um I'm Raquel shinerman the editor of my Jewish learning and I am so pleased to welcome you all today to learn about demons in the talmud I would venture to say that a lot of people when they first study the talmud or even if they've been studying for a while might not even know that demons pop up occasionally in its pages so today we are super lucky to have Dr Sarah ronas the associate professor of theology at St Mary's University in Texas to orient us to some of this um surprising material she's one of the world's experts on the topic of demons in the talmud and the culmination of her research a book called demons in the details demonic discourse and rabbinic culture in late antique Babylonia just came out a few months ago um so if you like what you learn here and want to learn more please feel free to check it out I believe we'll have a link for a discount um that we can offer in the follow-up to this course so now I'm going to turn the virtual microphone over to you Dr onas thank you um hi everyone I'm so thrilled that you're spending uh your lunch hour or breakfast hour or dinner hour depending on where you are uh coming to learn about demons with me um if at some point I cut out or the tech is wanting wonky please let me know um and also the wonderful folks from my Jewish learning will be monitoring the chat so if something in one of the talmudic texts is confusing um you're not sure what's going on in them please raise your hand drop it in the chat and they'll interrupt me um as we're going so I have a PowerPoint I'm going to share with you all my advice would be to um to go to speaker View but at this point three years in you can do Zoom however you want to do Zoom um so today we're going to talk about demons in the tall mode and one thing that I want everyone to know is that basically almost everyone in the late Antique World in what is today North Africa Asia and Europe believed in demons uh modern American culture usually depicts demons the way that they are presented primarily in the New Testament um and so I bet you are surprised that we're starting our my Jewish Learning Journey together by looking at the New Testament but there we go um right so in the New Testament demons are depicted as evil malevolent they attack the body by entering right they attack humans by entering into our bodies and basically taking it over um and in fact one of the first things that establishes Jesus's reputation in his lifetime is his ability to successfully exercise demonic beings and force them out of human bodies now that construction of demons is the construction of demons that we see in modern films and I just brought I mean I could have kept going but I know you know at some point we want to talk about other things right all of these texts depict demons as these horrible malevolent beings that need to be exercised so if you were thinking demons in the talmud oh I know what demons are this is probably where many of us our minds go but not everybody in the ancient world thought about demons as evil Body Snatchers um and in the book that Dr scheinerman was um already already named I examine how the Babylonian rabbis think about demons really differently right it turns out if we ask how do how does this one specific group who is so important to um modern Judaism how do they think about demons our answer is going to be really different from the answer we would be getting if we were asking that question about the New Testament or about the modern Exorcist so before we can talk about demons in the talmud I want to make sure we're all on the same page about the talmud so the rabbis so the the talmud is sort of the the classic late antique text of a group called The rabbis the rabbis who wrote the Babylonian talmud lived in Babylonia I know we're very good at naming things um and if you look at um this map that I put up on the screen you will see an area a very small area in the orange called Babylonia Babylonia was a province in the sasanian Empire the sasanian empire in late Antiquity and I'm saying late Antiquity a lot so just for context I'm really thinking here about the second to sixth centuries CE so you know the 100s through the 500s um and Babylonia is part of the sasanian Empire The Empire is um controlled by a zoroastrian elite zoroastrians still exist today and in this time we would have called them a dualistic religion coming out of what is today Iran um but this Empire and specifically the region of Babylonia also had um Jews rabbinic and otherwise different kinds of Christians um manichaeans mandeans people who still worshiped ancient Sumerian and Acadian um gods and goddesses and so we're thinking about a really um Cosmopolitan diverse religiously Rich environment so that's the that's the place where and I think you should be able to see my cursor now just if you haven't been able to notice Babylonia on the map it's it's right where I'm pointing um can you see my cursor yes okay thanks um so so it's it's that little region there and the rabbis are only one religious Elite among many in this world and on top of all of the kinds of interactions they're having with their peers they also are the inheritors of earlier Jewish Traditions from second temple Judaism the Bible the mishnah and other um and other Jewish traditions so today I want to take you through how this one group in this one place in this one time explores the demons and I want to do three things with you in our in our time together first I want to show you how the rabbi is integrate demons into the world of rabbinic law by integrating them into the rabbinic legal system they become all kinds of interesting players in the rabbinic legal system then I want to show you how when the rabbis do that weird integration it actually changes what it means to be a demon at all for the rabbis and we'll think about how the rabbis change really functioned as part of how the rabbis think about what it means to be a community at all and then finally because I started with exorcism and I know that today is Halloween we are going to end by looking at the only story in the Babylonian talmud about rabbinic exorcism and I think we're going to be real surprised by that particular story in ways that are going to be interesting and tell us more about how the rabbis think about the body the self and how they relate to others so that's our plan for today um Rahel any questions that I need to address before we move on I don't know if this is good for the beginning or the end but we had a question about whether um the your xiaomi the other talmud the one composed in the land of Israel is has also has demons in it do they function the same way or is this a purely Babylonian phenomenon amazing great question um so the rabbis in what was at the time Roman the Roman Empire the province of Roman Palestine the rabbis there also had an extensive demonology it it shows up a little bit in the Palestinian talmud the irishali it shows up a lot more in exegetical Works um various midrashim that come out of the land of Israel um the rabbis in Babylonia only really write one text now to be fair it's 73 volumes so I don't want to make you think that they were slacking but because they only have sort of one major textual Corpus they end up putting all of that stuff in the same talmud so the the rabbis in Roman Palestine things are are different and the same all at the same time I know but the stuff that we're looking at here I want to just be clear is takes any seeds that are planted in the Palestinian literature and like you know grows them enormously so we're seeing this really really Amplified in a lot of ways um great question so I've now right so I called this this talk demons in the talmud and we've coped extensively about what the talmud is and where it was written and a little bit about who wrote it I want to make sure before we move on that we also understand the other term in the uh in the talk title which is the term demons because you might be thinking to yourself well if Sarah's saying that they do something really different maybe we shouldn't use that word I'm so glad I'm so glad you asked so when we think about how to define demons especially when they're so different I want to just do you know an on one foot explanation of what the Modern English word demon is and isn't so the Modern English word demon comes from the Greek Daimon and a diamond was a God or a goddess or some kind of Spirit who took care of a community or a city or a family or a person in the Latin free Christian Latin it becomes a phrase for the indwelling spirit or genius right so my personal diamond is leading me to I don't know do something awesome um are you hearing feedback I'm working on it okay totally fine um and then in post-classical Latin and the early Christian fathers that's where we start to see the Greek Diamond become the Latin Damon which becomes a demon meaning an evil spirit a false god or an idol right that's where that comes in now the rabbis don't use any of those terms instead the rabbis use three terms and shading um which mean different things so ruhot means Spirits maziki means harmers and shadim comes from the Acadian shadu who is a positive spirit but the rabbis use them interchangeably so if you're trying to track well this one means this and this one means this and this one means that unfortunately and I have tried I made all the charts back in the day unfortunately it just doesn't work so they really do seem to be using those terms um interchangeably now just to make this extra complicated the Syriac Christians mandeans other non-jewish groups in Babylonia use these terms as well and for them they always mean evil things and just to make this extra complicated so the zoroastrians at this time period spoke a language called which is sort of ancient Farsi and Jacoby does these really interesting things where sometimes it spells a word one way and it's pronounced a completely different way as part of an interesting linguistic shift if we have linguists in the room look this up later it's it's fascinating but papavi spells their word for evil intermediary beings as I put in capital letters here but they pronounce it deep so it's spelled the same way as the Acadian shade it's pronounced div which is the root of the modern word devil so clearly there is some kind of shared culture of language around intermediary beings that's just a fancy way to say things that are more powerful than humans and less powerful than the ultimate deity um right fancy term intermediary beings and for everybody in the time period of the rabbis who isn't the rabbis all of those that those whole clusters refer to evil beings um but I think if we look at this right so she picks it back it's real complicated right I mean yes but in English most people translate all of these terms relatively uncomplicatedly as demon and that obscures a lot of this complexity right in fact the history of the term itself as you can see just from this one slide really Embraces that complexity and erases how different cultures and theologies and communities really see these things as different I want to argue that as we can see the word demon itself kind of does embrace that complexity if you understand this context and I'm going to translate all three of those terms in rabbinic texts and maziken as demons in part really because what I want to do is emphasize how the rabbis are taking a shared term and defining it totally differently right so it's not that they've got a different category and they're having a different conversation they're using the exact same Works words as manichaeans as our austrians and Christians at the time and doing something completely different um with that term which to me is what makes it so interesting um my Jewish learning folks any questions about that I feel like that's a lot of linguistic stuff no no linguistic questions go ahead okay great so let's start talking about the talmud so the 10th chapter of track tape deals with the laws of the ritual meal on the first night of passover which today we call the Passover seder um now if you've ever been to a Seder you may have noticed that the Seder involves drinking four cups of wine um we get that from an earlier rabbinic text called the mishna and the mishna is a second century rabbinic text from Roman Palestine that the Babylonian talmud essentially frames itself as a commentary upon and here the mishnah is what tells us that we need to have four cups of wine now right in fact I'll read the first line for you one should have no fewer than four cups of wine amazing now if you are familiar at all with rabbinic literature you might expect that later rabbis are going to ask a lot of questions about that mishna and some things I might want to know you know how big do the cups of wine have to be does it have to be alcoholic wine do I have to drink the whole cup of wine um can it be white wine or red wine or do you care can I water the wine down if I can't handle four cups right there's all kinds of questions I would want to know the very first question that the rabbis of the Tom would ask however is not any of those right the rabbis of the talmud that's not where they're starting they actually start in a very different place and that's the next line on the slide how could our rabbis Institute something that would ultimately lead to Danger for surely it was taught in an earlier tradition one should not eat in even numbers or drink in even numbers nor wipe himself in even numbers nor fulfill his sexual needs in even numbers okay so just to unpack that the rabbis are assuming everybody knows right everybody knows that doing something an even number of times whether it is eating and drinking or whether it is something uh far more intimate is something that ultimately leads to Danger they don't tell us what the danger is but we all know obviously obviously that it's incredibly dangerous and that's a problem because you have to drink four cups of wine on Passover and uh if you think back to sort of second grade or first grade whenever you learn this four is an even number right so that's our problem okay so then we get a fantastic answer from who says it is a knight that is guarded he's quoting Exodus 12 where we're talking about the Exodus from Egypt and he interprets this verse from Exodus as saying it is a knight that is guarded from the demons oh okay so essentially what revenach's answer tells us is what is it about even numbers that's so dangerous it's demons even numbers in some way provoke demonic aggression but you don't have to worry on the first night of Passover because on that night when God says in Exodus I am guarding you on this night it is a it is a night that is guarded for perpetuity on the very first night of passover God protects us from demons and you can have your four cups of wine now I want to be really clear their rabbis aren't concerned about you getting drunk in fact a really uh easy way to avoid this problem would have been to have five cups of wine they really are concerned about demons and they really do carve out an exception for the first night of passover based on their reading of Exodus now the passage in sahim is going to continue with other tell me to grabis trying to resolve the conflict in different ways so one Rabbi is going to say oh no no no no it's not four cups it's three cups and then one cup which is two odd numbers another ABBA is going to say no no no no no it's not it's not four cups it's one cup and one cup and one cup and one cup and one is an even number but I think we can see that all of the rabbis right they're all agree nobody says even numbers don't cause demon a carb they all agree that even numbers cause demons to respond negatively for strictly legal and biblical interpretation reasons on the first night of passover you can have four cups safely now the flip side of that right let's let's go with the three plus one model okay if we think it's not four cups it's three cups and then one cup well I think it's worth noting that that only works if the demons also follow rabbinic math because I don't know about you but if I was looking at three plus one I would say well going back to first grade that sounds like four to me but for the rabbis they are they are seeing a world in which their complicated math saves people from demonic harm because demons do the same math and that's that's kind of interesting so I want to keep moving unless we have comprehension questions about this text we have an interesting question about Elijah's cup is that there to break the even number of Cups so so we have five on the table that is there are a couple of Scholars who have argued that that is exactly what Elijah's cup is doing yeah and not everybody and when it comes to the even number of cups is the danger in something about symmetry does it have to do with symmetry do you think do we think um great question so one thing that I will say is that we have no other no other religious Tradition at this time believes that even numbers provoke demons the rabbis are not getting this from anybody else this seems to be an internal rabbinic um belief but they never tell us why in fact in one place they do tell us why and what they tell us is well God told Moses at Sinai that this was demonically provocative that's the reason because God said so yeah and I think it's worth noting that this conversation in continues for like 10 pages of the talmud and again anyone who's done any talmud you know that's a really long time for a single sustained conversation on a specific topic to happen the talmud is famous for expansively exploring in a bunch of different directions and throughout that whole discussion and clear about this the rabbis aren't just telling stories about demons right this isn't folk tales these aren't you know to quote my grandmother these aren't Bubba Mai says old wives tales these are legal discussions about how to live in a world that has demons right and that's a real um and that's a real concern for them so and now as our chat is pointing out those who add the modern um the modern custom of Miriam's cup might be again provoking demons with the sixth cup but then again it's water points out another participant so maybe not well I want you to know the talmud addresses that and it only adds up if it's the same substance aha well there you go your interview is safe folks yeah okay so here we're picking we're imagining a world where the rabbis um where the rabbis control demons through the law and of course as we've already said that assumes that the rabbis that demons no rabbinic law right the demons can do rabbinic math demons can no oh well no no tonight's the calendar night so we can't which raises this question so then are the rabbis imagining a world in which demons are really part of the rabbinic legal system and I want to look at this text from cooling another track date in the talmud because I think it's going to really answer that question for us in ways that surprise us certain quarters were once carrying a bar a barrel of wine wanting to rest they placed the barrel under a rain spout the barrel burst he they went before marabharavashi and he banned the demon okay so just to unpack a little bit what's happening so far obviously again right the number of things that these texts assume everyone knows is high but obviously demons live under rains mounts and obviously they're also probably invisible or can be so what happens these people are carrying this heavy barrel of wine they put it on top of a demon who is clearly very unhappy about this and they go to the rabbi of the town and he essentially excommunicates the demon okay the demon came before Mara bar of Ashi and said to him what should I have done to those men for they placed the barrel on my ear marba ravashi said to him even so in a place where people are commonplace you did not have the right you acted improperly now go and pay for the barrel of wine the demon said to him I do not have the money set a date on which I will pay he set a date but the demon did not come on that day to pay for the barrel uh when he came at a later date margaravashi said to him why did you not come on time the demon said to him we have no right to take anything that is tied sealed collected or counted so we could only take things that are in a state of ownerlessness and therefore it took me longer to collect the money foreign okay so I want to turn to you guys now and I want to ask what do you notice about this text what jumps out at you about this text I think folks are still having trouble wrapping their brain around what they should imagine a demon to be are they always invisible um let me see uh someone say is this is this an ethical demon that's unusual are they usually ethical is this an unusual I think there's a lot about this that surprises so again I want to be really clear about a couple of things because this opens that up for us one the rabbis think demons are real they're not a um they're not a metaphor for something right this is a real demon with a real ear two demons have bodies right this demon has an ear and this demon is three-dimensional but presumably at least in part invisible so one thing that the rabbis tend to think throughout the talmud is that demons can change what they look like they could be invisible they could make themselves visible so this demon is chilling presumably invisible but embodied under this wine spout or under this rain spout excuse me and then when the guys put the barrel on his ear he um you know he gets mad because even if he's invisible he still has ears and nobody would want to do that does that help um sorry the the comments are now coming in a little faster than I can read them yeah um it it um but people do seem to be remarking on how much the demons are in some ways like people in terms of their ethics they carry money they can chat but they're also invisible but you can also have a conversation with a demon or at least the rabbi can um and they seem to be bound by rabbinic rules and care about rabbinic rules which is which is something that people are commenting on a lot and there's one interesting question here about whether all of this is um we're meant to hear this a little bit as mocking demons and the concept of demons that they have been so domesticated they're just invisible creatures that listen to the rabbis is this mocking a concept of demon that's in the culture and domesticating subduing it um it could that be what's going on in this case yeah great question I don't necessarily think that they are mocking demons I do think though that they're definitely saying as so many of you are pointing out that they are imagining a world in which demons are part of the um are part of the the community um I see a couple of hands so so let's pick two hands and then we'll move on um I'm gonna let you now okay all right um um Al aljaya I'm sorry I'm probably slaughtering your name I so apologize um you there I've clicked the ask to unmute okay I did okay can you hear me now yes okay so what I'm getting out of this though and I could be completely off base though but what I'm getting out of this is if demons are actually subject to all the rules that humans are subject to and all of that stuff though then technically how can a demon harm you unless you let a demon harm you that's kind of The Logical conclusion that I'm coming to so in other words if a demon cannot actually purposefully like do something evil to you because they're Bound by the rules then how is it supposed to harm you unless you let it yeah that's an excellent question so is it so I think it's fair to if we look at a parallel to Modern American law we might think about the laws of self-defense so the demon here right assuming that the demons are law-abiding and this demon certainly sounds to me you get a sense that this demon is just trying to defend himself right like they literally put a barrel on his ear and he didn't hurt them right let's let's be clear even when the porter has put a barrel on his ear he doesn't hurt the porters he destroys the barrel so that's kind of interesting but even in modern American law we are bound by the rules and even if we assume that most people are um are different um or don't follow all the rules all the time you still have the right to solve defense all right let's go to one more and then we'll okay um Barry okay so I know your topic is demons in the talmud so tell me if I'm off base here but I'm thinking my question is how do the demons in the town would differ from hasatan in the Book of Job the adversary in the Book of Job great oh that's good and we're getting Lilith questions too so why don't you roll Satan demons and Lilith all into the answer here I'm just because the chat is distracting me but anyhow so yeah what how if any does it differ from the Satan in in the Book of Job yes so the rabbis believe in a world with lots of different kinds of intermediary beings right beings that are more powerful than humans and less powerful than God and so that world has all kinds of different beings in it who are not the same here we might think about angels we might think about hasatan for the rabbis Satan and demons are never connected um in the talmud that's just that's a it's a different thing um we have other kinds of intermediary beings we might think here about something like the evil eye or the evil inclination but all of those are different right which makes sense if we think about you know the world today there are in fact different species of beings that are different um and if God can create different species of um natural beings if we want to use that word I don't love it but for now let's use that then why couldn't God create different species of supernatural beings so they are connected in that they are all part of the Divine world they are not connected in any other way yeah actually in the talmud Satan or Satan is much more connected oftentimes with angels than demons okay so I want to just pull out one other thing from this text before we move on and that is the ban because if anybody here is moving through um nidarine right now with daphneomi you'll know the rabbis have all different kinds of excommunications that they perform for various kinds of transgressions there's one thing the rabbis never do they never excommunicate a non-jew why not literally in the English world in the English word excommunicate is kick somebody out of the community that they are a part of so here when marber of Ashi bans the demon he tells us well this demon was a part of the community and presumably right we get a sense that the demon says I want to be a part of this community right I want to be a part of this community which is why the demon doesn't say hey dude they put it on my ear Tough Luck instead he says I mean I have to get you the money to pay the damages but I also have to follow a rabbinic law now a couple of you have pointed out that the law for demons and the law for rabbis might be different and that's okay right in our in our world today we have certain kinds of Rights and responsibilities for people who are over 18 and then over 21 and they're all people um so here too we get a sense that the rabbis are creating law that applies to Demons because demons are part of their community now that doesn't mean demons are humans in fact they're not because they're invisible or could be but it does already complicate for us this idea that demons are a shady other okay um anything else on this text that we want to draw out my Jewish learning now let's keep going okay so as hopefully we've started to see integrating demons letting demons be controlled by bourbonic law also changes a little bit what it means to be a demon because demons absolutely we saw already in the first text demons can be dangerous harmful and even deadly right if you provoke demons right be careful be careful what you wish for because you might just might get it but as we've also seen in this text demons can also be members of the community in good standing and who want to be part of the community and in one text maybe even rabbis themselves so I want to look at this the same passage from sucking that I told you had 10 pages let's look at another piece of it um Rabbi Joseph the demon sorry about pop Rabbi Papa said Joseph the demon told me for two we kill for four we only harm with two we punish whether it was accidental or intentional with four if it was accidental no but if it was intentional yes okay so what kinds of even numbered things are going to get you demon reactions okay here right and apparently here Joseph the demon who is a a demon um an a rabbinic informant seems to be telling us that demons demons differentiate between intentional intentional and accidental accidental transgression but look we've all been out we've all been having a great conversation with some friends and lost track of how much we were drinking right it happens to everyone and here I'm including water right drinking anything so what do you do if you go out and it turns out you actually drank an even number of drinks so here's your here's your one practical takeaway from today's conversation if you happen to go out having drunk even numbers hold your straight right arm in your left arm or sleeve and the right the left of you is right right so you're essentially doing this or possibly this depending on which manuscript you're looking at and you're turning your entire body into an odd number instead of having two arms and two legs you have three limbs and if that's not enough let him say you and I are three and if he hears someone say back you and I are four let him say no no you and I are five we are odd numbers and if you hear someone say you and I are six let him say you and I are seven this one's happened and when they reached 101 the demon burst so here we have a rabbi Rabbi Papa quoting a demon in the exact same way that he quotes his own rabbinic teachers though to be fair right if you wanted insight about the Demonic world who who better would you ask now I also want to point out something else very often demons when we think about demons in the ancient world they have names that translate to things like sloth gluttony uh lust Wrath right in lots of different cultures at this time demons names translate to negative characteristics this Demon's name is Joseph right that's a solid Biblical name one of the four the one of the four one of the 12 tribes right a a theory more I would say morally positive name not even neutral right so and when the rabbis don't use all that much right for themselves and their children am I right about that there is a rabbi Jose okay yeah but but it is right again I think this is another sign that the rabbis absolutely believe in demons and also think demons are not wrath and lust and and sloth and gluttony and all of those and in fact right I think what we see is at the end of this this narrative that the demons teaching gets put into practice and serves the test of time so we have this demon who's teaching a rabbi something which then becomes integrated into the rabbinic tradition there's an we actually meet this demon Joseph the demon in a bunch of other places and I want to share another one of my favorites with you um and this is from 43a because if you could teach one Rabbi why not teach all of them so who was it that taught seven legal traditions on a Sabbath morning Surah oh ignore the typos and on the same Sabbath evening to rabba at Pumba dija which is a 40-hour walk and just for context the Sabbath is 25 hours so there's no way to get from one to the other in the same Sabbath but apparently the rabbis have a tradition that one person taught seven seven legal teachings in both places on the same Shabbat it is possible that the demon Joseph delivered them right so here kind of thinking about when I um when I Googled I literally just Googled before this person teaching Torah this where did it go well apparently it's not here but I when I Googled that what I got was a lot of pictures of older white men with beards giving a sermon I think the algorithm is probably not wrong that many people when we think somebody teaching Torah we think Rabbi expert very least human being and here the rabbis are saying well maybe this guy teaching a class on something is Joseph the demon um yeah which is delightful I I think um is he the only one who could walk that far that fast as well so here's what's really interesting is that the tradition the piece in the dot that I um the dots that I left out that is them debating whether it's Joseph the demon or Elijah the prophet because demons can for the rabbis can move rapidly in the like can move in the places in the blink of an eye and Elijah the prophet Travels by fiery chariot that flies flying fire each area but again right which is cool on Shabbat you can ride your flying Chariot if you're Elijah and Shabbat that's cool yeah yeah totally fine totally fine um travel only applies on the ground again right like what does it mean that the rabbis know that somebody taught this and there are two options are Joseph the demon and Elijah the prophet because I think most people would say oh I do the prophet like good dude into him or if you've actually you know read the books in which she appears complicated dude but clearly on the side of God and here we have Joseph the demon who is uh maybe it's him and not Elijah and maybe they serve a similar function and that's kind of weird so yeah um so I want to look at One More Story I'm seeing in the chat a couple of people asking about Solomon um and that's on my list too to bring it to you uh I think if people think about demons in Jewish tradition the Solomon and asmodius is often and the temple is what comes to mind most frequently for people and that is where I want us to go so at this point hopefully what you've seen is that the rabbis integrate demons into rabbinic law and when they do that they turn demons into people who teach it to people into beings that could be subject to the rabbis and ribbonate courts and could also participate in the rabbinic community as informants and as teachers but they're not just subordinated to rabbis so in this one story the one that we've been sort of talking around the hierarchy is actually overturned and the demon becomes greater than the ultimate Torah scholar King Solomon so this is a story that centers on a demon named ashmodai ashvadai shows up in a bunch of different ancient texts he's not just in the rabbinic texts ashmodai shows up in um zoroastrian texts um as ishma Deva which is just literally means wrath demon in palavi um and he shows up in the extra canonical right so Jewish texts that didn't make it into the Bible um Tobit as a lustful demon named asmodius so in both of those he's negative here even though this one demon clearly sort of exists in all of these different spaces we're going to see that the rabbinic depiction of him is really really so let's take a look at it um and I didn't bring you the Holocaust I'll tell the story and um I'll tell the story and I brought only some some relevant pieces so in First Kings um chapter six we learned that Solomon builds the temple and doesn't use any metal implements when he does so the talmades a super practical question which is right like how do you Hue all of these giant stones without anything Sharp and the talmud answers the story by telling us answers the question by telling a story where Solomon lived um at the same time as the Sanhedrin the high rabbinic court in Jerusalem and he is looking for this mythical stone cutting thing called a Shamir um and he doesn't know where it is because he wants to build a temple he needs his he needs this Shamir so he asks he asks a couple of demons he says oh Vader they say oh I don't know I'm so sorry we don't know where the Shamir is but you know who does know is ashmanai Prince of the Demons he definitely knows where it is and so they say he says great thank you so much where can I find ashmodai they said to him and this is what's On Your Side he is in such and such a place right he's you know he's over there um how so they say okay how do how how am I gonna know how will I recognize it and the demons respond I'm going to read this this no word for word he has dug a well and filled it with water and covered it with a large Flint Rock and sealed it with his seal every day he ascends to the Heavenly academic session and learns the Heavenly Torah lesson and then descends to the Earthly academic session and learns the Earthly Torah abortion uh to our lesson and then he inspects to seal and covers the well and drinks and covers it and leaves okay so ashmodai literally spends his days learning Torah because he's a demon and he sort of is in this intermediate space he can he can go up or down as the case may be and so he spends his mornings learning uh learning Torah in God's Yeshiva and then he comes down for the rest of the day to learn Torah in the rabbis Yeshiva a human Yeshiva presumably with other people who are studying Torah so King Solomon then sends a messenger to capture ashmanai and through a complicated uh series of events ashmodai is taken hostage and brought to Solomon and over the course of that story ashmodai shows that he can quote Biblical verses he follows Jewish law he recognizes God as his only master and to be honest he he has more insight into human nature reality fate and biblical interpretation than the humans in the story including King Solomon ashmanai and I think we see this most clearly in this one part so after the temple is built because ashmudai told them told Solomon where the Shamir was but Solomon refused to release him they're having a conversation that like literally this this was the only picture that made sense to me as I was reading this this part of the story Solomon said to ashmodai it's written God is like the toef and we explained like the toefoot these are the ministering angels and we're aim these are the demons right here are ways that God is greater than us he's like he's like Angels he's like demons how are you greater than us manai said to Solomon remove the chains from me and give me your ring and I will show you my greatness now at this point right this is where this image is coming in this is from um Star Wars but like clearly don't do that Solomon don't take off his chains and give him your ring of authority like just don't what does Solomon do Solomon removed the chain from him and gave him his ring Ahmed I swallowed it placed One Wing in the heavens and the other wing on Earth and hurled Solomon a distance of 400 miles Ash would I then takes over the throne and while I eventually loses the throne the rabbis disagree about whether or not Solomon was ever able to take his throne back so here we have this like ultimate wise King right Solomon built the temple who is outsmarted by Ashmore ite who to be clear studies Torah seems to be pretty jewishly engaged also doesn't like being held hostage for an unlimited amount of time but I mean what an interesting depiction of ashmudai because again if demons could be part of the urbanic system but we also know that they have these connections to to the Divine world well could they actually out Rabbi the rabbis this story seems to suggest actually you know what like maybe okay uh I think we have time for a question or two about this bizarre story before we move on we have a general question about whether you're um comfortable making the slides available to people after the talk and I will take this yeah go ahead and then yeah go ahead I was gonna I was gonna take the opportunity to say to everyone I've mentioned this few times in the chat we will this is being recorded it will go on YouTube and there will be a link to the YouTube to the YouTube recording that goes in our follow-up email along with information about where to purchase Dr ronas's book um I have no problem sharing the slides so that I'm happy to put those in the email as well if that would be helpful uh okay yeah it doesn't matter to me um I just think these things are cool if you want if you want to take home like literally take home yeah so here's the thing right here's what we're like what we're seeing so far once demons are part of the holopic system they have the freedom to excel within it according to the same metrics as rabbis right Torah knowledge religious Authority kingship and I've seen no parallels by the way to this in Christian texts zoroastrian texts or Muslim texts in the same time so the rabbis are doing this thing that seems to really be the rabbis they're not getting it from some other group is that a comment on the power of Torah I think it is absolutely a comment on the power of Torah and in fact if you know rabbinic Torah right if you know all the rules about even numbers and you know all of that the demons won't get you right they only get you if you don't follow the rabbi's teachings about demons so to some extent we might want to think about them as rabbinic enforcers but I said I would end by talking about exorcism and I want to make sure we get a couple of minutes to talk about exorcism so this is the only story in the talmud about exorcism and for context there's this this whole story where an unnamed Roman emperor decrees that Jews are forbidden to keep the Sabbath and some other stuff so a small group of rabbis journey to Rome to beg the emperor to reconsider his degree now the story is set in Roman Palestine but it's only shows up in Babylonian rabbinic texts it's in Aramaic it seems to be a Babylonian rabbinic tradition this is not a historical account just for context so as they journey to Rome they meet a fella named Ben talamion Ben tulamion went out to greet them he said to them do you want me to go with you Rabbi Shimon cried and said May a miracle occur sure bentalamion went ahead and entered the body of The Emperor's daughter when Rabbi Shimon arrived there he said bentalamion leave then tell Amion leave and when they called him he came out and left the emperor said to them ask for whatever you want and go into the treasure house and take whatever you want they went and found the letter on which the decrees were written they took it and ripped it up okay so this text doesn't tell us that bental Amion is a demon but there are a couple of Clues right so first of all the fact that he can travel large distances in the blink of an eyes he can go ahead second of all the name leave name leave is basically the ancient cross-religious exorcism formula for demons right much like you might think about today if you've seen any movies right the power of X compels you this was this was the the phrase back then and then finally the enters the body of the the emperor's daughter is a pretty classic sort of Riff on a part of demonology that the rabbis knew about from other cultures but what their allies are doing here is literally performing an exorcism right Ben talamion isn't an attacker he's an ally he's a member of the community who offers to help and the only reason they do Annex they do a possession slash exorcism is as a performance right it's it's not real it's being staged so that they can save the Jews right Ben talamion is essentially helping the rabbis perpetuate Jewish beliefs and traditions in the face of a hostile Roman Emperor and that's remarkable but it also kind of makes sense because if demons aren't negative attackers and assailants then why would they try to hijack people right I mean that makes good sense to me so I wanna End by just pointing out that for the rabbis what we're seeing here is a real shift in how they think about demons that is deeply connected I would argue actually to their theology right so they don't really have another choice and here's what I mean by that there are Austrian rulers of the empire were dualistic good demons were creations of the good God evil demons were the creation of the evil God but the rabbis are monotheists and they believe that God created everything so they essentially have three options option one demons are bad and God created evil option two God is good but God doesn't control everything and so demons come from somewhere else neither of those options is going to work for the rabbis option three God is good has created demons who are themselves at the very least not entirely evil and for really helpful reasons of um you know important theological understanding that's the option the rabbis pick and I think when they do that they they model for us that with a little uh legal Ingenuity sometimes the spookiest creatures out there can actually become our friends so so that's where I will end it for now and I will turn it to Rahel what would you like to hurry up for one more question I'm up for one more question absolutely and I realized Dr Ernest you're training and expertise is in the talmud but people are wondering and asking and I thought this would be good to put at the end about the afterlife of demons in Jewish tradition in the medieval period in the modern period do they do we have the same sense that they're um not wholly good not wholly bad can be brought Under the Umbrella of the rabbinic system how dangerous are they how prevalent are they um any any general comments about demons in the post-talmudic Jewish world yes so one of the things that is really really interesting is that in the medieval period maimonides um following um Rabbi Isaac alfasi essentially argues that demons in the talmud aren't real um that it's Superstition and not really part of Jewish theology um and I would argue that he he makes that pace and he actually convinces right he sort of convinces folks okay demons and talmud aren't real so then people don't go say ah demons aren't real what they actually do is they say Okay Demons of the talmud aren't real but I bet those Christian or Muslim demons depending on where I live are so just continue to have demonologies after maimonides but they're not demonologies based in the trauma so if you have traditions of evil demons um demons who are possessing people all of that that largely you'll find in the post-medieval period yeah so so maimonies killed it maimonides seems to have largely killed talmudic demons but demons I mean quite frankly it's our loss because they sound delightful well something I mean I don't know in some ways and I want to be clear right like sometimes good things are scary right being scary being powerful aren't themselves signs that you're evil so is anyone dressing up as a telemedic demon for Halloween this tonight let us know in the comments all right drones I think we're gonna I think we're gonna leave it there thank you so much for these really surprising interesting and unexpected uh I guess that goes with surprising texts uh and and introducing us to the talmudic way of thinking about these um these interesting Little Creatures um and just as a reminder to everybody we will send out a follow-up email there will the recording will be there uh a link to where you can purchase Dr ronus's book with a discount code will be there we'll send a link to the slides as well and if you enjoyed learning from Dr ronus and you are not part of our regular dafio me talmud study which she is one of our beloved teachers um I will send out information about that as well if you would like to learn more with her about the talmud generally in that way so thank you for thank you for a great discussion uh thank you for a great presentation and thank you everybody we'll see you soon