Parashat Vayera - Angels and Demons (not about a Dan Bown novel)

Shabbat Shalom! I recently started listening to a boatload of new podcasts, and among them is one called Throwing Sheyd, which is a very clever name because “Throwing shade” is a slang term for saying something rude to someone in a subtle way that they can pick up but still gives you plausible deniability about your intent, and a sheyd is a Hebrew term for something akin to a demon. There are a few terms that the Hebrew scriptures and the ancient rabbis used to refer to the harmful spirits in the world - sheidim, se’irim, mazzikim, the children of Lilith, and more, and they each represent different specific types of demons or demon-esque beings. Jewish demonology is well fleshed out in early rabbinic texts, and I’d known some things from rabbinical school, like that the mazzikim are particularly out in full force on Wednesdays, but I’m learning so much more from the podcast, like that sheidim have mitzvot!

On the episode I listened to most recently (which was not the most recent episode, because I’m catching up on some old episodes), the hosts talked a bit in particular about the dichotomy of angels and demons. This dichotomy is not quite as direct as one might think from the Christian-influenced popular imagination. Jewish demons are not fallen angels or anything like that (that’s a different fantastic beast altogether elaborated on in Midrashim for Parashat Noah). Sheidim and their ilk are distinct creatures and not former celestial beings. But they run around mostly unseen causing harm and leading Jews away from God and Torah in basic opposition to the way angels run around mostly unseen doing God’s bidding and enforcing Torah. Although, of course, I’m using run figuratively, because angels in their true form have only one leg, another thing I learned from the podcast. And just like demons appear vaguely in the Tanakh but are more fleshed out in the rabbinic literature, angels also appear in the Tanakh, sometimes more explicitly than others, but are on the whole more fleshed out in later texts.

Look at this week’s Torah portion, for example. At the top of Parashat Vayera, the Torah tells us that the Lord appeared to Abraham and then Abraham looked up and saw three men approaching. The text uses the word “men” here, but they are generally understood to be angels, two of whom will continue on to Sodom to destroy it and its neighboring city of Gomorrah. Partially this is derived from the fact that the men who visit Abraham’s tent bring a prophecy of Sarah’s pregnancy and the birth of Isaac, which is not super typical behavior of your average mortal traveler, and partially because when they leave Abraham’s tent, they go on to Sodom, and the next chapter (same parasha) opens with “The two angels arrived in Sodom.”

I always thought that the peshat, the most direct interpretation, of the opening verse indicated that Abraham recognized the divinity of the three men walking up. That what was meant by “The Lord appeared to Abraham, and he looked up and saw three men,” was that the Lord appeared IN those three men. However, the general accepted rabbinic interpretation of this is that God was paying a bikur cholim call, a wellness visit, to Abraham. The previous parasha ends with Abraham circumcising himself at an advanced age, and the rabbis concluded he’s feeling a bit tender and immobile, so God is chilling with him, keeping him company. I do love that image, and I can appreciate the rabbinical message there about how much more audaciously hospitable Abraham then is when he runs out to greet the three travelers approaching. One, because he is supposedly in physical pain, but he jumps up and moves quickly to welcome in his new guests; and two, because he is ditching God to spend time with who he ostensibly thinks is his fellow man. But what reinforces my view on the peshat understanding is that I can’t understand why the angels would need to approach to bring God’s message and prophecy for Sarah, if God is already kibbitzing with Abraham.

Rashi says that there are three because each angel has a distinct job. One to overthrow Sodom (definitely something to be said for God delegating out this responsibility), one to announce to Sarah the birth of Isaac, and one to cure Abraham (the latter two seem more distinctly superfluous if God was already physically present in their tent). When “The two angels” arrive in Sodom, Rashi reports it is of course because the one who came to inform Sarah was done and went back to the Heavens, while the one who was sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah still had a job to do, and the one who healed Abraham was also responsible for rescuing Lot and his family (which checks out - those are similar duties). Rashi also comments that the angels took an awfully long time to arrive at Sodom, considering they are angels and surely could have flown in, perhaps even on unicorns or any number of magically flying animals available as transportation only to them. But they are angels of mercy and were hoping to buy Abraham some time as he argued with God about whether the deed truly needed be done.

In response to the question of why the Torah sometimes calls them men and sometimes calls them angels, Rashi offers two possibilities. One is that when they are in the presence of the Lord at Abraham’s tent, they are mere men by comparison to the One Most High. The other is that they appeared to Abraham as men, and Abraham truly believed them to be merely men. It was the custom of Abraham to greet all people as warmly as he greets the angels, to see the holiness in any traveler, and so it became the custom of angels to go hang out with Abraham for this reason. However, when they appeared to Lot, it was necessary to appear as angels, so that the less pious nephew would regard them properly and leave Sodom with them. In either case, neither the Torah nor Rashi describe the appearance of the angels, and the descriptions we see later in some of the prophets, and as our adult ed students know, in the book of Daniel, the angels are able to take on human forms, but still never fully pass as human. I mean, besides the one-foot thing. Daniel always knows when he’s being spoken to by an other-worldly being.

I’m unsure where the tradition lands on this, but something that occured to me as I read this parasha and listened to Throwing Sheyd, is that if angels can appear as men and be welcomed into one’s tent, then probably, so could demons. Depending on the type of demon, this could be a bad omen - welcoming in disaster, opening the door to pain, and we could read it in very real terms of one not asserting necessary boundaries and allowing themselves to be harmed by the evil in the world. But perhaps it could be a good thing too. As I said, sheydim must adhere to some mitzvot, and perhaps they are not all inherently evil. What if Abraham, or you or me, opened the door for a mischievous imp-like creature and showed them the power of welcoming and warmth? Would they turn from their trickster ways and seek to do more good in the world? I’m not sure it’s always so easy to tell which type of otherworldly creature we are opening our doors to, but if we were able to read each person, or person-like being, that we meet and try to learn about and from them with an open heart, I think we might find ourselves better able to model the audacious hospitality of our father Abraham, and make this world a little better for everyone. May you open your hearts and doors, and may you in turn be blessed with good news and safety. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.