Customer Reviews

Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Jewish Culture and Contexts)

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An amazingly informative read, Between Worlds offers a rare glance into the writings of Early Modern Jews dealing with spirit possession, excorcism, and prevailing attitudes of the times, both Jewish and non-Jewish. It was fascinating to read about Luria and his contemporaries dealings with dyybuks, possessed women, and to have the comparision with Christian and Islamic practises and writings of the period. The possession accounts are captivating, and Chajes is excellent at breaking the information down to guide the reader through all the twists and turns that an excorcist would follow. I especially enjoyed the chapters on women and their use of possession to call for change, and heavily influence powerful men at times. While academic in style, it is none the less a great read for anyone remotely interested in Jewish spirit possession, exorcism, women's religiosity, and Medieval/Early Modern Kabbalistic attitudes of these issues.

This is the most scholarly work on the subject of Jewish exorcisms in English. I recommend it to the student and religious practitioner alike. If nothing else, the appendix and bibliography are invaluable to anyone interested in the subject.

I feel that not enough attention was paid to non-dybbuk forms of possession. Demonic possession, though not as prevalent in Talmudic Judaism, does appear throughout Jewish history. Also, more information on 'good' forms of spirit possession would have been helpful, specifically those forms which exhibit themselves in Chasidism.

My only real negative criticism on the text itself is that the translations leave the average reader quite sated but only whet the appetite of a serious scholar. Chajes should consider providing the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts in an additional appendix.

Although many people will focus in on the "ecstatic women on the margins" possibilities of Chajnes's book, I find the study important primarily for opening eyes to what was mainstream Judaism, and European at that, in the early modern period. Not just an isolated incident or two, and covering many phenomena of Jewish life, spirit communication and mystical insights are typical of a major stream in Judaism. Where did we get the hyper-rational and book-dominated religion of Reform Judaism today? That should be the question. The religion is rich with the same kind of intermingling of heavenly and earthly worlds that Christian and Muslim peoples saw. Think again about what is normal, orthodox in any of them. Thinking in the long historical perspective, Judaism as ethics, reason, and law and those elements only - that is the anomaly.

This well researched investigation of the passage of souls and the potential delays and solutions that could be encountered is surely the best book available on the subject. It can be read and understood by the common man of any religion and scholars will also find much newly translated and well interpreted depth study of this most important subject. Buy it, read it and give gifts of it. It will change how you look at life and death.

A wonderfully suggestive work. Clothed in sometimes rigorous scholarly prose, this book is a fit remedy to the spiritual pabulum of our day. Not everyone who dies is escorted by loving family members to the spirit Harvard in the sky.

There are "homeless" spirits, who can't even find their way to hell and others so purposeful, they refuse to wait for their next incarnation to have their say. They both might choose to occupy the bodies of people--or dogs.

If they're the homeless type and Jewish, you might consider bringing a Muslim or Christian exorcist. The spells and spirits they bring will crowd out and disgust the Jew into leaving. If they're the other kind, and they misquote a classic Jewish text, but you don't quite catch their drift, they could decide you're too dull for dwelling in.

An entertaining and edifying historical anthropology of a key phenomenon, spirit possession, at the dawn of modern Jewish mysticism.