Thursday, February 8, 2024

The Limitations of Black Magic



Art Dillon Samuelson



By: Rabbi Eliyahu Haim Aboud

There was a time in history when the powers of sorcery were brought to the test and their inherent limitations were exposed, much to the humiliation of its arrogant practitioners.

The Torah relates that when Moshe and Aharon first approached Pharaoh to demand the release of the Israelite slaves, Aharon threw his wooden staff to the ground and it was miraculously transformed into a live serpent. Pharaoh then ordered his magicians to mimic the feat, and they, too, threw their staffs and turned them into serpents. Much to their surprise, however, Aharon's staff-serpent promptly devoured all the magicians’ serpents. The commentaries explain [1] that this incident was intended to prove that Moshe’s demonstration was not derived by the powers of sorcery, as Pharaoh suspected. The Egyptian magicians were not able to create real living creatures; but rather only snake-like forms which could never attack and devour other snakes. Aharon’s snake, however, which was created using the forces of kedusha (holiness), rather than the forces of impurity, was a real-live serpent which had the power to attack the others.

This distinction was reinforced during the plague of blood. When Aharon struck the waters of the Nile River with his staff, the entire river miraculously turned into real blood, such that all the fish in the river died as a result of consuming the blood. But when the Egyptian sorcerers attempted to turn water into blood, they could only make the water appear like blood, but not turn it into actual blood[2]. Likewise, during the plague of frogs, Aharon created actual frogs which rapidly reproduced and begot many others, while the magicians could only create frog-like creatures which were incapable of reproducing. During the third plague, the plague of lice, the magicians failed in their attempts to replicate Aharon’s feat of transforming dust into vermin, and were thus forced to confess that the plague was brought about by “the finger of G-d [3].” During the subsequent plagues, the magicians did not even attempt to duplicate Moshe and Aharon’s miracles.

The commentaries explain [4] that Hashem did not give the forces of impurity limitless creative capabilities because they would then be able to create entire new worlds to advance their evil agenda. Therefore, their powers are generally limited to acts of illusion and the use of demons and spirits.

Probably the greatest sorcerer of all time was the evil prophet Bilaam, who, as the Torah relates, attempted to place a curse on the Jewish people and have them annihilated. The commentaries explain [5] that Bilaam’s extraordinary powers stemmed from his mastery of sorcery and black magic, and not from his abilities as a prophet. In fact, he was not worthy of prophecy at all, and was given prophetic capabilities only for a very brief period. This is why in the Prophets he is referred to as “Bilaam Hakosem–Bilaam the Sorcerer,” with no mention of his prophetic status. According to the Midrash [6] Bilaam and his two sons were originally the most prestigious advisors and sorcerers of Pharaoh during the period of Bene Yisrael’s enslavement. And many other stories abound of ancient nations who enlisted Bilaam to reveal to them the outcome of their battles and to help them win through his extraordinary mystical powers.[7]

Bilaam acquired his great powers of sorcery directly from the evil angels Aza and Azael. Bilaam visited these two angels every day until he learned all the mystical secrets they knew. [8]

Some sources identify Bilaam with Lavan, Yaakov’s crooked father-in-law, who sought to destroy Yaakov and prevent the emergence of the Jewish people. According to this tradition, Bilaam lived well over 300 years. [9]

Bilaam was killed by Bene Yisrael during the battle of Midyan prior to their entering the land of Israel. [10]  The Midrash relates [11] that when the Jews captured Bilaam, he used sorcery to raise himself and the five kings of Midyan high in the air and disappear from sight. (Though the powers of impurity can only be summoned while standing on the ground, once the sorcery is initiated, the subject could use the powers to levitate off the ground for a period of time.) Pinhas, the grandson of Aharon, flew after him by uttering the divine name or, according to others, by directing the name of Hashem written on the tzitz (frontlet) of the kohen gadol towards the airborne Midyanites counteracting Bilaam’s powers of magic. Bilaam and the kings immediately fell to the ground and were then easily killed by Bene Yisrael. Bilaam’s decaying body and tarnished soul transformed into evil spirits, snakes and scorpions, the result of the impurity with which they had been saturated during his lifetime. [12]


Limited Time Span
The commentaries add [13] that objects created by the powers of sorcery cannot remain in existence permanently. These creations can exist for only limited periods of time, after which the laws of nature take hold and return them to their original state. This is why the frogs that descended upon Egypt during the second plague remained in the Nile River after the plague, and did not just disappear. Gd demonstrated to Pharaoh and the Egyptians that His creations can exist indefinitely, as opposed to the creations of magic, which are only temporary.

Sorcery is also subject to limited accessibility. The Zohar writes that the forces of impurity are unable to perform magic from hassot (midnight) at night [14] until midday, whereas Hashem, of course, can overturn the natural order he created anytime He wishes.

Additionally, someone born during the month of Adar II, on a leap year, cannot be affected by magic. This is because he is born in a month which doesn’t have a specific mazal and “doesn’t really exist”. Therefore the magicians have no way of dealing with him. In this vein, when Yehoshua gathered an army to fight Amalek, who came to fight Beneh Yisrael using witchcraft, he purposely chose people who were born in Adar II, to whom these forces take no affect.

Not Underground

The Midrash teaches[15]that after Pharaoh’s edict ordering the drowning of all newborn Jewish males in the Nile River, expectant Jewish mothers would go out to the fields to give birth, and would leave their infants there. Hashem sent angels to care for the newborns, and when the Egyptian patrolmen would arrive in search of the infants, Hashem would make the ground open and bring the children underground. The Egyptians, attributing this phenomenon to black magic, persisted in their efforts to capture and kill the Hebrew infants. Knowing that magic cannot be implemented deeper than one handbreadth underground, they brought plows to dig deep into the earth and expose the children. But the babies were not found no matter how deep the plows dug, demonstrating to the Egyptian sorcerers that Hashem’s supernatural powers are not bound by the limitations that apply to magic.

Only When Standing on the Ground

The Mishna tells[16]of the great sage Shimon Ben Shetah who used his knowledge of sorcery's limitations to successfully capture 80 witches who had been hiding in a cave in the town of Ashkelon. He brought 80 young men with him to the mouth of the cave, and announced to the witches that he had used magic to bring them 80 young men for their entertainment and pleasure. The witches expressed interest, and the rabbi instructed his men to quickly enter the cave and “embrace” the witches, each man lifting one witch off the ground. Since the powers of sorcery can only be summoned only while standing on the ground, the witches were rendered powerless. The young men quickly carried them to Bet Din where they were all charged with practicing forbidden acts of sorcery.

The commentaries add [17] that this was one of the reasons why the magicians of Egypt could not duplicate the plague of lice. The ground throughout Egypt had turned to lice, and thus the sorcerers were not standing directly on the ground. This rendered them powerless and unable to practice their magic.

Overturned by Fresh Water

The Talmud relates [18] that one of the sages once visited the Egyptian city of Alexandria where he purchased a donkey. When he brought the animal to a stream of water to drink, the donkey drank and immediately turned into a plank of wood. The rabbi returned to the dealer and demanded that he return the money, as he had been defrauded.

“Since you are a rabbi,” the man said, “I will give you your money back. Ordinarily, however, I would never refund a customer in such a case, because here in Egypt, everyone knows to check their merchandise by pouring fresh water on it to discern if it is merely a creation of magic, which dissolves when touched by fresh water.”

No Power of Resurrection

The Talmud tells [19] of a sage who once watched an Arab merchant slice a camel into many pieces, and then shook his bell. The camel stood up in one piece, alive and well, and the merchant thus claimed to possess the power of resurrection. The sage relayed this story to his colleagues, and they inquired as to whether he saw any remnants of blood or innards after the camel stood up. He answered in the negative, and the other rabbis saw this as proof that what he had seen was just an illusion, as the camel had never really died. The forces of impurity do not have the power of resurrection, and it was therefore impossible that the camel had died and was then returned to life.

By contrast, the prophet and great sages who were endowed with the powers of kedusha had the ability to resurrect the dead. The Navi, in Sefer Melachim, describes how the prophet Eliyahu and his student Elisha performed tehiyat hametim (resurrection) on various occasions. And a well-known tradition teaches that any sage mentioned by name in the Talmud was on the spiritual level to perform tehiyat hametim.

These powers were accessible to certain rabbis of later generations, as well. Once, in the 16thcentury, a young Arab boy was found murdered, and, as often happened, the Jews were accused of murdering the child and faced severe punitive measures. But a great rabbi named Rabbi Klonimous from Safed saved them by writing certain words on a piece of parchment which he then placed on the dead boy’s forehead. Suddenly, in full view of the large audience that had gathered, the boy rose to his feet and told the entire story of the real murder and where it took place. He then fell again to the ground, lifeless[20].

The Overpowering Forces of Kedusha

Even though the forces of impurity were given the power to perform supernatural acts, these powers pale in comparison to those of the forces of kedusha, in which Hashem invested far more strength. As the aforementioned stories from the Tanach and Talmud clearly demonstrate, the powers of kedusha can be used to subdue and triumph over the forces of sorcery. Thus, for example, Pinhas succeeded in defeating Bilaam, and many sages were able to remove magical spells through the use of the forces of sanctity[21].

[1]See commentary of Seforno Parashat Va’era chapter 7:23

[2]Ibid

[3]Parashat Va’era 8:15

[4]Maharsha in Sanhedrin 67b

[5]Ramban in Parashat Balak chapter 22:31

[6]Yalkut Shimoni Parashat Shemot, chapter 168

[7]Ibid, Sefer Hayasher Parashat Shemot

[8]Sefer Kav Hayashar chapter 28

[9]Yalkut Shimoni Parashat Shemot chapter 168

[10]Parashat Matot chapter 31:8

[11]Ibid (see Rashi and Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel)

[12]Sefer Kav Hayashar chapter 28

[13]Seforno Parashat Va’era 8:5

[14]Malbim Perashat Va’era 8:8

[15]Tractate Sota 11b and see Maharsha.

[16]Tractate Sanhedrin 45b (see Talmud Yerushalmi)

[17]Meam Loez: Parashat Va’era 8:4

[18]Tractate Sanhedrin 67b

[19]Tractate Sanhedrin 67b

[20]Sefer Simhat Haregel by The Hida, (on his commentary of Nishmat).

[21]Sefer Nefesh Hahayim chapter 3:11

Monday, February 5, 2024

Ani Ma'amin

Australian Zalman Simons - love it!


Eliyahu haNavi

 Rabb Tovia Singer speaking about Eliyahu haNavi before Moshiach - [less than 10 mins]


Sunday, February 4, 2024

The Essence of Torah in One Word

 

The Alter Rebbe teaches that the essence of the giving of the Torah is hidden in one strange word in the introductory verse of the Ten Commandments in parshat Yisro: 

וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים אֵת כָּל־הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה לֵאמֹר

And God spoke all of these words to say. [Yitro 20:1]

The last word of the verse - “leimor/to say” - has challenged the Sages throughout the generations. Without it, the verse would have read “and God spoke all of these words,” and this would have been sufficient. What does it add to indicate at the end of the verse that these words were “said/leimor” after it was already stated at the beginning of the verse that they were “spoken/vayidaber”? 

Many answers have been proposed. In other cases where this formula is employed in Torah - for example, “God spoke to Moses, saying” [Exodus 16:11] - the Sages explain that “leimor/saying” indicates that Moses was being instructed to “say” to the people publicly what God had “spoken” to him privately. Yet in the case of this opening verse at the giving of the Torah, the Alter Rebbe points out that this explanation cannot apply. For unlike the other cases where God is speaking to one person and instructing him to repeat what was being said to others who were not currently hearing it, in the case of the giving of the Torah, the entire Jewish nation (including the souls of all future generations) was there and heard the words from God Himself. 

Rashi interprets that “leimor/saying” here means that the nation answered each of the commandments, explicitly stating their agreement to them. God “spoke” the commandments, and the people “said” we will fulfill them. 

But the Alter Rebbe provides a deeper interpretation according to Chassidus and the Torah’s mystic depths. The essence of the giving of the Torah is expressed in this word “leimor/to say,” he teaches, because the entire purpose of Torah is to enable each of us “to say” what G-d “spoke.” In other words, each of us was created specifically in order to be a vessel through which G-d’s energy is expressed and manifested. Our ultimate function and purpose is to recognize that we are the instruments of Divine communication that He utilizes to reveal Himself in a world where He had initially hidden Himself. Torah is the wisdom that enables us to understand this reality and to articulate it. Torah is the practice that enables us to nullify our ego and allow the Godliness that is our ultimate essence to flow through us without obstruction. 

G-d “speaks” the world into existence every moment. We are here as His mouthpiece, to “say” what He speaks in a language that it can be understood and integrated in this physical world. Torah enables us to translate His infinite energy into something finite and tangible - to say what He spoke - and thereby to inform the entire creation of His Oneness and His eternal omnipresence.

Source: Pnei Hashem

Thursday, February 1, 2024

As Above, So Below

Looking at photos all the time, sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking at - is this Gaza or is it the sunset?  ... sometimes they all seem so similar.

"By the times of the Talmudic period, the Jewish Sages had developed a unique cosmic worldview. They saw this material world as only a reflection of the spiritual world. What happened down here reflected, in some way, much greater cosmic events that were happening in the Heavens. Thus, just as there was a Jerusalem down here on Earth, there was a Jerusalem shel ma’alah, a “Jerusalem Above” (see, for example, Ta’anit 5a)." Source: Mayim Achronim

 The World Above resembles the world below: Cf. Tractate Berachos 58a; Zohar I, 38a, 205b, 197a.

Sunset Baja Sur, Mexico

Gaza


Mereweather Beach Newcastle Australia


Gaza bombing lights up the night


Cloud of unknown origins: from last week

Gaza



Gaza - notice the red circle around the sun





Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Sun, Moon and Asteroids

The first time I noticed something strange in the sky was about 7 years ago. It was first night Seder and I went outside and looked up at the moon.  It looked something like this.  


I clearly remember asking my sister-in-law to come outside and explain to me why the moon had colours all around it.  She didn't know, but thought it was something to do with Moshiach coming soon.

I have seen the moon looking like this quite a few times since then, but it was not until five years later that I found out WHY there were colours around the moon.  

I saw a video on TikTok about planets passing between Earth and the Sun, which were highly visible to us.  After a lot more investigating, I started to understand why there were these colours around the moon.

Most people in the world still have no idea why they are seeing this.  Here is a typical example of things people post and, in response to their question, they are told utter nonsense about the reason why they are seeing these colours.


There are planets all around the sun, all different colours, and this is what is creating the rainbow-like effect both around the moon and also the sun.  

If you take a photo of the sun you make well see blue flashes around it - like this photo below.  You may also notice that it is not a full circle, it's being cut off at the sides.  This is called a light pinch.  The planets around it are blocking the edges of the sun from being seen. [You won't always get the colours or the blue around the sun, it depends where the planets are on that day.  I have successfully photographed blue flashes around the sun several times.  You do need to take photos on a daily basis to maximize your chances of catching the blue.]


In the picture below, a diagram has been superimposed below the image to show you what you are actually looking at.


The blue flashes are from the blue asteroid, which is an amazing turquoise colour, causing the blue around the sun. The asteroids appear to us as a circle with stripes. This is actually the "leading asteroid" - all of these orbiting objects have been named and new drawings are issued on the 15th of every month, showing their new positions in relation to our Sun.  There is also a red, a green and a tan coloured asteroid that we see.


Here is a picture of the blue asteroid illuminated under the moon. 


You can often see asteroid trails, which people wrongly identify as chemtrails or some other man-made thing.  Asteroid trails are wider and thicker, and they don't disappear after a few minutes, they hang around for quite a long time. Below is a short video of an asteroid trail.



Talking About Mashiach

Q and A with Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Translated from a class given by Rabbi Ginsburgh on 22 Shvat 5777 (2017) 

Q: Should we identify the Mashiach with a specific person? If so, does he have to be someone from this generation or can he be from the past? 

A: In the Talmud, it is written that if Mashiach is from the living, he is so-and-so and if he is from the dead he is so-and-so. The example given of someone from the dead is Daniel and the example of someone from the living is Rebbe (Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi). The sages left this question open. If we try to find a Mashiach living now in this generation, we will have to work hard. 

Q: Please explain more about courage. The common definition of courage is to feel fear regarding a certain action and to do it anyway. How can we access the fountain of courage within us? 

A: Courage is the ability to emerge from all frameworks, to swim against the stream, and to think out of the box. Courage is to disagree with someone in the name of God’s truth. One of the reasons to learn Torah in depth is to attain courage. The Torah teaches the truth and the truth is generally not aligned with the current popular agenda. A person who speaks the truth needs courage. The essence of the power of Mashiach is that he speaks the truth. Mashiach is the leader, he speaks for the entire generation. The power of the speaker is that he speaks the truth even when it is not popular. This is a simple expression of the courage that we must get from the Torah. Courage is not only what we say, but the ability to lead people according to the truth of the Torah, even when that is not popular. The Lubavitcher Rebbe directed us to say unpopular things “in a manner that can be accepted.” We have to speak the truth in a manner that will enter the ears and minds of the listener. 

Q: Who is the primordial snake with whom Mashiach has to do battle? Who is Amalek? 

A: Just above we said that Mashiach dares to say things that are not popular. From this, we can understand that the politically correct is the enemy. Where is this expressed? In the media. The Primordial Snake controls the media today. If the snake will repent – he can repent – he will be the great light of humanity, as was supposed to happen with Adam. He still has the opportunity to repent today. We need courage to fight the snake. We also have to be ingenious. Kabbalah teaches that the root of wisdom is in the attribute of might of the crown. How will Mashiach accomplish this? In addition to diligence and hard work, he needs genius and creativity. Let us pray to God that He will give the Mashiach the qualities that he needs to defeat the Primordial Snake. 

Q: How does the Mashiach make war? What weapons does he use? 

A: In Isaiah 11:4 it says, “And with the breath of his mouth he will kill the wicked.” Moses said of himself that he had “uncircumcised lips.” Mashiach, however, will have very strong lips so that he will be able to kill the wicked with the breath of his lips. He kills the Primordial Snake with the breath of his lips. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov says that the Mashiach will not fire one bullet. He will triumph with the breath of his lips.