Wicked Witchcraft - Kedoshim - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Kedoshim, the 7th reading of the book of Leviticus, that demands that the Israelites be holy, for God too is holy.

 

Those fingers in my hair
That sly come-hither stare
That strips my conscience bare
It's witchcraft
And I've got no defense for it
The heat is too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do?
'cause it's witchcraft, wicked witchcraft
And although I know it's strictly taboo
When you arouse the need in me
My heart says "Yes, indeed" in me
"Proceed with what you're leadin' me to"
It's such an ancient pitch
But one I wouldn't switch
'cause there's no nicer witch than you
-Frank Sinatra, Witchcraft

Sinatra's 1957 hit 'Witchcraft' encapsulates both the attraction and the revulsion that human culture has felt towards witches over the millennia - the magic strops away his conscience, removing any free will to resist the witch's seduction, yet at the same time his heart says "yes indeed", and he states that there is no "nicer witch".

This week's parasha of Kedoshim calls on the people of Israel to be holy, for God is holy, and contains ethical imperatives and sexual prohibitions. But spread throughout the parasha are 3 verses about magic: Lev 19:31, Lev 20:6, and 20:27 all contain prohibitions against what we might call witchcraft, or more accurately spiritualism or consulting with the spirits of the dead:

לא. אַל תִּפְנוּ אֶל הָאֹבֹת וְאֶל הַיִּדְּעֹנִים אַל תְּבַקְשׁוּ לְטָמְאָה בָהֶם אֲנִי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

31] Do not turn to the Ovot or the Yidonim, do not seek to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

ו. וְהַנֶּפֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר תִּפְנֶה אֶל הָאֹבֹת וְאֶל הַיִּדְּעֹנִים לִזְנֹת אַחֲרֵיהֶם וְנָתַתִּי אֶת פָּנַי בַּנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא וְהִכְרַתִּי אֹתוֹ מִקֶּרֶב עַמּוֹ:

6] The person who turns to the Ovot and the Yidonim to prostitute themselves by following them, I will turn my face from them and I will cut them off from their people.

כז. וְאִישׁ אוֹ אִשָּׁה כִּי יִהְיֶה בָהֶם אוֹב אוֹ יִדְּעֹנִי מוֹת יוּמָתוּ בָּאֶבֶן יִרְגְּמוּ אֹתָם דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם:

27] A man or woman who has an Ov or Yidoni in them you must put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.

What is an Ov or a Yidoni? Classical interpretation understood them to be witches, people who claimed to have supernatural powers (whether justified or not) but then Lev 20:27 doesn't make much sense. How can a person have a witch in them?

The so-called Witch of Endor, in 1 Samuel 28, makes this clearer, as she is called in Hebrew a ba'alat Ov, a master of an Ov (I talked about this in more detail here). Her power is not in casting spells or enchantments, but rather in contacting the dead, as she does when she calls up the prophet Samuel. The Ovot and Yidonim then seem to be the spirits of the dead, familiars that Mediums would turn to to seek out knowledge and wisdom from beyond the grave.

Why do we have these three verses in a parasha about holiness? What is the problem of giving in to the attraction of witchcraft?
  
In the ancient world there was a strong cult of the dead, a religion of ancestor worship, where people would give offerings and devotions to their dead relatives and pray to them for inspiration and good fortune.

The Bible has no patience for such a practice.

The Torah wants you to know that God alone should be the object of your worship, that you shouldn't turn to the spirits of the dead but instead to God. These Ovot and Yidonim then are rivals to God for the affections of Israel. They are attractive figures that we might be seduced by, prostituting ourselves in the process, but they must be resisted at all costs - and the penalties for giving in to temptation are severe: defilement, being cut off, and death by stoning.

These spirits of Ovot and Yidonim promise great knowledge and power - the word Yidoni may even imply 'the knowing ones' - but it is a knowledge that comes from breaking boundaries, from crossing over the divide between the dead and the living, a barrier that should not be torn down.

We are forbidden from consulting with Ovot and Yidonim, not because it doesn't work, the Medium of Endor makes it clear that the Bible thinks it does work, but because it is defiling and against the sanctity and holiness that God demands of us.

Our parasha is called Kedoshim, holy, and God makes the huge demand upon us to be kadosh, to be holy, a word that in Hebrew has connotations of being separate and special, set aside for a particular purpose and role. It is the same word we use for marriage, kiddushin, setting aside another person as being in a unique relationship with us.

The torah demands that the Jewish people be holy, like God is holy, that we are to exist in a relationship of mutual holiness with the divine, striving to emulate God through moral, ethical and ritual behaviours. But this relationship comes with the same promise of monogamy as marriage, a demand that we will not turn to other powers for assistance.

Wanting More
Human beings have always sought to know more, to understand more, to find sources of wisdom and power wherever they can. We have turned to astrology, soothsaying, ouija boards, tarot card readers, druids, bone readers, necromancers and witches in order to learn the secrets of the cosmos and thereby prosper in our work and relationships.

Kedoshim tells us that these practices are unacceptable.

Now I personally don't believe that any of these things work. I don't believe that there are witches that have familiar spirits and can contact the dead, and any one who claims such a power, I believe is probably a charlatan. In the rational world I believe we live in, there isn't a place for communing with the dead to gain wisdom from beyond the veil.

So what does this prohibition mean to me?

It seems to me that holiness is about living, about life experience, about the dirty business of being a good person in the real world. While the demand to be kadosh is to be in a unique relationship with the divine, as Jews we are told to live out that relationship as part of the living, breathing world, balancing competing goods and evils in the ongoing battle to be ethical people.

Turning to the dead is putting the emphasis on the wrong place, thinking that answers can be found outside of the world, apart from that relationship with living human beings. Turning to the Ovot and the Yidonim takes a person out of this world, and puts all the focus on the next, investing the dead with power that they simply don't have.

We certainly should venerate the dead, but not more than we honour the living.

The attraction of witchcraft is real and palpable. It strips our conscience and our common sense away, leaving nothing but the beating heart of desire - I want, I need. But Kedoshim tells us to resist the pull of spirits, the lure of forbidden knowledge, and focus on living as a part of this world.