Demonic Obsession?

תניא אבא בנימין אומר אלמלי נתנה רשות לעין לראות אין כל בריה יכולה לעמוד מפני המזיקין אמר אביי אינהו נפישי מינן וקיימי עלן כי כסלא לאוגיא אמר רב הונא כל חד וחד מינן אלפא משמאליה ורבבתא מימיניה

Brochos 6a

It has been taught: Abba Benjamin says, if the eye had the permission to see them, no creature could endure the demons. Abaye says: They are more numerous than we are and they surround us like the ridge round a field. R. Huna says: Every one among us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right hand.

There is story behind my fascination with this little blurb of Talmudic fantasy. Even when learning it for the first time, I could make so sense out of it. Did the Chazal really mean actual demons? When I was about 12 years old, I was sitting around a Shabbos Tisch with some friends and some potential ba’alei teshuvah. One of these guests asked the ba’al habayis a question of Kashrus. “If one has to check and apple for worms, wouldn’t one also have to check for eggs of those worms? Assuming the eggs are also treife?”

That was a great question. I was really wondering the answer to that one myself, when the ba’al habayis came up with a terrific response. “The Torah does not require us to check our food with a microscope.” At that moment, I had a flash of what I thought to be ruach hakodesh, and instantly thought I found the secret to Abba Binyamin’s statement. It was possible that the Chazal realized there were microbes present everywhere and rightly declared that a person’s ability to see them would obscure any other sense of reality perceivable. In fact, I knew a woman at the time who believed that she could actually see germs, and would obsessively clean her home day after day. She eventually got sick and was hospitalized with severe schizophrenia, proving Abba Binyamin right!

This peshat worked well with the alternate translation of ‘mazikin’, which means demons, but literally means ‘damagers.’ Certainly, I thought, modern science has proven that so many diseases are caused by these unseen germs and viruses, so the assumed meaning of ‘demons’ as germs grew even stronger. Even the statement of Abaye seemed right on target. We know there are thousands if not millions of unseen organisms floating around us all the time, not to mention atoms and molecules, too.

It wasn’t until I bumped into Rav Huna that my little epiphany hit a glitch. How exactly did that work out that germs would know the difference between right and left? And why the preference for the right hand? One could argue that the right hand, being the dominant hand and the hand with which mitzvos are to be performed, would be the choice target of ‘demons’ wishing to hurt a Jew. But, if these demons are microbes, then how do they know the right from left? One would have to assume that these germs are programmed by HaShem to attack the right side more than the left. That’s not a stretch for the religious imagination, but it was for a kid trying to work out the problems between science and religious doctrine.

The other problems with this followed from there. Abba Binyamin did not say “no man”, but no “creature”, implying that this rule applies even to animal life. We know there are animals which have tremendously sensitive sensory apparatus and can smell and feel changes in the wind and atmosphere. Even with all the high-tech gizmos we use today, we are still finding out that animals have a greater sense of their surroundings and environments that we ever gave them credit for. The recent Tsunami is evidence enough of that. So why would someone as intuitive enough to work out the microbe problem, not be intuitive enough to know that animals have heightened and powerful senses?

Next came the problem of microbes in general. How could they have imagined microbes as ‘mazikin’ on the outside and all around, yet not have known that there were also benevolent and life sustaining microbes living on the inside of our bodies? It’s a pretty simple question. I do not have the answer.

The conclusion from all this is that Abba Binyamin, Abaye, and Rav Huna must have believed in the literal existence of invisible demonic forces that plagued the right hand, made the Beis Medrash feel crowded, wore holes in our clothing, and could be detected through weird voodoo rituals. There is no other way to explain their statements.

If they’re right, then I know why every chasidishe tisch I ever visited made me feel claustrophobic.