Sorcery

God commanded Israel not to engage in any kind of sorcery, as it is stated (Devarim 18:9-15): “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to do like the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who passes his son or his daughter through the fire, one who practices divination, a soothsayer, an augur, or a sorcerer; or a charmer, or one who consults a ghost or a familiar spirit, or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you. You shall be wholehearted with the Lord your God. For these nations that you are dispossessing listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you so. A prophet from your midst, from your brethren, like me, the Lord your God will raise up for you; to him you shall listen.” Sorcerers have two main aims: a) to bring about changes in reality, such as casting a curse on a person in order to cause his death or to make him poor; b) to know hidden things and the future. All activities in these matters are included under the name “sorcery” (kishuf), and some of them also have a specific name (Ramban, Devarim 18:9-12; Tur 179:16).

In general, the prohibitions of sorcery rest on the idolatrous conception according to which God, the God of gods, does not govern His world; rather, the world is run by various separate forces. Those who sin in idolatry relate to the various forces as gods and worship them so that they will help them, whereas those who sin in sorcery do not worship the idols, but try to manipulate the idols, or spiritual forces lower than them, in order to bring about changes in reality or to know hidden things, as will be explained below (se’ifim 6-8).

The prohibition has two aspects. First, one may not use forces of impurity in order to break through the boundaries of nature. Second, one must be wholehearted with God and accept His guidance with faith that everything is for the good. And although a person longs to know the future, he is commanded to restrain himself and wait until things actually happen, and not to resort to crooked ways in order to guess the future. And if trouble befalls him, he should not try to escape it by unnatural means; rather, he should confront it according to God’s guidance in the Torah and within the framework of the laws of nature that the Creator established, and in this way he will be refined, elevated and truly advance. This includes praying to God, for prayer is one of the ways God gave man to draw close to Him and to rectify himself, and through this God will bless him. Even in order to advance good goals it is forbidden to use sorcery, because Israel must add goodness and blessing to the world in the way of the Torah, within the framework of the laws of nature; and even if this way is long, the rectification it brings is deep and fundamental, and it advances us stage by stage toward the rectification of man and the world.

Sorcery is performed by reciting incantations and by various actions, such as combining certain substances and burning them as incense. For three kinds of sorcery one is liable to the severe death penalty of stoning, namely: a sorcerer, as it is stated (Shemot 22:17): “You shall not let a sorceress live”; and one who practices ov and yidoni (necromancy), as it is stated (Vayikra 20:27): “A man or a woman who has in them a ghost or a familiar spirit shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones, their blood is upon them.” The other kinds of sorcery are forbidden by a negative commandment, and one who transgresses them before witnesses who warned him is liable to lashes (see above 3:2).