A Gentile Asks if the Rabbis Turning Gentiles Into Donkeys is Sorcery


I received this inquiry from a gentile: "I was wondering: have you found anything in your studies to indicate that the sections of the talmud that discuss rabbis turning people into donkeys and how to tell if demons have visited during the night (by reason of circle of flour around your bed) are foreign?"


I answered:


Here read it for yourself:


"It has been taught: Abba Benjamin says, If the eye had the power to see them, no creature could endure the demons. Abaye says: They are more numerous than we are and they surround us like the ridge round a field. R. Huna says: Every one among us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right hand.2 Raba says: The crushing in the Kallah3 lectures comes from them.4 Fatigue in the knees comes from them. The wearing out of the clothes of the scholars is due to their rubbing against them. The bruising of the feet comes from them. If one wants to discover them,5 let him take sifted ashes and sprinkle around his bed, and in the morning he will see something like the footprints of a cock. If one wishes to see them, let him take the after-birth of a black she-cat, the offspring of a black she-cat, the first-born of a first-born, let him roast it in fire and grind it to powder, and then let him put some into his eye, and he will see them. Let him also pour it into an iron tube and seal it with an iron signet that they6 should not steal it from him. Let him also close his mouth, lest he come to harm. R. Bibi b. Abaye did so,7 saw them and came to harm. The scholars, however, prayed for him and he recovered. "


http://www.come-and-hear.com/berakoth/berakoth_6.html


Now do you understand how we turn gentiles into asses?


Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com