{"id":41007,"date":"2018-09-26T22:38:41","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T19:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=41007"},"modified":"2022-04-25T15:34:30","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T12:34:30","slug":"sorcery-and-the-magic-of-conversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/sorcery-and-the-magic-of-conversion\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorcery And The Magic of Conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The onset of the Ten Plagues in Egypt is presented as a magical dual between Moses and Aaron on the one hand, and Pharaoh\u2019s sorcerers on the other. Pharaoh has his magicians successfully perform the same feats as God\u2019s messengers no less than three times, shape-shifting their staffs into serpents, turning the River Nile blood-red, and spontaneously generating frogs (Exodus 7:11; 7:22; 8:3). Yet they are inexplicably stymied in their efforts to reproduce the third plague of lice, exclaiming: \u201cthis is the finger of God!\u201d (Exodus 8:15). \u00a0Rashi, the great medieval exegete, explains this development by quoting a bizarre magical rule-of-thumb from the Talmud.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Eliezer says: It is derived from here that a demon[ic force] cannot create an entity smaller than the size of a barley grain. (b. Sanhedrin 67b)<\/span><\/p>\n

Where does this curious rule come from, and what might it teach us?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Palestinian Talmud \u2013 which often more accurately preserves rabbinic statements than its younger sibling, the Babylonian Talmud \u2013 presents the text slightly differently, with a mosquito replacing the barley-seed, and people coming together, rather than a demonic force. These tiny details betray a connection with another, almost identical midrashic statement by the same sage, regarding a biblical reference to \u201cthe soul that they [Abram and Sarai] made in Haran\u201d (Genesis 12:5) before their journey to Canaan.<\/span><\/p>\n

If everyone in the world got together they still could not create even a single mosquito and put a soul in it, and yet you say \u201cthe soul they made in Haran?!\u201d Rather, these are the converts whom they had converted\u2026which teaches you that whoever brings an idol-worshiper close to Divine worship and converts him, it is as if he created him.\u201d (Genesis Rabbah 39:14)<\/span><\/p>\n

Using the tools of philological reasoning, it is possible that this comment, which emphasizes<\/span> the impossibility of creating <\/span>any<\/span><\/em> kind of life, even in its smallest insectile form, later evolved into the magical rule that sorcerers cannot create small \u2013 mosquito or barley-sized \u2013 life-forms. Whether or not that explains the <\/span>origins<\/span><\/em> of the strange talmudic rule, it is surely suggestive how the midrashic comment about the soul Abram and Sarai <\/span>made<\/span><\/em> rejects the possibility of magically creating <\/span>any<\/span><\/em> form of life at all, while reminding us that transforming someone religiously is the truest form of magic. <\/span><\/p>\n

On further thought, this must be the magic \u201ctrick\u201d that Pharaoh\u2019s sorcerers could only dream of, and which Moses and Aaron were about to accomplish during the Exodus, when the Israelites would grow from a downtrodden, enslaved people into an elevated \u201ckingdom of priests and a holy nation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":41246,"id":41246,"title":"shutterstock_393367726","filename":"shutterstock_393367726.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/shutterstock_393367726.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/sorcery-and-the-magic-of-conversion\/shutterstock_393367726\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"shutterstock_393367726","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":41007,"date":"2018-10-01 05:16:05","modified":"2022-04-25 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