According to Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a ghost or disturbed soul that possesses the body of a living being. In early biblical and Talmudic accounts they are called "ruchim," which means "spirits" in Hebrew. During the 16th century spirits became known as "dybbuks," which means "clinging spirit" in Yiddish. There are numerous stories about dybbuks in Jewish folklore, each with its own take on the characteristics of a dybbuk. As a result, the specifics of what a dybbuk is, how it is created, etc, vary. This article highlights characteristics that are common to many (though not all) of the stories
told about dybbuks. In many stories a dybbuk is portrayed as a disembodied spirit. It is the soul of someone who has died but is unable to move on for one of many reasons. In stories that assume there is an afterlife where the wicked are punished, the dybbuk will sometimes be described as a sinner who is seeking refuge from the punishments of the afterlife. A variation on this theme deals with a soul that has suffered "karet," which means that it has been cut off from God because of evil deeds the person did during their life. Yet other tales portray dybbuks as spirits that have unfinished business among the living. Many stories about dybbuks maintain that because spirits are housed inside bodies, wandering spirits must possess a living thing. In some cases this can be a blade of grass or an animal, though frequently a person is the dybbuk's preferred choice. The people most often portrayed as being susceptible to possession are women and those living in homes with neglected mezuzot.
The stories interpret the neglected mezuzah as an indication that the people in the home are not very spiritual. In some cases a spirit that hasn't left this world is not called a dybbuk. If the spirit was a righteous person who is lingering to serve as a guide to the living, the spirit is called a "maggid." If the spirit belonged to a righteous ancestor, it is called an "ibbur." The difference between a dybbuk, maggid and ibbur is really in how the spirit acts in the story. How to Get Rid of a Dybbuk There are probably as many different ways to exorcise a dybbuk as there are stories about them. The ultimate goal of an exorcism is to release the body of the possessed person and to release the dybbuk from its wanderings. In most stories, a pious man must perform the exorcism. Sometimes he will be assisted by a maggid (beneficent spirit) or an angel.
In some stories the ritual must be performed in the presence of a minyan (a group of ten Jewish adults, usually all male) or at a synagogue. (Or both). Often the first step in the exorcism is interviewing the dybbuk. The purpose of this is to determine why the spirit has not moved on. This information will help the person performing the ritual to convince the dybbuk to leave. It is also important to discover the dybbuk's name because, according to Jewish folklore, knowing the name of an otherworldly being allows a knowledgeable person to command it. In many stories, dybbuks are more than happy to share their woes with anyone who will listen. After the interview, the steps in exorcising a dybbuk vary greatly from story to story. According to author Howard Chajes, a combination of adjurations and various props are common. For instance, in one example the exorcist may hold an empty flask and a white candle.
He will then recite a formulaic adjuration commanding the spirit to reveal its name (if it hasn't done so already). A second adjuration commands the dybbuk to leave the person and fill the flask, whereupon the flask will glow red. "The Dybbuk" After traveling between Jewish shtetls (villages) in Russia and the Ukraine, playwright S. Ansky took what he had learned about dybbuk folklore and wrote a play titled "The Dybbuk." Written in 1914, the play was eventually turned into a Yiddish-language film in 1937, with some variations to the storyline. In the film, two men promise that their unborn children will marry. Years later, one father forgets his promise and betroths his daughter to the son of a wealthy man. Eventually the friend's son comes along and falls in love with the daughter. When he learns that they can never marry, he invokes mystical forces that kill him and his spirit becomes a dybbuk that possesses the bride-to-be.
Ghosts or spirits in Jewish folklore break down into a few different types. The most well-known of these is the fiercely misunderstood and misrepresented dybbuk. Recently, the horror film The Possession presented audiences with a story about a little girl who buys a mysterious box at a yard sale and becomes possessed by a demon known as a dybbuk. The movie was meant to be loosely based upon a true account about a box sold on eBay (“the Dybbuk Box”) which was said to contain an evil spirit. Yet both The Possession and the book The Dybbuk Box grossly misrepresent the actual mythology of the dybbuk. A dybbuk is actually a ghost that sticks around after death to possess the body of the living for malevolent purposes. The stories state that it is either a malevolent spirit out to harm an innocent person, or a more neutral spirit out to punish a wicked person for their transgressions. Either way, the defining factor that represent a dybbuk is that they are out to cause harm to their host. They are not demonic, as presented in The Possession, and there is very little indication, traditionally, of dybbuks being attached to locations or items so much as individual people.
Another kind of possession talked about in Jewish stories is represented by the dybbuk’s exact opposite, known as an ibbur. The term is used for a spirit that nests or incubates inside a host in an attempt to help the host body along. It is considered a benevolent spirit, usually one which was particularly righteous or holy in their lifetime. These ghostly ride-alongs are said to stick around and possess a person so that they can help them achieve their goals in this life, acting as a wise helper to guide their host toward achieving success. This story got twisted into the horror film The Unborn, in which a spirit incubates in the body of a young woman in an attempt to become reborn again, with some terrifying consequences. Once again, however, the ibbur has never been considered malevolent, like the dybbuk.
These are the two major concepts of Jewish ghosts that circulate in early stories. In fact, the term for human ghosts didn’t seem to become well defined in Jewish discussion until Rabbi Hayyim Vital coined the term Ru’ah Ra’ah (literally translated into “evil wind”) in the sixteenth century. However, stories of possession in Judaism often get their wires crossed with another element of Jewish tradition and folklore—specifically, stories about demons.
Sources: "Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Jewish Culture and Contexts)" by Jeffrey Howard Chajes and "The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism" by Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis.
Three Flavors of Evil: Demons in Jewish Myth
If you want to talk about possession, supernatural terror, and general badness in Jewish folklore, you can’t go far without talking about demons. Demons are classified as supernatural beings that have the power to harm people. Jewish tradition has several terms to discuss demons of different sorts, and there are more stories about demons and demonic bedevilment than there seem to be about ghosts. Often times, the definitions for these terms will change from one source to another, causing overlap and confusion which sometimes even overlap into discussion about ghosts. The termMazzikin, for example, is used in some cases to talk about destructive spirits of the dead, but can also refer to destructive spirits created on the eve of the last day of creation in the biblical story of Genesis. The concept of destructive creatures created at the very end of the Six Days of Creation also finds expression in creatures known as Shedim, which are also alternately called Lillin when they’re described as being the descendants of the mythological figure Lilith. These demons are described as “serpent-like” and are sometimes depicted with human forms with wings, as well. The stories often include descriptions of children being killed in their cradles or some kind of sexualized element, much like traditional succubi or incubi. Then there are Ruhot, formless spirits described in some stories as creatures one could bind into a form to make them speak prophecy or perform a task for the binder.
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Sources: "Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Jewish Culture and Contexts)" by Jeffrey Howard Chajes and "The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism" by Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis.