Nadene Goldfoot
Satan is found in the Bible. What we Jews think about him is different from the Christian viewpoint or the Islamic viewpoint.
Satan occupies a prominent place in Christianity, which generally regards him as a rebellious angel and the source of evil who will meet his ultimate demise in battle at the End of Days, which Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe we are now immersed in.
Jewish sources, commencing with Moses (born c 1391 BCE) on the whole don’t dwell as much on the satanic, but the concept is nonetheless explored in numerous texts. In Hebrew, the term Satan is usually translated as “opponent” or “adversary,” and he is often understood to represent the sinful impulse (in Hebrew, yetzer hara) or, more generally, the forces that prevents human beings from submitting to divine will. In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4 (possibly written by King David or a friend) , it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity.
He is also sometimes regarded as a heavenly prosecutor or accuser, a view given expression in the Book of Job, where Satan encourages God to test his servant. Job is the 3rd book in the hagiographic section of the Bible (the writing of the lives of saints. biography that idealizes its subject. "a hagiography which is designed to serve a political agenda."
The Talmud (books of discussion of Jewish law) explains that Job was never a real person but was simply a parable; a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. Satan makes many appearances in the Talmud. A lengthy passage in the tractate Sanhedrin accords Satan a central role in the biblical story of the binding of Isaac. According to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, it was Satan that caused the Jewish people to despair of Moses returning from Mount Sinai by showing them an image of the prophet on his deathbed. A passage in the tractate Megillah says that Satan dancing at the party of the Persian King Ahasuerus is what led to the killing of Queen Vashti in the Purim story.
It tries to answer the problem of the suffering of a good or righteous people. Job is an example of a good person. He is a native of Uz who Satan tries to tempt to do bad things. His friends think that his suffering is the result of his wickedness, but Job says that he has not done anything bad. G-d finally steps in from a whirlwind explaining the Divine cosmic order of things and the pettiness of human understanding. The author of Job is unknown, possibly thought to be by some Edomite who wrote it between Mosaic and early 2nd Temple times. The book was not then read but recited by the high priest of the Temple on the eve of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.
Only twice in the Hebrew Bible does Satan appear as a specific figure, as HaSatan — the Satan. One is the Book of Job and the other is a brief reference in the Book of Zecharia, where the high priest is described as standing before a divine angel while Satan stands at his right to accuse him.
Satan has a central role in the story as an angel in the divine court. According to the biblical narrative, Satan — here too commonly translated as the Adversary — seems to urge God to create hardship for his righteous servant Job, arguing that Job is faithful only on account of his wealth and good fortune. Take those away, Satan claims, and Job will blaspheme. God permits Satan to take away Job’s wealth, kill his family and afflict him physically, none of which induces Job to rebel against God.
Sephardi Jews also read the book on the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av) found on the Jewish calendar. 'The ninth of Av') is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both of Solomon's Temples; in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar; (After the destruction of the First
- The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 9 Ab 135 CE.[9]
- Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.[10]
Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.
- The First Crusade officially commenced on 15 August 1096 (Av 24, AM 4856), killing 10,000 Jews in its first month and destroying Jewish communities in France and the Rhineland.[9][11]
- The Jews were expelled from England on 18 July 1290 (Av 9, AM 5050).[9]
- The Jews were expelled from France on 22 July 1306 (Av 10, AM 5066).[12]
- The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).[10]
- Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.[9]
- On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.[13]
- On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.[13]
- The AMIA bombing on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on 18 July 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).[14]
- The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, according to some Religious Zionist rabbis like Yaakov Ariel and Dov Lior.[15][16] Kinnot have been composed about the withdrawal,[17][18] and the connection to Tisha b'Av was emphasized in 10-year anniversary commemorations.[19][20] The disengagement's timing lent itself to symbolic interpretation both by Religious Zionists and by wider Jewish culture.[21] However, even within Religious Zionism, Chaim Navon holds that the disengagement did not rise to the level of a calamity[22] and Shlomo Aviner has written that mourning the disengagement on Tisha b'Av is forbidden because it incites political division. Yona Metzger, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled in 2006 that the disengagement was a tragedy but mourning rituals should not be integrated into Tisha b'Av, while Howard Jachter permits it in narrow fashion.
While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, most religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.
The year of 5784 (2024) has Tisha B'Av on August 13. We are under a high alert
with Iran's Ayatollah giving the order to attack Israel and all Jews. Nine days from
now, what calamity might happen if any? Western intelligence sources told Sky News Arabia that they had evidence Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which begins on August 12 and ends on August 13, the site reported on Friday. Iran’s attack will reportedly be coordinated with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group embedded in Lebanon.
Satan is explored in detail in Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah.
According to Kabbalah, God is Ein Sof, or "without end," and is never depicted in human form or as having a gender. Instead, Kabbalah defines God by describing what God is not.
Kabbalistic sources expand the view of Satan considerably, offering a rich and detailed portrayal of the demonic realm and the forces of evil in the world, which are to be warded off in some cases with various forms of magic, from amulets to exorcisms. Among the most prominent forms of Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, which emerged in the 12th century and has since become a central component of Jewish mystical thought. Other notable early forms include prophetic and apocalyptic mysticism, which are evident in biblical and post-biblical texts.
The Jewish mystical tradition has much to say about Satan. Indeed, kabbalistic texts offer a rich description not merely of Satan, but of an entire realm of evil populated by demons and spirits that exists in parallel to the realm of the holy. Satan is known in Kabbalah as Sama’el (rendered in some sources as the Great Demon), and the demonic realm generally as the Sitra Achra — literally “the other side.” The consort of Sama’el (who is mentioned in pre-kabbalistic Jewish literature as well) is Lilith, a mythic figure in Jewish tradition more commonly known as the rebellious first wife of Adam.
The kabbalistic sources portray the demonic as a separate and oppositional realm in conflict with God. Kabbalah even offers explanations of the origins of the demonic realm, the most common of which is that this realm emerges when the attribute of God associated with femininity and judgment, is dissociated from the attribute of God associated with grace and masculinity, and becomes unconstrained. Evil, in this reading, results from an excess of judgment.
Many of these ideas would later find expression in Jewish folk beliefs and in the works of the Hasidic masters. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Poloniye, one of the chief disciples of Hasidism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov, wrote in his Toldos Yaakov Yosef that God would eventually slaughter the angel of death during the messianic age — a belief that clearly echoes the Christian view of a final showdown between God and Satan at the End of Days. Hasidic folk tales are replete with descriptions of demonic forces, among them a famous story in which the Baal Shem Tov defends a group of children from a werewolf.
Even today some Hasidic Jews will seek out protections from such forces in the form of amulets or incantations. Some Jewish communities, particularly in the world, also prize amulets as protection from evil spirits and maintain a number of customs and rituals aimed at keeping those spirits at bay. Jewish sources dating back to biblical times including formulas for exorcisms to free the possessed of an evil spirit, known as a dybbuk.
The term appears in multiple other instances in the Prophets, often in a similar context — referring not to a specific figure as the Satan, but rather as a descriptor for individuals who act as a satan, i.e. as adversaries.
In Islam, Satan is called Iblis, and is also known as ʿAduw Allāh ("Enemy of God"), al-Aduw ("Enemy"), or al-Shayṭān ("Demon"). Iblis is the leader of the devils, or shayāṭīn, and is often compared to the Christian Satan.
Some of these Christian ideas are echoed in Jewish tradition, but some also point to fundamental differences — most notably perhaps the idea that, in the Hebrew Bible at least, Satan is ultimately subordinate to God, carrying out his purpose on earth. Or that he isn’t real at all, but is merely a metaphor for sinful impulses.
The kabbalistic and Hasidic literature complicate this view, offering a closer parallel to Christian eschatology. Both the kabbalistic/Hasidic and Christian traditions describe the forces of the holy and the demonic as locked in a struggle that will culminate in God’s eventual victory. According to some scholars, this is born of the considerable cross-pollination between Christian and Jewish thinking in the so-called “golden age” of Jewish culture in Spain during the Middle Ages, from whence many of the early kabbalistic texts, including the Zohar, emerged.
I'll conclude with Maimonides's thoughts. The word Satan, Maimonides writes, derives from the Hebrew root for “turn away.” Like the evil inclination, Satan’s function is to divert human beings from the path of truth and righteousness. Maimonides seems not to believe Satan actually exists, but rather that he is a symbol of the inclination to sin. The entire Book of Job, he writes, is fictional, intended merely to elucidate certain truths about divine providence. And even if it is true, Maimonides continues, certainly the portion in which God and Satan speak with each other is merely a parable. Maimon Ben Joseph (1110-1165) dayyan in Cordova, Spain, which he left in 1148 with his family because of persecution and went to Fez, upholding the faith of Jews who had been forced to convert to Islam; eventually settled in Egypt.
Resource
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-813044
https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/faq/destruction-second-temple-70-ce#:~:text=After%20the%20destruction%20of%20the,of%20Judea%20went%20into%20exile.
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