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Beek on being SUPERSTITIOUS · Beek on being

0:04
Melissa Shere Beek: Hi. I hope you are well. This podcast is a place for people to share personal and professional perspectives, talk openly, and ask questions. From serious to silly to sublime, it's all about communication and connection. Always coming from a place of kindness and curiosity, we talk about shared humanity, discuss ideas, and highlight people creating a better world.
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We've got to keep learning, keep growing, keep being. I'm Melissa Beak, and this is Beak on Being. When I was growing up, I was fortunate enough to have my great grandmother as a playmate. She was outrageously fun, about the same size as me, and had great stories to share. She was my first teacher.
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Some behaviors she taught me became so ingrained in my life I had no idea they were superstitious beliefs and rituals she impressed upon me. Some have been filtered down because I don't think it's appropriate to walk around spitting on people. Therefore, I say poo poo poo so as not to jinx something. It got me thinking about all the things that we do. Are they casual connections, family familiars, comfort and chaos?
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Where do those beliefs and rituals originate from? And why do we do what we do? And why do we still perpetuate them? Today, we're talking about Beak on being superstitious. We have Rabbi Farber here with us to tell us all about it.
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So, Rabbi, would you please introduce yourself and tell our listeners a little bit about you?
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Well, thank you. It's really my pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. It's a fascinating and fun subject. A lot of fun.
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It will actually I came to Florida when I was six years old. My parents brought me and my brother, and I grew up in Northwest Section, graduated in Maryland High School, then headed off to New York to Columbia University. I apologize. Columbia was a different school then. Okay.
1:58
Nothing like it is now. Graduated there and went on to a biblical school also in New York at Jewish Lodge and Seminary. And I returned immediately upon graduating to serve a synagogue and an upstart synagogue brand new in West Kendall, which then was a very fast growing Jewish community. Served there for sixteen years before finding my way to the Aventura area where I served for thirty years as a senior rabbi of Beth Torah Benny Rock campus. Now I'm rabbi Emeritus for the last ten years with a portfolio.
2:28
In other words, I'm still working, backing up the new senior rabbi, ten years already, rabbi Mario Royceman. And we're partners, and I help him out whenever he needs and fill him whenever he's not there. So that's basically, my background. All all my entire career at Miami Dade County.
2:47
Melissa Shere Beek: I love it. How lucky are we? I think it's fabulous. So we're talking today about superstition. Can you tell us what exactly is superstition or being superstitious?
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Okay. So superstition is when you attribute some magical significance or some supernatural significance to certain actions, objects, or events, right, or specific behaviors
3:15
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Influence luck and fate and future outcome. In other words, something affects something else in a direct way even though there's absolutely zero evidence scientifically or even rationally for believing that.
3:30
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. Got it. So this belief that behavior can influence future outcomes or fate. Can you break down what it means to be superstitious going from just casual thinking like, oh, I have a rabbit's foot in my pocket to like psychological comfort of it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. Okay. So we have different categories. And many people who adhere to superstitions in the modern period, they're just adhering to customs and ceremonies that their parents or grandparents did. There's a comfort level.
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You know, you wanna do the same thing they did because you remember it that way and it was it was a a good moment or is a difficult moment and it helped you through. So you're simply identifying with the past without having any real belief that this thing is efficacious. Right?
4:12
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Casual would be like you mentioned, a rabbit's foot. You know, why would a rabbit's foot bring good luck? Absolutely no rational reason, but it developed the superstitions of existence for thousands upon thousands of years or another thing, the black cat crosses your path. Right? Right.
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Bad luck. There's absolutely no scientific or rational reason to think that. Those are casual things. This happened and I think it's gonna cause this and it's just an accident. Just something happened, and there's no reason to believe it.
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But it's embedded in our consciousness. And, you know, sometimes it's like, why take a chance?
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Right. Don't believe Don't jinx it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Don't test the thing. Right? Then you get to ritual behaviors. That's where you're gonna perform certain things. You know, the rabbit's foot is you're just holding it or the cat right in front of you.
5:03
So there's specific actions that you wanna perform to influence outcome for the good. Right? So you have knocking on wood, which is obviously something that developed within Christianity. The wood is the cross and knocking on wood is an action, a ritual that supposedly will bring me good luck or avoiding walking on the ladders. Right?
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There's a ladder there. I'm gonna avoid it because I believe that that ritual, avoiding that ladder is going to prevent me from having an accident.
5:35
Melissa Shere Beek: A bad outcome. Yeah.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? So those are rituals that we do. And then when you get into everything else, later on, we talk about all the life cycle occasions, what you do when a baby is born and and putting a red ribbon there to keep the evil demons away. Those are ritual behaviors.
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Melissa Shere Beek: I thought of another one too. Throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill it. Don't know why.
5:56
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. We'll talk about that. There's definitely
5:57
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
5:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: Good. What salt represents.
6:00
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Almost all these superstitions go across cultures because superstitions are based upon psychology. And human psychology is pretty much the same because human beings are pretty much the same
6:11
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Of our our physical and mental makeup. So then you have we'd love to recognize patterns. Human beings, our mind are wired Yeah. As a pattern. So and we look for patterns.
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So sometimes we incorrectly or without any reason connect random events. Okay. Here. So I'm wearing a shirt when my team wins a game. Right?
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So the next week, I think that well, won the game when I was wearing this shirt. The previous week, I wore a different shirt and they lost. So I need to wear the shirt when they want as if that's going to impact somehow
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: By paying. But you you know how many people do that?
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Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. No. I know. I think my nephew wears stinky socks repeatedly to win.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. Right. Right. You know, the thing is with the Miami Dolphins lately, you get to keep searching for a shirt that can bring us a win. Right?
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Right. Right. So an example would be, have the Miami Dolphins hat from the perfect season. Right? I bought the hat that year.
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I wore you can imagine what it looks like now.
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Melissa Shere Beek: I was gonna say from '72.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: I I've been waiting for the opportunity to wear it again when they're in forget Super Bowl. I'll I'll settle for a playoff game.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right?
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Rabbi Ed Farber: So now I know it's absolutely absurd, but it brings back a great memory. So it's a ritual behavior that some people think will actually affect the outcome. Right. But I think it's just something that gives me a good memory. So you never know why people are
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Melissa Shere Beek: What their connection is.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah. Yeah. What they're thinking in the modern period. And then you have psychological comfort, which I think is the most serious level. And that's when
7:53
Melissa Shere Beek: But what about, like, the cultural ones? Like, the things that are
7:56
Rabbi Ed Farber: Absolutely. Yeah. So those get passed down through families Uh-huh. Or communities or cultures. Right?
8:02
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: And because they're in the community, they're deeply ingrained. So let's you go let's say you go to a circumcision to a brisk, right, which is a community celebration and a family celebration. So the community is used to certain traditions that happen at a brisk because it's happened over and over and over again. And it's gonna be repeated even if the people who are actually that moment celebrating that event really don't know anything about it. But it's now they're gonna know something about it because it's it's culturally transmitted through these communal rituals.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Therefore, we all learn it and then you wonder, well, you know, I gotta do it that way because that's how I saw everybody
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Melissa Shere Beek: Well, then it becomes tradition.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Becomes tradition. Right. Right. And it's very common in life cycle occasions. And then by the way, we can talk more about it later.
8:51
They get reinterpreted. Yes. Began as superstitions, which rabbis, whether they oppose a 100%. Superstition, the belief that you can manipulate the universe, right, which means manipulating God
9:05
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Is totally forbidden in the Torah and totally opposed by the rabbis. But sometimes they bump into a ritual and a cultural transmitter. It's so strong they can't get rid of it. So what do you do when you can't get rid of it? I'll reinterpret it.
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And they're so successful in their reinterpretations that people no longer remember what the superposition was. The class breaking the glass at the end of marriage. Right?
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right. It becomes part of our ritual and tradition.
9:31
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. And it gets reinterpreted. So the rabbi say, you break the glass because you wanna remember the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem. Perfect sense. Right?
9:39
It has nothing to do with that, but it's a new it's reinterpretation the rabbis gave because they couldn't get rid of the custom. There's no way I could convince people that it's originally a superstition. Let's not break the glass.
9:51
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: They're say, and that's interesting, rabbi, but we're breaking the glass anyway. Right. Because that's what everybody did. So, originally, breaking the glass was to make a loud noise to scare away the evil demons. Right.
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The rabbi said, you're not allowed to believe in evil demons. Right. Paganism. So they're reinterpreted. That's true with many superstitions today.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Perfect. And then you were saying the psychological ones.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. That I think is the strongest.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: We need to control things. We have a desire to control things. Psychologists make a fortune over trying to teach people not to try and control everybody else. Right? Right.
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It's already struggling. How much control can I have on my kids without being overbearing, Helicopter moms, all that we need to control because we fear what the future is? We don't know what the future is.
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Melissa Shere Beek: The fear of the unknown. Yeah. Sure.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? So and that's the most that's the greatest fear, fear of the unknown, particularly when there's a a dire situation like somebody's ill, right, or there's a danger that we're facing or there's an economic pressure and we don't know where it's going.
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Melissa Shere Beek: But plays into anxiety.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. And superstitions help ease anxieties because you think you have control. You may have absolutely no control. It may be absurd, but in your mind, I'm doing something.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Can't sit and do nothing. Even though you're in the hospital, the doctor told you, I'm sorry. This is this is going to end. And you say, but but I can't just sit there and do nothing.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: And then very often superstitions kick in and sometimes they're harmless because if they provide psychological comfort, then they're not harmful. Right. But sometimes they're manipulative and that's very, very harmful.
11:27
Melissa Shere Beek: So when we talk about like patterns going awry or psychological comfort, are these rituals just also a way to just soothe the anxiety?
11:37
Rabbi Ed Farber: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So
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Melissa Shere Beek: So they're perpetuated to, like, as a stress reduction sort of thing.
11:43
Rabbi Ed Farber: Take the brisk for instance. Everybody is nervous the night before the brisk except for the kid because he has no idea what's coming. He's the calmest kid. Has no idea what's gonna happen the next day, but everybody's a little bit nervous. So they developed this idea of putting a red bend bandle, you know, some type of red piece of clothing or cloth to ward away the evil demons.
12:05
Now I doubt that most of the people who do that actually believe that they're warding away evil demons. But they did something, so they feel, okay. I did I did what has been done for hundreds of years. I can calm down now. So, yes, those
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Melissa Shere Beek: things That's the protection.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Create, lower the anxiety level. Absolutely.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Yes. So I'm going go back to like the numerous different cultural things that we were talking about and different religions and cultures have superstitions. And you mentioned knock on wood. So I always thought it went back to a pagan belief of releasing spirits from the trees. Right.
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Like, so for protection. Where do the origins of all of these different beliefs and rituals come from? Is it
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Rabbi Ed Farber: like Yeah. Stuff comes from pre monotheism. Right?
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Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: So Christianity has a a pagan background. Judaism has an early much earlier pagan background. And certain things transmitted culturally, and they came from this pagan belief that you can in fact manipulate the gods. That's the whole basis. The whole idea of supernatural goes all the way back to the earliest levels of that we know of of human civilization.
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We go back to the Fertile Crescent, the Babylonia, to Sumeria, and we read about these things. And the whole idea was the gods themselves were created from nature. They didn't create nature. They were created. So if I can tap into that realm, primordial realm that from which the gods came, I can manipulate the gods.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Now in Judaism, there's no such thing because there's only one God. I can't play one God against another God. And god created everything. That's the only idea of first Right. When god began to create the heaven and the earth.
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So we don't manipulate god. We dialogue with god. Abraham argues with god about whether he can destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but it's a discussion. It isn't I have a magical incantation that will prevent the god of the universe from destroying Sermon and Gomorrah. That is nonexistent in monotheism.
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In monotheism, we're partners with God. We dialogue with God. We cannot manipulate God. We do not have that power. In paganism, you have the power.
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That's what magic and superstition is all about. Manipulating the gods to do my will.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Got it. Sense of control again.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. Total control. So now let's when you believe in many gods, there's a good god, a bad god, a god of sun, a god of darkness. You say, I gotta be able to control them and make them do what I need them to do.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Puppeteering.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. That's what paganism about. When you offer a sacrifice in paganism, you're trying to placate the gods. You're trying to bribe the gods. In Judaism, it's just praise.
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Thank you, God. Right. It's called in fact, one of those called the thank you offering. Thank you. Thank you for what you've done.
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Or it's I sinned. I made a mistake and I wanna
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Melissa Shere Beek: apologize. Forgive me.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah. But there's no manipulation. So go back to the knock on wood. The the origins, for instance, the Christmas tree, that it's German pagan symbol. Right?
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Because it's eternal. Right? It's always green. It's called the evergreen. Right?
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So we love eternity. We love anything that defies mortality. Look at that evergreen. It's living forever. Right?
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It's green forever. So it was a pagan symbol. The Christians, when they when they became Christians, this German pagan symbol came with them in the culture, but they couldn't see it as a god because it's only the trinity.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Father, son, holy ghost. So what they did is said, you know that wood that represents the cross.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Cross is immortal and the cross is eternal. And so you knock on the wood and now in Christianity, it's like touching the cross.
15:51
Melissa Shere Beek: Got
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Rabbi Ed Farber: it. You know, worship. But that's not its origins. And you have Jews who say knock on wood all the time. They have no idea what they're talking about.
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No. That's the cross of Jesus. You kidding me? My grandmother didn't know that. Right?
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Melissa Shere Beek: Well, that's why I said I thought it was a pagan thing. We were knocking on trees for fairy spirits. So funny. Everything Whatever works.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Everything superstitious by definition is pagan. Yeah. Superstition is the opposite of monotheism. But monotheism is a hard sell. Right?
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Been in it for a long the bible sold it and then Christianity sold it and then Islam sold it. But half the world doesn't believe in that. So it's very difficult to convince people there's one god because we see so many inconsistencies in the world. So we're always fighting a war against paganism. So why bother?
16:43
Who cares if there's one, two, or three gods? Because the fundamental difference is if there's one god, there's one morality.
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Melissa Shere Beek: There's one Got it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: All human beings are obliged to that basic morality. If there are many gods, choose your morality. And what it becomes is power Might makes right. Yeah. Right is right.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Got it. Got it. So growing up, I was thinking about this. There were certain like actions or practices that just seemed normal in my world, and I know I've passed them down to my children. And one of those was the example of poo poo poo.
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So my great grandmother used to, like, spit everywhere. I just didn't think that was appropriate to spit on my children or anything like that. So I know I do it a lot. It's just to make sure that you don't jinx anything. You ward off the evil eye.
17:31
I know many other faiths or cultures do that sort of poo poo poo as well. Right. Where did that particular superstitious practice originate from as a way to ward off the evil eye? Because I know lots of people do it no matter what their cultural religious beliefs together.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Poo poo poo, kinahara. Yeah. Kinahara is a is is Yiddish, but it's not even Yiddish. It's just a bastardized form of without the evil eye.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: So the poo poo poo is spitting and and it's water. And water is very easy to understand. Water purifies.
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Melissa Shere Beek: True.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? That's what water does. So if I go poo poo poo and the evil demon is there, because you know what they hate? Evil demons hate happiness. They don't want us to be happy.
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So anytime we have something that might be happy, like good news, right, but don't say the good news out loud because the evil demons will see you happy and come and schmise you. And that's, by the way, at the wedding, the evil demons are waiting to pounce. They can't stand that this couple
18:32
Melissa Shere Beek: Joy.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Adam and Eve like, is going to renew this creation and there's so much happiness. They they wanna zets him. So a lot of things we do at the wedding is to protect the katan, the groom, and protect the bride and scare away those evil demons, which was, by the way, what the break in the glass was. The loud sound, evil demons run away. Right?
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Melissa Shere Beek: The water does the same thing.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Water purifies it. Right?
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Melissa Shere Beek: It
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Rabbi Ed Farber: purifies. So they can't come with this water. And of course, what do what do Christians do with water? They baptize. Right?
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What do we do with water? We we perform conversions with water for people transfer trans going through the transformation of one religious belief to another religiously or some of them have no religious beliefs. Choose
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Melissa Shere Beek: Also, we use water, I think, like when you come back from a burial before you enter the house.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: 100%. You use water and there's two elements there. One is simply a very important concept. Don't ever mix life and death. To give you the perfect example, almost no one thinks of this.
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People wonder why you can't eat meat with milk. Right? I mean, why am I giving up that cheeseburger? Right? What am I doing that for?
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First of the whole concept is I can't stand the idea of cheeseburger because I grew up kosher and I looked at it.
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Melissa Shere Beek: You're talking to a vegetarian. So
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Oh, so you you don't like the burger altogether. Okay. So you have no brainer. Kosher by definition. But here's the reason.
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How do you get milk?
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Melissa Shere Beek: From a cow.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Well, lot yeah. But the animal has to be kept alive. Right?
19:58
Melissa Shere Beek: Yes.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: How do you get meat? That's one of reasons
20:01
Melissa Shere Beek: You have to kill it.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: You have to kill it. You don't mix death and life. I can't have that which I got from death mixed with life. That's why we don't drink meat and milk. So I just was at the cemetery.
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Cemetery is death. Right? That's the reality. It's death. Yeah.
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I'm not gonna bring death into that house. That house is not a place of death. That's a place of mourning, yes, and a pace place of remembering and a place of healing, but it's not a place of
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Melissa Shere Beek: But it's alive.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? So I can't bring that in. And when you leave the cemetery, also, there's always water there because I have to leave this behind. I can't bring this home with me. Death doesn't belong in my home.
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Death belongs at the cemetery. We deal with it. We mourn, but we don't allow it. If it comes into our home, look what it does to our home.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Destruction. Yeah.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Destructive. It's psychologically destructive. Therefore, we have to heal in the home. And we wash our hands and say, okay. That was the death experience.
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That was the funeral. We talked about the past. Now we have to go into the future and we don't bring death, we bring memory.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Wow. I didn't realize, like, all of that. But that's fascinating. Can you tell us more about warding off the evil eye?
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Because you spoke about scaring it with noise and making sure and you talked about how the evil eye just doesn't want us to be happy.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: But Right.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Also with the evil eye, you touched upon something. In order to wear a ward off their evil eye, I know some people wear a red string. I know when I was younger, and I still do this ritual too, we put red ribbons under the Right. Beds or under the bassinets of the baby. So why is red?
21:40
First of all, you could tell us more about the origin of But the evil why is red the color that's chosen?
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Okay. What do you do when you come to a red light?
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Melissa Shere Beek: You stop.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Why don't you stop at a green light? Why they choose red?
21:55
Melissa Shere Beek: Exactly. I don't know. I'm asking you.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Because red cycles Powerful. It's loud.
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Melissa Shere Beek: It's loud.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? Right. Why we always point out because it's simply natural. It's not a judgment effect. Usually, it's a nice judgment.
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A redhead. Right? Redheads are striking.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: You can't ignore it. It's striking.
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Melissa Shere Beek: True.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: It has no moral or ethical input whatsoever. It says nothing about the person. But psychologically, red is striking. It is powerful color. So red is that's why it's red light.
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Stop. I know to stop at red. Right? So red as a color is something that says to the evil demon, you stop here.
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Melissa Shere Beek: Back off. Yeah.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Back off. Right? We don't want a warm welcoming color. Now evil eye is is a very important concept and it's very different from the others. Why?
22:44
Because the evil eye actually can also come from the person. We have the person. Now psychologically, think about this. We've all experienced. You ever get stared down by somebody who just gave you the creeps?
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Melissa Shere Beek: Yes.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? They just like, oh my god. I'm gonna get away from this person because you think they're looking at you with such ill content, They wanna know. Right now, obviously, they don't have that power. However, psychologically, the fact that a stare, right, we
23:13
Melissa Shere Beek: Can cause harm.
23:14
Rabbi Ed Farber: Oh god. We you know, if if your kid does something wrong, you can just look at them and they'll already start crying and run to their room because they know the look. That's the look. Right? Husband and wife.
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Right? Partners in marriage. Right?
23:27
Melissa Shere Beek: Yes.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: You give a look. You don't have to say a word because the eyes, right? What do they say? You look into a person's eyes. Right?
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Look into to see if they're sincere. Eyes tell you so much. Eyes are important for psychology. Eyes are important for beauty. Eyes are extremely important and the most descriptive part of our body that we expose.
23:49
Right? So you actually they actually believe that it's already in the bible. It says from that day on, Saul, king Saul, kept a jealous eye on David. So in that with a look, you could see jealousy. Right?
24:02
Right. And then you have literally, evil eyes sending out almost like a flame and burning people up. Right? Because if the person has such anger and power through their anger, they can almost burn you up with a look from the eye. Now psychologically, what they're doing is they're crushing you.
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You know, oh my god. They are so angry at me. What have I done wrong? And and and they're successfully gaining some control over your emotions.
24:31
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: In superstition, they actually believed in folklore. There were people who could burn things up with with a look.
24:38
Melissa Shere Beek: With just a look. Yeah. It's I might have felt a tinge of that burning from the heat. Yeah. But sometimes it'll look I've received.
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So yeah.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. Right. Right. So I think that that
24:46
Melissa Shere Beek: I understand.
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Rabbi Ed Farber: That evil eye is one of the strongest psychological truths. Now the same thing comes from a good person. You can have a good hearted person whose look can warm you
24:56
Melissa Shere Beek: and
24:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: smell you without saying a word. So the evil eye is something that is common in every culture that, you know, that we deal with in Western civilization, and it's already in the biblical period. It's in the Talmud. It's in the Midrash. There are rabbis who were said to have power with their eye to the point that they'd have to look away because they're afraid of hurting you.
25:17
Right?
25:17
Melissa Shere Beek: Wow. That's a lot of power.
25:19
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's folklore. Obviously, it never happened. What they mean is psychologically, if your teacher who you admire gives you a look of disapproval, you're crushed.
25:29
Melissa Shere Beek: Crushing.
25:30
Rabbi Ed Farber: So you could say it it burned me up. It just crushed me. People don't often understand what they can do with a look. Just Yeah.
25:38
Melissa Shere Beek: That's true. It's so true. There's a lot of different actions that we take because of those looks or because, the way that we feel with them or I see, like, little talismans of evil eyes, but I also see, like, other token talismans that, sort of perpetuate this belief of superstitions. Mhmm. And I know there's a symbol that everybody can immediately recognize, which is part of multiple cultures, the Hamsa.
26:05
Sometimes it's like the hand of Miriam or the hand of Fatima. Why do we associate this symbol as a way to ward off evil or bring luck and protection? And sometimes you see the Hamsa is not just the hand, but with the eye on the Hamsa. But why is Hamsa so prevalent with that?
26:20
Rabbi Ed Farber: The way it off also will have red as well. I forgot to mention one of the things very important about
26:24
Melissa Shere Beek: red. Yeah. Tell me.
26:26
Rabbi Ed Farber: What is the life source of human beings? Blood. Blood. Right? Blood is a life source and it can push away that which seeks death.
26:36
This is the life source. So red blood and red. And maybe who knows if the if this red color and its importance and cultures came from blood in the first place.
26:46
Melissa Shere Beek: Right?
26:46
Rabbi Ed Farber: Don't know. We can't don't know which one came first, the chicken or the egg. Right. Right. The concept, first of all, why why your hand?
26:53
Well, that's again the same thing as the red light. You stop at the red light.
26:56
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
26:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: If if you're driving and the lights are out, there's no red or green, the police are standing there, and they go like this, What do you do?
27:03
Melissa Shere Beek: You know, to stop. Yep.
27:05
Rabbi Ed Farber: To stop. So this is a warning. Right? This is a warning as opposed to this. Come.
27:11
Join me.
27:12
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
27:12
Rabbi Ed Farber: So the hand becoming a symbol of warning off evil was very obvious. That's how we tell them.
27:20
Melissa Shere Beek: We knew.
27:20
Rabbi Ed Farber: Hold off. This is you're not welcome here. Right? And you even see that. I've seen stop signs that have hands on them like that.
27:28
Right? You ever see that?
27:29
Melissa Shere Beek: Yes. I have. I've seen it.
27:30
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. And we don't even think about it. We know what it means. The hand like that means don't enter. Right.
27:36
Right? So the is one of the most natural things to ward off.
27:40
Melissa Shere Beek: Like a universal symbol. Yeah.
27:42
Rabbi Ed Farber: Absolutely universal. That's why, as you mentioned, it's in Christianity. It's in Islam. And let me tell you, of all the monotheisms, in many ways, Islam is one of the purest. Right?
27:52
Because it doesn't even allow you go into mosque, you can't even have an image of an animal, let alone a person. Right? Right. They were had a fight against paganism very strongly because the world that they were attracting to convert to Islam as opposed to those who they forced to convert to Islam by Christians and Jews, but the other world was totally pagan. And they had to prevent present the pure monotheism.
28:17
Yet they, pure monotheists, they adopted the camps as well. Right? So this thing is a powerful image. It just goes straight through, certainly western, when I say western civilization, western religions, which are also eastern, obviously, Middle Eastern. So that's the reason for it.
28:37
Putting the evil eye or putting the eye is you go past here and this eye will consume you.
28:44
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
28:45
Rabbi Ed Farber: Even more powerful. It's also beautifully, beautifully, obviously, decorated.
28:51
Melissa Shere Beek: It's gorgeous decoration. I see them in people's homes. I see them people have them in charms, they're in their cars, on their bags, or they just carry them around. It's like a instead of a lucky rabbit's foot, they have that their hamza.
29:02
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's all purpose. It wards off the evil eye. Right? It brings good luck and fortune. It provides spiritual protection.
29:09
It promotes health and happiness. And probably, if you use it, you'd probably lose weight too. I don't know. It doesn't. Skip the shots.
29:17
Go straight to the hamza. Oh god. This is the most all purpose, and I would say the most common superstition in terms of a symbol.
29:26
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
29:27
Rabbi Ed Farber: Common superstitions are what take place at
29:29
Melissa Shere Beek: the time. The most universally recognized, the hamza and the eye. The Homza and the eye.
29:35
Rabbi Ed Farber: Totally. Absolutely. Because those are two obvious things. The look that the eye gives and the hand telling you, you're welcome or stay away. Little children get it.
29:46
They come to eat it. You go like this. It's it's an obvious gesture. Come. Come.
29:50
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Stop
29:52
Rabbi Ed Farber: in your tracks.
29:53
Melissa Shere Beek: So it it Don't even need to know language yet. You understand the symbol.
29:58
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yes. Yeah. Oh, by the way, symbols are very important because they replace language in many instances.
30:02
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. So I was gonna talk about that too. I was gonna talk about, like, certain rituals that we perform. Mhmm. And you've mentioned before about different life cycles.
30:15
You were talking about the brisk. But in Jewish weddings, you were talking about breaking the glass Mhmm. Or the wedding canopy, that sort of like protection. So or circling the groom or I think another one is the veil for protection.
30:29
Rabbi Ed Farber: Correct.
30:30
Melissa Shere Beek: How can you can you sort of expand upon those sort of religious rituals and
30:35
Rabbi Ed Farber: You just mentioned the wedding, and I think more people even go to weddings than they go to Bristles. Right?
30:41
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
30:41
Rabbi Ed Farber: Weddings, everybody gets invited. Bristles might be the limit. It's only 50% of the population. The girls, there's no nothing happening there. There's baby naming, and that's beautiful.
30:51
But the visual yeah. There's most people don't feel that the baby naming is a dangerous event.
30:56
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
30:56
Rabbi Ed Farber: The fact is a brisk, which is not a dangerous event, but it's a it's a surgery.
31:01
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
31:01
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's what it is. Okay. 99.9999% of the time, everything is perfect. But you'll always hear one story about something that went wrong. Right?
31:10
So with with the with the wedding ceremony, because as we mentioned before, the evil demons, they can't stand happiness. Lilith. Lilith, who is Yeah. Infertile, cannot stand the idea that this bride is about to become she's fertile and she's gonna have a child. She can't stand it.
31:28
They're jealous. The evil demons are jealous. And think about that again psychologically. Who who are jealous people? Jealous people usually, first of all, they have less self esteem, but they also have ill intent.
31:43
Right? They just can't stand that you're enjoying it. In fact, we always wonder, should we tell something good about what happened to us to somebody who's a little bit less fortunate? You know, we're careful about that. But the psychologically Right.
31:57
Stand that jealousy is a very dangerous emotion, and it's common and it's natural. So how do you combat it? So jealousy, these evil demons, they're very jealous of our relationship with god, the fact that we have love, the fact that we have happiness, the fact that we have fertility, and they wanna do everything to mess it up. So, you have the breaking the glass, which is that moment when they're now husband and wife is a weakened moment. They're not paying attention to anything but each other.
32:27
Good time to Zets. Right?
32:29
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
32:29
Rabbi Ed Farber: The guard is down. So break the glass, and that way the evil demon is scared away.
32:36
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
32:37
Rabbi Ed Farber: Then that moment passes. They kiss or whatever they do, and their guard is back up. So we got that. Then, of course, you
32:46
Melissa Shere Beek: The canopy. There's a protection with the canopy. Right?
32:49
Rabbi Ed Farber: Canopy is a protection, and it was reinterpreted as we have the glasses reinterpreted to destruction temple. The canopy comes your future home. Right? Or God's protection. Right?
33:01
Protection of your future home. So that's another reason. Now something is very common in certainly a western civilization when the when the when the husband and wife arrive at the new at the door, their new apartment, their new home, what does he generally do?
33:16
Melissa Shere Beek: You've seen it in West Carries her over the threshold.
33:19
Rabbi Ed Farber: Carries her over the threshold. Right? Because he's such a gentleman. There's another reason because Lilith is waiting there to destroy her fertility. So he is going to protect her and take her into the home, and Lilith can't get to her.
33:35
Melissa Shere Beek: Now Got it.
33:36
Rabbi Ed Farber: Now we just say it's it's it's gentle, Lily. It's such a beautiful thing.
33:39
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Right? It's another ritual now.
33:42
Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. So that
33:43
Melissa Shere Beek: Another tradition.
33:44
Rabbi Ed Farber: Began as a, you know, a custom that was meant to protect, and then it it changed, of course, into
33:50
Melissa Shere Beek: And the same thing when she circles the groom. That's her protecting him.
33:54
Rabbi Ed Farber: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You have the circling groom, which is a very old concept found in the Talmud. And originally, by the way, people don't know, but the circling groom is three times. It was expanded later by the mystics to seven times.
34:07
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Because you have the seven brachas now.
34:09
Rabbi Ed Farber: You also have the seven
34:10
Melissa Shere Beek: The seven blessings. Right.
34:11
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. So it got expanded to seven for many reasons. First of
34:15
Melissa Shere Beek: Well, if three is good, seven is better. Right?
34:17
Rabbi Ed Farber: The seven yeah. The well, seven is better because three became a problem. The rabbis did got the number three was the trinity, and they didn't invoke the number three. Right? It became a problem.
34:30
So when they could avoid it, they shifted to a different number. So the number three is the husband, the wife, and the presence of God.
34:41
Melissa Shere Beek: Got
34:41
Rabbi Ed Farber: it. The number seven is seven days of creation partnership. So in any case, it's part the whole thing is this partnership with God. That's how it was interpreted. Originally, was she creates a protective circle around him so the evil demons can't get to him.
34:57
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
34:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's how it began. But the rabbis gave it this beautiful interpretation that meant partnership with God, which is a fantastic that's why they by the way, some rituals don't disappear because on the surface, they're not offensive in any way. And the new meaning is so powerful. When you say to a bride and groom, you understand that you are now partners not just with each other. Your partners are the ones who created you.
35:20
Oh. Powerful.
35:22
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
35:22
Rabbi Ed Farber: Powerful. So because rabbis did with which was a superstition trying to ward off evil demons. Light also wards off evil demons. And, if you remember in Yeah.
35:34
Melissa Shere Beek: You get that in every movie that the light
35:37
Rabbi Ed Farber: Fiddler. Fiddler. All the way. Right? So you want you wanna push them away.
35:42
Melissa Shere Beek: And then what about fertility customs? Because you said there were certain, like, rituals with fertility.
35:48
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah. Fertility was a major concern. And, you know, one of the ways we know it, think of all the stories in the bible. Right? Sarah.
35:55
Yeah. Right? Rebecca. Infernal. Praying to God.
35:59
Actually, Isaac prayed to God. He was a good husband. You know? Yeah. Abraham didn't turn to God and say, you know, you gotta do something to Sarah.
36:08
But Isaac did. He turned and says, you can't you gotta do something with my wife.
36:11
Melissa Shere Beek: She's gonna help.
36:13
Rabbi Ed Farber: Rachel. Rachel. Infernal. Leo's popping out the kids, and there's a jealousy there. Finally, she gets to she gets to have Joseph and later on Benjamin.
36:21
So fertility was is as long as human beings have been around, fertility is an issue. It's an issue today. The only thing is we're a little bit lucky and we've got modern medicine that solves problems and he oh, I'm glad you brought it up. Think about this. We have an infertile couple and it's so common.
36:38
It's like scary how common it is. I hope that they dig deep to find out why it seems to be more common.
36:43
Melissa Shere Beek: Stay tuned to next week's episode. It's all about fertility.
36:46
Rabbi Ed Farber: Fantastic. Wonderful. So right? And it's it's a it's a horribly frustrating thing because you wish to have children. Horribly frustrating.
36:54
The the dreams are crushing. But in the modern world, if you're infertile, okay, I can go to the graveside of Rachel and pray to her. Right? But I think it's better to go to Hadassah Hospital and talk to the fertility experts because they're gonna do a lot more for you than Rachel's gonna do for you. Praying to Rachel might calm you down.
37:15
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
37:15
Rabbi Ed Farber: But if you don't go to the fertility doctors, chances are it's not gonna go well. Right? Although sometimes infertility is caused by anxiety. Doctors have said that clearly. And it's interesting how after I've had so many cases.
37:28
Somebody adopts a child because they're not having a success. And then with three, four months, if they have this new baby and they're everything's relaxed and nothing's not relaxed. Nothing's relaxed. The new baby.
37:37
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. I was gonna say nothing's relaxed, but their brain is off of the infertility.
37:41
Rabbi Ed Farber: Off the infertility. Right? It's a whole different world now.
37:46
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
37:46
Rabbi Ed Farber: Even the love act becomes a different thing. Right?
37:49
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
37:50
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's such normalcy, and then they become pregnant. And the doctor will say, it's because you were too anxious.
37:55
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Stress is a killer.
37:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: Stress stress kills hormones. We know that.
38:00
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. So
38:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: this fertility thing is very, very old. So different things, fertility customs. You're supposed to attend the brisk in the first year of your marriage because it will help you be fertile.
38:13
Melissa Shere Beek: There's a chair there at the brisk too. I know I've been thrown into chairs when I was younger.
38:17
Rabbi Ed Farber: The famous chair, right? It's the chair of Elijah.
38:20
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
38:21
Rabbi Ed Farber: Elijah is there as a symbol of hope and peace, and he also is gonna announce the coming of Messiah. And every Jewish mother thinks that kid is the Messiah. Right? That's it. He's the Messiah.
38:31
Right? He's gonna be a doctor and he's gonna save the world. That's my kid. Right? So Elijah's there to announce the messiah has come.
38:38
Right? And there's many other reasons Elijah's there. He's, he's a very available and very, present spirit. Right? And the reason, by the way, just to fill it in, in case somebody's wondering, in the bible, there's one per he didn't die.
38:53
Remember, he goes up in a chariot into heaven, so he didn't die. So in order to he's available for work.
38:59
Melissa Shere Beek: He's
39:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? And second of all
39:01
Melissa Shere Beek: Especially when it's not around Passover.
39:03
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. And I don't have to resurrect him. And the rabbis don't wanna resurrect anybody.
39:07
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
39:07
Rabbi Ed Farber: They don't wanna get near that concept of resurrection. So why I why not use Moses? Wouldn't wouldn't the chair of Moses be really cool? No. Because Moses died and was
39:16
Melissa Shere Beek: buried. Elijah's available.
39:18
Rabbi Ed Farber: Elijah's available for work. And his work is beautiful. He gets all these, you know, more bagels and lox than he could ever hope for. Right? Everything.
39:26
And wine. Wine and
39:27
Melissa Shere Beek: Wine and bagels and lox. It all sounds good.
39:30
Rabbi Ed Farber: Well, I think you should put grape juice in the cup of Elijah so that, you know, he doesn't get drunk that night.
39:35
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. I think actually, my nieces and nephew have done that. They've tried that. They're like, don't you think he has a lot of wine? We should give him
39:42
Rabbi Ed Farber: We use grape juice. And by the way, use white. So when somebody spills it accidentally, you pretty well, you will never get through a seder without spilling anymore. No. It can't happen.
39:50
Melissa Shere Beek: No. It's horseradish and wine everywhere.
39:53
Rabbi Ed Farber: Everywhere. Those stains have memories, don't they?
39:56
Melissa Shere Beek: Yes. Another
39:58
Rabbi Ed Farber: thing that happens
39:59
Melissa Shere Beek: With fertility.
40:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: This is one. This is a spartic one. Right?
40:02
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
40:03
Rabbi Ed Farber: Women will visit the graves of righteous ancestors, as I mentioned. Mhmm. Rachel, because she was infertile, became fertile. So you prayed to her to intervene to God to give you fertility. The henna ceremony, which we had talked about a little bit.
40:18
Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, yeah. We discussed that.
40:19
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? Part of it was a fertility. Right? Because, you know, the colors of the henna? Oh my god.
40:27
It's gorgeous.
40:28
Melissa Shere Beek: Beautiful.
40:29
Rabbi Ed Farber: Are magnificent, but they're all bright. There's nothing subtle about it.
40:33
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
40:33
Rabbi Ed Farber: Because brightness is happiness. Right?
40:35
Melissa Shere Beek: Joy. Mhmm.
40:36
Rabbi Ed Farber: Joy. So the the henna is to scare away the evil spirits who wanna cause her infertility. That's part of it. Right? You put rice in the pockets of wedding guests.
40:46
Right? And you throw the rice because the rice is a symbol of fertility because there's so many you know, a lot of rice. Just no. I'm thinking. It's like you should be Abraham's children being Abraham and Sarah's children would like the sands of the of the sea.
41:00
Right? Right. Stars in the heaven. Well, rice, you hold in rice. It's oh my god.
41:04
A
41:05
Melissa Shere Beek: thousand Countless grains. Yeah.
41:06
Rabbi Ed Farber: So that is fertility. And then here's something that has been returned as a custom that I never heard of growing up. And I had orthodox rabbis growing up. And that is that you do not allow any knots. Any knots that the groom is wearing, like if he has shoelaces, have to be untied.
41:26
Right? Only the zitsis, the fringes in the corner. Don't untie them.
41:29
Melissa Shere Beek: I was gonna say, what about the tally? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
41:31
Rabbi Ed Farber: With the tallies. Right?
41:32
Melissa Shere Beek: That's Okay.
41:33
Rabbi Ed Farber: Because that has a symbol of
41:34
Melissa Shere Beek: But shoelaces?
41:36
Rabbi Ed Farber: Shoelaces have to be untied. And if there's
41:39
Melissa Shere Beek: I wanna get to some new ones with you later. Okay. And if there's
41:42
Rabbi Ed Farber: anything if there's anything else that's tied, the the bride has something that's you have to untie it. Right? And they think that that ensures an easy birth of future children.
41:53
Melissa Shere Beek: I like that one.
41:54
Rabbi Ed Farber: Good one. I don't know the origins other than that, obviously, these things are tied up means they're closed. So What about The womb shouldn't be closed. Right?
42:03
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Mhmm. So those are all fertilities. What about, like, rituals that we have, you know, even in death? I know we have, like, superstitious rituals.
42:12
We we we never leave the body alone. We already talked about, like, pouring water when we're near death, after death has occurred. But tell us more about the rituals about, like, why we never leave the body alone.
42:25
Rabbi Ed Farber: Okay. Well, the never leaving the body alone had two reasons. One was the problem that the body could be, they didn't have refrigeration. Right? And they were worried that animals could get to the body, so you have to really guard the body because what what a disrespect to leave the body to be damaged.
42:44
Right? So that was a practical reason. There's also, unfortunately, some really sick people out there. So you have to you have to protect the body. Rabbis knew about that illness.
42:52
They knew about that
42:53
Melissa Shere Beek: I never even thought about that. I was always thinking
42:56
Rabbi Ed Farber: You're about the a normal human being.
42:59
Melissa Shere Beek: No. But I was thinking because we were always told that the the soul can leave the body anytime when you're alive. But that when the body is dead, the soul can't get back into the body. And that we we shouldn't leave the body alone. And we've Right.
43:13
Should say prayers so that we soothe the soul.
43:17
Rabbi Ed Farber: Mhmm. That's very true.
43:17
Melissa Shere Beek: I didn't even think about what you just said about why we don't leave the body alone. I was thinking more on the spiritual level.
43:23
Rabbi Ed Farber: That was a two practical reasons. One was they were aware of that very severe mental illness in which people were fascinated by dead bodies. The rabbis were aware of it. We know it exists, but we don't think about it because it's so insanely sick.
43:37
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Never occurred to me.
43:39
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah. We wouldn't think about it unless we're told about it. Right? But the rabbis knew about it. They knew about all these type of disorders.
43:45
They weren't they they didn't stick their heads in the sand. They confronted them. The other was just a practical reason. You gotta keep that body away from, mice and rats or whatever it might be. But then, of course, it had to do with also, the idea that when you watch over the corpse, you're protecting it from evil spirits as well.
44:05
Like, we're here. We're guarding this. We're guarding this. Right? Another thing, by the way
44:10
Melissa Shere Beek: But what could an evil spirit do to a corpse as opposed to the soul?
44:14
Rabbi Ed Farber: Oh, because they're still trying to get to the soul. Right? There's still there's still this connection that exists. So for instance, when you become an official mourner, not until the body's in the ground. You're not a mourner yet.
44:28
When do you say Kaddish? We say Kaddish after the burial.
44:31
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
44:31
Rabbi Ed Farber: They perform two lines because you're now a mourner and we're gonna accompany you. We're not gonna leave you alone. Right. Home and sit shiver. You don't sit shiver before the burial.
44:41
Right. So the body, until it's buried
44:44
Melissa Shere Beek: Then you mourn.
44:45
Rabbi Ed Farber: Then you mourn. And they had the same idea. Until it's buried, that soul may still have some connection to it. We have to
44:51
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
44:52
Rabbi Ed Farber: You close the eyes. Now that's true in all the cultures that we're familiar with. And some put a piece of metal or salt on the body, and it's all intended to confound the evil spirits and protect the ghost.
45:09
Melissa Shere Beek: Mhmm.
45:10
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? Because this whole question when the soul leaves, which obviously is not a scientific question. Okay?
45:17
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
45:17
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's it's a spiritual question. And it impacts tremendously on whole issue of organ transplant, obviously, which the rabbis didn't know anything about, so they didn't discuss it. But, you know, when is death death? Right? And that's a very important question legally, period, in America.
45:34
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah.
45:34
Rabbi Ed Farber: Every culture, but it's very important in Jewish tradition because
45:38
Melissa Shere Beek: death Organ, like you said, organ donation.
45:40
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. And when is the time to bury, and when is the time to mourn, and when is it permitted to take the organ? It's a very complicated so I have a whole book here actually edited by my son. I'll throw that in. Myself.
45:53
Melissa Shere Beek: Well, we do another podcast on this.
45:55
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's actually called organ donation. Right? Wow. Think it is. It's a compilation of articles by the great scholars and ethicists on this whole horribly complicated, but so important issue of organ donation.
46:10
But if we get it wrong, then we might have harmed somebody. If we get it wrong, we let people die. You shouldn't be dying. So we gotta get it right.
46:19
Melissa Shere Beek: We do not wanna get this wrong in any way, shape, form. Yeah.
46:22
Rabbi Ed Farber: Too much at stake with organ. And and we have to be very, very proactive because Jews tend to think we're not supposed to do organ transplant, and that's not right. It's not right at all. Do it do that in another podcast. I think it'll be
46:33
Melissa Shere Beek: I was gonna say because that doesn't go along with life and promoting life and saving life and yeah. Okay. You are That'll be another podcast too.
46:41
Rabbi Ed Farber: Inconsistent with the basic teaching that saving a life overrides almost everything.
46:45
Melissa Shere Beek: Everything.
46:46
Rabbi Ed Farber: But Yeah. Unfortunately, the folk custom and the what's been passed down is this
46:52
Melissa Shere Beek: Keeping the body intact.
46:53
Rabbi Ed Farber: Keeping the body intact. Which, yes, you do unless you could save a life.
46:57
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
46:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: Difference. Right? So that's another fascinating
47:00
Melissa Shere Beek: The big asterisk there.
47:02
Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. Exactly. So you try to protect the soul. That's extremely important.
47:08
Melissa Shere Beek: And And then what do like, are all of these rituals and beliefs in particular literature? I know you said some things go back. Yeah.
47:17
Rabbi Ed Farber: But It will find
47:18
Melissa Shere Beek: Is it just an oral history, most of them?
47:20
Rabbi Ed Farber: Things obviously start orally. But in the Talmud, you'll find evil eye, evil spirits, amulets that protect you. Right in the Babylonian Talmud, which is more superstitious than the Talmud most people never heard of, the Jerusalem Talmud.
47:35
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
47:35
Rabbi Ed Farber: But the the Babylonian Talmud was completed. It's a whole complete work. Jerusalem Talmud was never finished. It's very difficult to study. But Babylonia was a much more superstitious community, so Jews tended to get superstitions.
47:48
It's just like the, Sephardic world has more superstitions than some of the Ashkenazic world because they lived in a world that was very superstitious.
47:56
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
47:56
Rabbi Ed Farber: If you go to Jews in Poland or or Russia in the, you know, before the enlightenment as opposed to Jews in Germany, well, the ones in Eastern Europe are just more superstitious because they grew up in a community of non Jews who had enormous numbers of superstitions. And mainly when you think about the Christian world before it became literate because the church kept people illiterate, which is a great idea. That way they don't know what's in the literature. They don't know what god wants. And the priesthood interprets for them what god wants, and that gives them a lot of power.
48:29
Jews were literate for already from the earliest times of the Talmud because everyone has access to the literature, and that's a major difference. So the fact that they didn't have access to the literature and they were kept illiterate, that resulted in having a lot of superstitions. Because if you don't know and you can't read
48:48
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
48:49
Rabbi Ed Farber: I need to protect myself and I don't know what to do so folk customs develop.
48:54
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
48:54
Rabbi Ed Farber: So the more illiterate a science society is, the more superstitious it is because it doesn't have the means to protect itself. And it will go to superstitions to a greater degree than an educated community.
49:06
Melissa Shere Beek: Do you think all these behaviors help us deal with the fear so we can move forward?
49:11
Rabbi Ed Farber: I think that's the main reason. I think people get frozen naturally because they don't know what's gonna happen. The night before the brisk, is this gonna go well? Is everything
49:20
Melissa Shere Beek: No sense of control again.
49:22
Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. The wedding. Oh my god. Who isn't nervous? I always worry about the bride and groom just fainting in front of me.
49:29
They're so nervous. They didn't eat all day.
49:31
Melissa Shere Beek: Uh-huh.
49:31
Rabbi Ed Farber: They're nervous because they're excited, but they're also nervous. What could go wrong? Now maybe they're just thinking about the whole event and the party and is the electricity gonna go out Or
49:41
Melissa Shere Beek: all the in laws.
49:42
Rabbi Ed Farber: Do I have yeah. Yeah. Who's gonna not get along? I have an outdoor wedding. Is it gonna rain?
49:48
Okay. That causes anxiety. But believe me, most also go in with, did I make the right choice here?
49:54
Melissa Shere Beek: Oh.
49:55
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? Is this gonna work out? And why wouldn't they? We're in a society. What's the divorce rate?
50:01
Fifty percent?
50:01
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. I think it's fifty or maybe even a little bit little bit higher, unfortunately.
50:06
Rabbi Ed Farber: And you can't
50:06
Melissa Shere Beek: So all these rituals sort of create a calming effect or a sense of control in chaotic times.
50:14
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. I I did something controlled. I was once in somebody's room in hospice, and it wasn't gonna be long, and there was absolutely nothing that could be done. In fact, we were hoping it would end soon because it it was really no dignity in that type of death.
50:30
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
50:31
Rabbi Ed Farber: Someone I walked into the room, and I see an entire copy of the Zohar, which is the mystical Kabbalistic books of the Jewish history. And I just inquire I said, oh, that's that's interesting. Is that yours? Well, now it is. I said, okay.
50:45
Good. Good. Have you been able to study it? I knew he couldn't because it wasn't even in English. No.
50:50
No. No. No. They told me that if I put these these books in this room, the power of the letters might bring healing. Of course, it costs $450.
51:00
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
51:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: Of course. Right? No. If it didn't cost anything donated, I'm okay. Not a problem.
51:06
You believe it. You don't believe it. If you feel better believing it, I mean, you're suffering it.
51:10
Melissa Shere Beek: So it's still that sense of control or trying to get control and chaos.
51:15
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. And that could be taken advantage of in terrible ways. It's not common, but you have to be careful.
51:21
Melissa Shere Beek: So do you think being superstitious, it creates more anxiety or for some people it boosts confidence?
51:28
Rabbi Ed Farber: Okay. I think being superstitious definitely is calming to people because it's as you mentioned in the very beginning, cultural norms. My grandmother did this. Yeah. You know?
51:38
And I feel good about it. And and okay. Tomorrow will be well. It'll be okay. I put the red bender.
51:44
The brist will go fine. Whatever it is, I think it has a calming effect. And you're a rationalist. Right? Which is harder to be a rationalist because it's hard to find calm and comfort Yeah.
51:58
With a 100% rationalist. Although I taught that course in the course of superstition, and I once taught a course in Kabbalah, I will tell you, that if you would ask me who my all time favorite fictional TV movie character is, mister Spock of Star Trek. Ah. 100% rationalist, logical. Right?
52:20
That's exactly so. And that's not a Khamsa.
52:23
Melissa Shere Beek: No. That's the Kohane.
52:25
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's the Kohane. May may god bless you and keep you. So because I understand that I'm a rationalist. Yeah. Understand that things totally out of my control.
52:35
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it.
52:36
Rabbi Ed Farber: I don't and I don't how to gain control, and that's a problem.
52:40
Melissa Shere Beek: But, yeah, what you said before is is how I came to it with certain beliefs that tied tied me to my ancestors or to heritage, some sort of generational connection that I felt. Yep. And some of our rituals are tied to religious traditions like, you know, Jewish customs. Like, we eat apples with honey for good luck in the New Year and stuff like that.
53:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's facility, by the way. Because Yeah. It wasn't an apple.
53:04
Melissa Shere Beek: It wasn't?
53:05
Rabbi Ed Farber: It was supposed to be a pomegranate. Right? Oh, yeah. The pomegranate has, of course, 613 seeds, which I can say because I never counted them and you never counted them and nobody ever counted them. But there's a lot of them there.
53:18
Right. A symbol of fertility.
53:20
Melissa Shere Beek: That's true.
53:21
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's why you also have the head of a fish. Some people have the head of a fish at a table. I'm sure you don't.
53:26
Melissa Shere Beek: I don't.
53:28
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. I have no doubt. We don't either. We may eat the filter fish if it's homemade because the stuff in the jar is probably the grossest food ever invented. But homemade is pretty good stuff.
53:38
Ahead of the fish, again, fish are fertility. Why? Because everywhere you go, there's thousands of them. Yeah. Right?
53:44
Melissa Shere Beek: Population explosion. Yeah.
53:47
Rabbi Ed Farber: So So
53:49
Melissa Shere Beek: I was gonna ask you again, like, why exactly do we believe in these superstitions? But it's really to not just as a cultural, not touchstone to ancestors, but also, again, calming, really alleviating stress, protection, all of these things.
54:05
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah. I I think it's the two things. Number one, to connect me to my ancestors who probably, and certainly in my case, my grandmother who lived with us Yeah. Certainly had not a lot of superstitious stuff, but she had certain superstitious stuff. And so if we did it the way she did it, you feel the connection.
54:24
And the other is the fact that it gives me a sense of control as irrational as it is. And if you ask him, you know, if you sit him down and really ask him, you really believe this. Like the story of the Zohar, At that moment with his, you know, with his beloved dying
54:39
Melissa Shere Beek: Whatever works.
54:40
Rabbi Ed Farber: I didn't say this is nonsense. I said, I hope that it brings if it can't bring healing, it should bring a calm and
54:48
Melissa Shere Beek: peaceful
54:49
Rabbi Ed Farber: transition the next week. I'm not gonna challenge him. It's it I was really upset that somebody ripped him off for $450. Yeah. Otherwise, if he found comfort in that
55:00
Melissa Shere Beek: Then let it be.
55:01
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's not time to have Judaism one zero one and give him a lecture on rationality.
55:05
Melissa Shere Beek: Right. Right.
55:07
Rabbi Ed Farber: Opposition to superstition. They opposed it. They fought it. They knew they couldn't stop it, so they reinterpreted as much as they could.
55:15
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it. And there was one thing I know I asked you earlier, today when we were talking before the recording, is if you thought that there were new superstitious behaviors being initiated or instituted that now generations in the future would follow. But you told me something fascinating. Tell my listeners.
55:31
Rabbi Ed Farber: Well, I remember talking about the knots that I I I never saw that. And so that was a return of an old tradition that had pretty much disappeared except maybe in some very closed communities. But since we don't have closed communities anymore, very few, people marry. Right? Across community.
55:50
Sparta marry Ashkenazim. Then when I'm planning the wedding, I go nuts. Which do you wanna do? Right?
55:56
Melissa Shere Beek: Which superstitious are we following?
55:59
Rabbi Ed Farber: Actually and then this Ashkenazi says, what do you mean we're doing that? I've never seen that. What are you talking about? So we have to
56:05
Melissa Shere Beek: So they're bringing back superstitions that have sort of been buried for a while.
56:10
Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. Because they come away from a closed community. Chabad until the this modern period was a very small, not well known, so the beloved rebbe who developed it into the powerhouse, incredible religious movement Yeah. Today. But before that, I gotta tell you, growing up Miami, I don't know if I ever met somebody from Chabad.
56:30
Right? And somebody from Chabad never married somebody in our community. This didn't happen. So these these customs, you didn't encounter them. But now I do weddings with a Chabad rabbi, and they do it with me.
56:43
Why? Because some of them this community is married, some of this community, that's their rabbi, and I'm their rabbi. And we get together and we say, okay. Let's work this out. Let's give them
56:51
Melissa Shere Beek: So that's where the old superstitions are being resurfaced, some of the ones that we're not familiar with.
56:57
Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. I love it. And that the fact is so open now. The society is so open. And in Israel, where the Sephardim never used to marry the Ashkenazim.
57:06
Right? Now it's very, very common. We call it Ashkenazim. Right? So and you see this mixture of and by the way, they produce gorgeous children.
57:14
Absolutely gorgeous children. Just from a genetic thing, this is a great thing for the Jewish community because we're bringing in genes that we're developing.
57:22
Melissa Shere Beek: I was gonna say medically, it's great.
57:24
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's what I mean. Medically, it's the greatest thing.
57:26
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
57:26
Rabbi Ed Farber: My grandparents were second cousins. Right? Maybe because I can't control my hands. Who knows? It's not the best thing genetically.
57:36
Right?
57:37
Melissa Shere Beek: Right.
57:37
Rabbi Ed Farber: But when you marry Ashkenazos, you do two things. You do a great thing genetically that's healthier and you bring two disparate traditions that grew up in different parts of the world. You bring them together and you can only be enriched by that. Yes. Only enrich us.
57:54
Melissa Shere Beek: So A 100%.
57:55
Rabbi Ed Farber: These new things pop up. They're interesting. They're fun. We just have to take them with a grain of salt. We're talking about salt.
58:02
Right? Salt is obviously salt in the earth. Right? It's it's like blood. It's survival.
58:07
Right? So they when you throw salt, you're you're pushing away.
58:10
Melissa Shere Beek: That's why. Yeah. Got it. We're pushing it. Well, thank you so much.
58:15
Rabbi Ed Farber: What do you say about a person who's just a downright good regular person? He's the salt
58:19
Melissa Shere Beek: Salt of the earth.
58:20
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right. Right. Right. It's like he came from the earth. The very without salt, there's no life.
58:25
Right? You need to have salt. Too much salt, big trouble. But without any salt, there's no life.
58:30
Melissa Shere Beek: It's all balance, isn't
58:32
Rabbi Ed Farber: did one about a salt monster. Really? He was like, what are you doing with salt monster? Don't you understand they're doing a salt monster for a good reason?
58:38
Melissa Shere Beek: It's so fun.
58:39
Rabbi Ed Farber: The salt is survival. If you overdo it, it'll kill you.
58:44
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. If
58:44
Rabbi Ed Farber: you don't do enough, it will kill you. Right?
58:47
Melissa Shere Beek: It's all about balance.
58:48
Rabbi Ed Farber: Balance. Right. So you're
58:49
Melissa Shere Beek: I could talk to you forever about this.
58:51
Rabbi Ed Farber: Mhmm. It's fun. It's fun.
58:53
Melissa Shere Beek: It's so fun. I thank you so is there anything I left out that that I should know?
58:59
Rabbi Ed Farber: I think we covered a lot. Your questions were amazing. If anybody by the way, there's only there's one scholar who brought all of this to light. I was looking for the book. Here it is.
59:10
His name his name is, Joshua Trachtenberg. And he wrote the definitive book because nobody else quite frankly was interested in it and certainly not a scholar. And he wrote Jewish magic and superstition. Right? Now understand, he was a total rationalist.
59:25
He was the academician. He didn't believe in any of it. But he said, this is really interesting and Jews don't know enough about it and I want to elucidate it. And that's how I discovered that it's all over Jewish literature. I mean, how did he find these things?
59:38
Not just from talking to people or experience it. He went
59:41
Melissa Shere Beek: No. It has to be somewhere in literature.
59:43
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah. Books, entire books that describe superstitious customs, things that you need to do to protect yourself. It's like a how to book. Tell me how to protect myself. I'll
59:54
Melissa Shere Beek: get you.
59:54
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's a it's a cookbook. So Trastenburg was the expert, and Gershom Schollum was the expert on Jewish and they do intersect sometimes. This Cool. And superstitions don't intersect. Kabbalah is a is a sophisticated philosophical system, which is not all
1:00:15
Melissa Shere Beek: That would be a whole other episode.
1:00:17
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's not studied the way it should be studied. It's not even taught the way it should be. It's very hard to find a good Kabbalah.
1:00:22
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. Instructor. Yeah.
1:00:24
Rabbi Ed Farber: And, unfortunately, we recently lost one of the greatest the greatest passed away. He was from Temple of Israel when he started. He was a rationalist too, but he went down. He he really became a mystic as a result. So Well,
1:00:37
Melissa Shere Beek: I'm I'm fortunate that I've got you with all the superstitions. The the information in today was phenomenal. I I'm so appreciative, and and so thank you so much for being here today. I know it was a little different because you're on Zoom instead of in the studio, but still illuminating, fascinating, and and helps me put context to everything that I've been doing all these years. So I really appreciate, and thank you.
1:01:01
You've enlightened us on the origins of some of our more prevalent superstitious beliefs and where they came from. And and I thank you for explaining all the reasons we maintain these rituals and why they were established and and and ways when we weren't sure why we were doing them or where they came from. So I appreciate that. Now we know. Poo poo poo.
1:01:22
Rabbi Ed Farber: Thank you so much for giving voice to it.
1:01:25
Melissa Shere Beek: Thank you. So I have, before I sign off, I like to do something with all of my guests. It's called quickie questions. You up for it?
1:01:32
Rabbi Ed Farber: Sure.
1:01:33
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. Good. What brings you comfort?
1:01:37
Rabbi Ed Farber: What brings me cover? My I have 15 grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
1:01:42
Melissa Shere Beek: Oh, that's the best.
1:01:43
Rabbi Ed Farber: That's the best.
1:01:44
Melissa Shere Beek: That's the best. Do you have a mantra that you live by?
1:01:50
Rabbi Ed Farber: Oh, that's interesting. Do I have a mantra that I live by? Well, I would say, yes. Do your best.
1:01:57
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay. Good one. I like that. Do your best.
1:02:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: Once you did your best, it may not be the best, but you did your best.
1:02:03
Melissa Shere Beek: But you tried. Okay. What's the most important thing that you've learned?
1:02:08
Rabbi Ed Farber: What alright. Well, the most important thing I learned is from my mother and my father too, but mainly my mother. And that is is that you have to have an enormous tolerance to understand understanding of other people and where they're coming from. It's kind of like, you know, you got to walk in their shoes.
1:02:25
Melissa Shere Beek: They have perspective.
1:02:26
Rabbi Ed Farber: You have to have a tremendous patience and understanding because you're not in their shoes and you cannot be judgmental. There are times when, okay, they go over the line, you have to be judgmental. But if not, you have to understand what's going on and be as patient and as understanding and accepting as you possibly can be.
1:02:44
Melissa Shere Beek: Wow. That's beautiful and powerful at the same time. Incredible. Okay. One last one.
1:02:50
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yeah.
1:02:50
Melissa Shere Beek: Do you have any superstitious beliefs or rituals?
1:02:56
Rabbi Ed Farber: Pure rationalist. You know, to me
1:02:58
Melissa Shere Beek: Pure rationalist. I love it.
1:03:00
Rabbi Ed Farber: It's all fascinating, but there's nothing that if I don't do it, I think, oh my goodness. You know, I created a prop. I didn't do it exactly that way. It it in spite of the fact I love ritual. I mean, I do a Jewish thing.
1:03:12
This fascinates me. And we do the seder. I know I once switched Haggadah's. Haggadah's, for those who may not know, is the book that guides us to the seder, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of different editions. And I decided after, like, twenty five years, I was going to switch to a modern one.
1:03:27
I forgot to ask my daughter.
1:03:29
Melissa Shere Beek: I was going to say that was a big move. Now
1:03:32
Rabbi Ed Farber: my daughter, Debrita Haggadah, you know, fluently, wouldn't matter which Haggadah, and who is a mathematics professor who wrote her PhD on theoretical math
1:03:43
Melissa Shere Beek: Wow.
1:03:44
Rabbi Ed Farber: Could not believe that I changed that ritual.
1:03:46
Melissa Shere Beek: The audacity.
1:03:48
Rabbi Ed Farber: She says, when I opened the page, there's supposed to be a mind stain there.
1:03:52
Melissa Shere Beek: Yeah. There's marks.
1:03:54
Rabbi Ed Farber: Yes. And Of love. Yeah. I said, the English is all she says, exactly. We do that English every single year the way grandma, you know, softer and softer did
1:04:02
Melissa Shere Beek: it. Yes.
1:04:03
Rabbi Ed Farber: And the way I did it when I was five years old, and you're changing it. How could you do that? Yeah. There's no more rational
1:04:09
Melissa Shere Beek: I feel her pain.
1:04:10
Rabbi Ed Farber: She's a mathematician. She's a 100% rational.
1:04:12
Melissa Shere Beek: It doesn't matter. I feel her pain. My mother switched to goddess after twenty five, thirty years, and we were devastated.
1:04:18
Rabbi Ed Farber: Exactly. Right. So I like to do the same thing. I I stick with the same things. I'm married almost Got it.
1:04:24
Married, I think, fifty five years. I gotta
1:04:26
Melissa Shere Beek: do Wonderful.
1:04:27
Rabbi Ed Farber: Right? I drive I still drive the Studebaker as a hobby.
1:04:31
Melissa Shere Beek: I love it.
1:04:32
Rabbi Ed Farber: But they don't change things.
1:04:33
Melissa Shere Beek: Okay.
1:04:34
Rabbi Ed Farber: Not because I think if I change it, I'm gonna cause damage. It's because they bring me comfort.
1:04:38
Melissa Shere Beek: Got it. Got it. Aw. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
1:04:42
Rabbi Ed Farber: My pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.
1:04:44
Melissa Shere Beek: Thank you. I'm gonna sign off now, and you could stay on for a second to listen. Okay. To our listeners, thank you so much. So grateful that you're here.
1:04:52
Keep listening. Keep learning. Keep laughing. Keep up with Beak on Being, and stay well, everyone. Poo poo poo.
1:04:58
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1:05:14
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