why does an omnipotent God not simply change the character of the people? Why not make of each Israelite a believer in God? Why not alter their disposition toward servitude by a miraculous act of will? In answering, Maimonides declares that "The nature of man is never changed by God by way of miracle." God so respects the freedom of persons, the capacity of individuals to choose, that He will not use His power to affect the character of the human being. To do so would be to distort the uniqueness of human beings. God will not allow the crown of His creation to turn into an automaton.

Magic, sorcery, wizardry are all forms of human enslavement to power. This Jewish passion for freedom entails a respect for the critical intelligence of the human being and a revulsion of religious superstition. Consider Maimonides' important statement: "One who whispers a spell over a wound at the same time reciting a verse from the Torah, one who recites a verse over a child to save it from terrors, and one who places a Torah scroll or phylacteries on an infant to induce it to sleep, is considered not only in the category of sorcerers and soothsayers but is included among those who repudiate the Torah. For such a person who uses words to cure the body whereas the words of the Torah are only medicine for the soul. As it is said "They shall be life unto the soul" (Proverbs 3:22). On the other hand, anyone in the enjoyment of good health is permitted to recite verses from the scripture or a Psalm so that he be shielded by the merit of the recital and saved from trouble and hurt" (Mishnah Torah, The Laws of Idolatry, 11:12). As opposed to magic, prayer is meant to strengthen your will, your spirit, your faith, but not to act as a surrogate for acting on the real physical illnesses of your body. You are not to run to a faith healer. You are to consult a physician. Maimonides presses the point: "If one was stung by a scorpion or snake it is permitted even on the Sabbath to whisper a spell over the part affected so as to soothe the patient and give him assurance even though the thing has no utility whatsoever" (11:16).  Maimonides writes sharply, "These practices are all false and deceptive and were used by the ancient idolaters to deceive the people...and induce them to become their followers. It is not proper for Israelites who are highly intelligent to suffer themselves to be deluded by such inanities...sensible people who possess sound mental control know by clear proofs that all these practices that the Torah prohibits have no scientific basis but are chimerical and inane."

Judaism is concerned with health, well being, and with fulfillment of the human being, but not through the use of amoral magic that denigrates the human spirit. Magic is oblivious to moral character, human effort, and human dignity. The Yalkut Shimoni comments on the verse in Deuteronomy 2:7, "For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of thy hand," lest you think God will bless you even if you sit passively with folded arms, the verse emphasizes "in all the work of thy hand.” If you work, you will be blessed but if not, you will not be blessed. When faith is placed in the hands of Tarot cards, horoscopes or in the charisma of psychics, God is turned into a magician, prayer and miracles are transformed into magic.

When the human being abdicates his freedom, his competence, his moral role as a partner with God, magic prevails and slavery ensues. There were and are people who in the name of God are convinced that medicine is a denigration of divine power. They echo the conviction of the founder of the Karaites, Anan ben David, who insisted that "God alone should be sought as physician and no other human medicine should be resorted to." Against this position Maimonides inveighed in his Mishnah Commentary, "According to this worthless and corrupt opinion, any person who is hungry and goes for bread and eats it would have to be considered as lacking in faith and reliance on God."

The consultation of horoscopes, astrological signs, palm readers, healing crystals, gurus, reincarnated teachers, psychics, charismatics are manifestations of the seductiveness of mystery, magic, miracles and authority. They cultivate gullibility, irrationality and subservience. The battle of Moses with the Egyptian magicians, the struggle of the God of Moses with Pharaoh, the chief magician, is not ended. At stake is the unique spiritual and moral character of Jewish faith.

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