Superstitions

This Shabbat our cycle of Torah readings reaches a climactic moment – Moses ascends Mount Sinai, the people camped below, and begins to receive the teachings of Torah as symbolized by the Ten Commandments. Thunder, lighting, smoke, drums sounding, horns blaring – it’s all a rather dramatic scene as the Torah tells it.

Of course how well we know that Moses’ stay atop the mountain will drag on and the people below will grow restless and fearful; that something has happened to their leader. A few weeks hence we’ll turn to reading the story of what happens after about 40 days (note – 40, a significant number in the Torah and Jewish tradition). The Israelites will convince Aaron to make them an idol – the Golden Calf which they worship, presumably to assuage their fears in Moses’ absence. But I’m getting ahead of our story. Yet, perhaps I’m not. After all, what is that drove the Israelites, newly freed from slavery and degradation in Egypt to turn (or re-turn) to the idolatry they witnessed in Egypt. While a full answer might take many factors into account, at root, it’s likely that it was fear which drove their response.

But fear is a natural human feeling. Indeed, fears large and small affect most of us at one time or another. I wonder – how many of you took extra special care as you went about your day today?

I mean, today is Friday the 13th after all.

Don’t worry – I’m not really going to ask for a show of hands as to how many of us took things just a little more carefully today. I imagine that intellectually most of us didn’t give the matter much thought. IF anything given the hype, I imagine we were more conscious of tomorrow – February the 14th then we were of today, Friday the 13th.

Yet, there are many for whom the specter of the 13th day of a month falling on a Friday is cause for at least mild concern. Likewise there are those who’d prefer not to sit in row 13 on an airplane, or get off the elevator on the 13th floor (if there is even a thirteenth floor).

Somehow I think our Israelite ancestors had some real reasons to fear their situation in the wilderness some 3300 years ago – yet, fear of the unknown, superstition if you will is a real part of our human emotional make-up. And lest we think Jews are immune, we might want to think again.

My colleague, Rabbi Barry Block of San Antonio, Texas tells the following story:

“When I was a child, if our extended family would gather for dinner, we would often have thirteen people at the table. Unfortunately, my great-grandmother was very superstitious. Fortunately, though, she didn’t see very well. Frequently, she would ask, “How many people are at the table?” The answer was always the same: “twelve.” Ultimately, my great-grandmother died on the thirteenth day of the month. No, it wasn’t a Friday.”

And I’ll bet that some among us can think of their own examples of superstitions – perhaps family superstitions or “customs” from our Jewish heritage. How many have witnessed someone spit after saying something or after mentioning a name like that of Haman, or Hitler, or some other enemy of the Jewish people? How many have seen a red thread tied to a baby’s crib? Or how many wear a hamsa – a little hand – or have one placed somewhere in their home? Even more – I’ll bet that most of us have mezzuzot on at least one of the doorposts of our homes.

All these and so much more are a part of our Jewish tradition’s brush with that human reaction to the unknown we call superstition.

We tend to think of Judaism as a particularly rational tradition. Yet, like most peoples, we Jews also have our own unique catalogue of superstitions – and of remedies to protect us from the demons our people have feared throughout the ages. Along with the rational we find what we might call folk-religion – ideas and practices that never quite rose to the level of Torah-teachings, and which may have been look upon askance by Rabbis and other religious leaders. But nonetheless, these folk-religious elements are there. They are, shall we say, as Jewish as sipping chicken soup when one has a cold.

Ellen Frankel, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society, notes that many of these folk religion elements were handed down by women. Whereas “the mainstream religious tradition, of Torah written and oral, is primarily the [domain] of the rabbis – an elite male group which has been communicating Jewish law for generations . . . there is also a ‘folk Torah,’ a grass-roots tradition which includes stories, songs, proverbs, superstitions, and lullabies, which was primarily transmitted by women.”

Many of our Jewish folk beliefs originated in the darkness of the Middle Ages. The medieval Jewish world conceived a veritable “middle world:” of angels, demons and spirits. Much of what Jewish tradition has to say on the subject has been catalogued and explained by the late Rabbi Joshua Trachtenberg. Rabbi Trachtenberg (who co-incidently, served as Rabbi of my previous congregation in Teaneck, NJ until his untimely death) wrote two major books which are, to this day, considered the seminal works on these subjects – The Devil and the Jews, and his even more widely known book, Jewish Magic and Superstition. In this latter book, Rabbi Trachtenberg writes: “The popular attitude toward magic and superstition, leaving aside the legalistic approach, recalls an incident that illustrates it perfectly. A teacher of mine, out for a stroll, was suddenly confronted with a black cat from which he shied away nervously. One of his students, observing this, twitted him, ‘You’re not really afraid of a black cat, Professor!’ ‘No!,’ he replied indignantly, ’of course I don’t believe in such nonsense. But there’s no harm in being careful.’” Rabbi Trachtenberg goes on to note, “[My teacher] might as well have been quoting Sefer Hasidim [a 13th century work of religious teachings arising from the community known as Hasidei Ashkenaz] – ‘One should not believe in superstitions, but still it is best to be heedful of them.” Trachtenberg calls this “qualified skepticism.” And you know what – that term probably still works for us today.

Sure, we don’t really believe anything bad will happen because today is Friday the 13th, or because a black cat crosses our paths, or because ---- you fill in the blank with your own “qualified skepticism.” But the words of Rabbi Trachtenberg’s teacher, echoing those Sefer Hasidim probably sound good too – We don’t believe in such nonsense. But there’s no harm in being careful.

By the way, I should probably note that 40 is not the only number which has a positive meaning in Jewish tradition. Ten – as in the Ten Commandments – also has a strong association – ten lost tribes, ten plagues, etc. And, I might add – so does 13. In fact, let us not forget that there are 13 months in our Hebrew calendar. Our Torah lists 13 attributes of God – (compassionate, full of grace, etc.); in 1948 the first provisional government of the newly founded State of Israel had 13 members, Moses Maimonides concretized his view of Jewish religious doctrine as being based on 13 attributes of faith; and just one more – the age at which a young person achieves adult status in Jewish life is — Sophie and Max – you got it, thirteen!

I commend Rabbi Trachtenberg’s book, Jewish Magic and Superstition to you. It will open your eyes – and probably also explain a host of mysterious things you know but don’t understand. But just in case, let me wish you a safe journey home tonight – you never know!

Shabbat Shalom!