Mock - The Concept of ›Ruach Ra‘ah‹ in Contemporary Rabbinic Responsa (1945–2000): Possible Relations between Knowledge of the Physical World and Traditional ... Rabbinic Judaism

Studia Judaica

Forschungen zur Wissenschaft des Judentums

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The human capacity to act physically is a central instrument in humans encounter with the world in its widest possible sense, objects, animals, and humans. From what was called the silent world () in medieval texts, to the world of he who speaks () the human. Regulating human actions is a central theme in the Halachah. The actions in question include not only physical, visible actions emotions and thoughts, too, fall under the remit of the Halacha. Although the concept is not always defined unequivocally, According to the Talmud, since the destruction of the Temple, God has lived in the four cubits of the Halachah.

In the course of time, learning from books came to fulfil an important role in the learning process, although it did not lead to the disappearance of learning from and with a teacher. Nevertheless, written and later printed books went from being a reflection of the Halachah as it exists in actual life, to being a source of Halachah for new situations. One of these written sources in the halachic process is the responsa literature. This type of literature came to play an important role in the Halachah from the Middle Ages onwards through its original question- and-answer structure, which often represented a concrete decision in a particular case. In orthodoxy, however, a considerable part of the Halachah continues to be created orally, and is then published in written form, for instance as a responsum.

The concept of Ruach Raah (literally evil spirit), in this combination of the two words, is extremely rare in the Tanach. It is more common in the Judaism of the Second Temple period, and appears to be linked with the belief in spirits that torment humans and sometimes even penetrate them. In the Babylonian Talmud, the term occurs relatively sporadically to explain physical and psychological anomalies: from rabies to what we would currently classify as psychiatric disorders (strong fear, uncontrolled behaviour). People who encounter this evil spirit, for instance by consuming certain contaminated foods, may suffer physical and/or psychological damage as a result. It is not fully clear what the Babylonian Talmuds precise understanding of the Ruach Raah is. Sometimes it seems as if this evil spirit, although invisible, belongs to the physical world in respect of certain characteristics its effects are clearly discernible in the physical world. In the Talmud there seems to exist an intermediate zone between the physical and the spiritual world which is inhabited by many different entities: spirits, demons, and wandering souls of the dead. On the one hand, these entities belong to the physical world, because they are in this world and directly influence it. On the other hand, they lack certain physical characteristics required to belong fully to the physical world (see also mAvot 5:6). The Talmud commentaries already associated two ritual washings with the Ruach Raah: after rising in the morning, and after eating a bread meal before the prayer of thanksgiving.

The Ruach Raah occurs more frequently in later medieval and premodern texts due to inter alia of the influence of the Kabbalah on Halachah. In the Kabbalah, the Ruach Raah acquires a more metaphysical meaning, from the world of the negative forces and the impure, from the Other Side (sitra achra), which is the mirror image of the Holy World (the Sefirot). The terms Evil spirit and Impure Spirit are sometimes regarded as interchangeable in kabbalistic sources. The Ruach Raah as meta-physical entity is not physical, but it does exercise direct influence over the human body; it effects, for instance, a sleeping person and rests on the fingernails after waking up in the morning. The concept of Ruach Raah can be found much more frequently in the rabbinic literature of the past few centuries; in certain canonical works such as the Shulchan Aruch (16th century), the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (19th century) and its commentaries, but also in the responsa literature from the pre-Shoah period that cover the above mentioned Talmudic ritual of the washing of the hands. Both rituals are still performed today by orthodox Jews worldwide, especially the former one. The purpose of this study is primarily to analyse the meaning and role of the Ruach Raah (evil spirit), an archaic term, in modern, post-1945, rabbinic orthodox responsa. What happens to the term Ruach Raah in the modern responsa? Does the ritual persist without being associated with the Ruach Raah, or does the term continue to be linked to the ritual, but has it been reinterpreted?

This study will use the concept of Ruach Raah to give an account of the relation in these texts between the traditional rabbinic paradigm and their perspective on the modern scientific knowledge paradigm. In order to do this, the study will analyse a corpus of 192 modern responsa from the period from 1945 to 2000. The authors of the responsa mainly hail from, or live in, Israel the most important centre of orthodox Judaism or from the United States, which is another important Jewish centre in the diaspora. In order to create a representative sample, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic-Oriental authors have been selected. The research question is therefore: What is the meaning of Ruach Raah in the post-1945 rabbinic responsa literature in its relation to their perspective on the modern scientific knowledge paradigm? This main question can be broken up into five sub-questions:

1. How often does the Ruach Raah occur in the post-1945 responsa? Sporadically, or frequently?

2. To what extent does the concept play a role in the corpus in the creation of halachic rulings; is it an important element in the discussion, or does it play a marginal role?

3. To what extent is there a perception of incompatibility between the rabbinic discourse about the Ruach Raah and their perspective on the modern scientific knowledge paradigm, and if incompatibility is indeed discerned, how is it resolved?

4. To what extent does the discourse about the Ruach Raah in the corpus have a bearing on other subjects that involve tension be-tween the traditional rabbinic paradigms and modern knowledge?

5. Does the discourse that can be found in the rabbinic sources of the corpus reflect the way in which the visible world is really experienced, or is it a scholastic discussion within a textual framework that does not directly correspond with the way in which reality is experienced?

Studies on orthodox rabbinic responsa are relatively scarce. The number of academic studies of modern rabbinic orthodox responsa based on investigation of a corpus consisting of a large number of texts as this study on the Ruach Raah does is small.

Research of more day-to-day halachic subjects in modern reponsa literature has focused primarily on the classic subjects of Kashrut, Shabbat and Festivals, the synagogue, and the life cycle. In modern times, gender issues and technological innovations are then often discussed in the context of these classic subjects. Research of the praxis itself how it is performed or the materials used in its performance, has usually attracted less attention. There has been much less analysis of day-to-day, recurring praxis in the responsa like praying, putting on Tefillin, Tzitzit, and the washing of the hands in various situations as this