Jeremy Rosen
Magic, Superstition and the Jews
Summary
Jeremy Rosen explores the concept of luck, tracing its historical development from ancient pagan beliefs to modern superstitions. He highlights the tension between rationalism and non-rationalism in human thought, particularly regarding the persistence of magical beliefs alongside scientific advancements.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
You find this in every religion. These are part of, shall we say, magic forms of protecting us from bad influence or bad luck. So I think these are a joke. If it makes somebody feel better, good luck to them.
Maimonides says miracles are the least important ways of engaging with God. They might have worked at a time when people believed in them, but we shouldn’t look for miracles. And you look at the Torah again, how often there are miracles and then almost immediately they fall back to doing what they shouldn’t be doing, no matter how many miracles come. So I think miracles are indications may be to some people, look there’s something unusual going on here. There’s something beyond what you normally understand at this moment, but it’s not a guarantee that things are going to work out. So I certainly don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe that remarkable things happen.
Well, for me, God is a dimension that adds to the physical. That it is a force and an energy that one can tap into that one finds supportive and enables us to think beyond the immediate physical world that surrounds us everywhere. Where we think this is the only thing that counts. And there’s a lot more that is not rational, that does count, but that doesn’t have anything to do with magic. I think personal beliefs mean that we find what works for us. I would like to persuade people that being a good person and being rational is a help. It’s not the only solution, but it’s where one should put one’s emphasis.