INTRODUCTION:

While Halloween itself is decidedly not a Jewish holiday, many Jews around the world still gather to celebrate. Use this resource to celebrate Halloween by sharing Jewish ghost stories from the Talmud and Jewish folklore! 

“The Best Jewish Ghost Stories are in the Talmud,” Susannah Brodnitz for Hey Alma, summarizing Bavli Brachot 18b

There once was a man who gave money to the needy during a drought, to the displeasure of his wife. To avoid her “incessant mockery” he slept in the cemetery on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. That night in a dream he heard the ghosts of two young women talking to each other. One of the ghosts said, “My friend, let us roam the world and hear from behind the heavenly curtain what calamity will befall the world.” The other ghost replied, “I cannot, as I am buried in a mat of reeds, but you go and tell me what you hear.”    According to commentary by Yosef Hayyim, the mat of reeds prevented her body from decomposing quickly, which kept her soul connected to her body and stopped her from joining her friend roaming the world. The traditional linen shrouds used for Jewish burial are meant to help the physical body decay faster. It could be this girl came from a poor family and her mother could only afford to bury her in a mat of reeds. The commentary also says alternatively her mother might not have known she was buried in a mat of reeds: perhaps grave robbers took her linen shroud to use for witchcraft and tossed a mat of reeds down on top of her instead.    The first ghost went and did her roaming and when she returned she told her friend what she had learned. She said, “I heard that anyone who sows during the first rainy season of this year, hail will fall and strike his crops.” The man sleeping in the cemetery overheard this and decided to sow his seeds during the second rainy season. Crops all over the world were destroyed by hail, except for his.    The next year on the eve of Rosh Hashanah the same man decided to sleep in the cemetery again, without even getting into a fight with his wife. He heard the same two ghosts speaking to each other. One said, “Let us roam the world and hear from behind the heavenly curtain what calamity will befall the world.” The second said, “My friend, have I not already told you I cannot, as I am buried in a mat of reeds?” A fair response, even ghosts get testy when they have to keep reminding someone of a limitation, like dietary restrictions or being buried in a mat of reeds. She continued, “You go, and tell me what you hear.”    The first ghost went out and roamed and when she returned to the cemetery she told her friend, “I heard that those who sow during the second rainy season, blight will strike his crops.” The man made sure to sow his seeds during the first rainy season, and the rest of the world sowed during the second, so once again crops all over the world were destroyed except his. His wife noticed that something strange was going on and asked him, “Why is it that last year, the crops of the entire world were stricken and yours were not stricken, and now this year, the crops of the entire world were blighted and yours were not blighted?” He told her the whole story of how he was using ghost gossip as an almanac. A couple of days later she got into an argument with the mother of one of the ghosts. In a moment of anger, she lashed out at her and said, “Go and I will show you your daughter, she is buried in a mat of reeds.”    The next year the man slept in the cemetery again, hoping for more ghostly farming knowledge. He heard the same two ghosts speaking to each other. The first one said, “My friend, let us roam the world and hear from behind the heavenly curtain what calamity will befall the world.” But her friend replied, “My friend, leave me alone, as words that we have privately exchanged between us have already been heard among the living.”

• What does this text teach us about Jewish beliefs around the afterlife? 
• What can we learn about Talmudic ghosts from this story? What do they look like? What can they do? What do they know? 

“The Best Jewish Ghost Stories are in the Talmud,” Susannah Brodnitz for Hey Alma, summarizing Bavli Brachot 18b

The Talmud tells another, shorter story featuring another ghost of a young woman. A man named Ze’iri gave his money to his innkeeper for safekeeping. One day while he was out and about, she died, and he didn’t know where she had put his money. He visited her grave and asked her where his dinars (an ancient coin) were. She told him to go and get them from beneath the hinge of a certain door. She also instructed him to ask her mother to send her comb and a tube of eyeshadow with a certain woman she knew was about to die and join her in the graveyard the following day!

• Why do you think the Talmud would care about the existence of ghosts? 
• What do we learn about ghosts from this story? How is it different from the one above? 

“The Finger” recorded by Rabbi Isaac Luria as told by Jewitches

The Finger follows the tale of a young man, who, the night before his wedding, goes on a stroll with his best friends. Under the full moon, they find a shallow grave where they can see a finger. Reuven, the groom-to-be, is goaded into placing his wedding ring upon the finger of the corpse as it protrudes from the earth. He recites the marriage vows three times, as is custom: “Harai at m’kudeshes li-” , “you are betrothed to me”, but as soon as he finishes reciting these words, the corpse comes to life, clawing her way to the surface. She screamed “my husband!” as she gazed upon Reuven, but he and his friends were already running terror and fear. They locked themselves in their homes, terrified. The next day, the morning of the wedding, Reuven goes to the mikveh (ritual bath) to prepare as normal, in the hopes that nothing will come of the night before. At the ceremony, as the Rabbi is about the pronounce the vows, the corpse arrives, shrieking in her worm-eaten shroud. Everyone but Reuven and the Rabbi flees. The rabbi inquires of the woman and she tells him what has happened. Reuven confirms that he placed the ring upon her finger, said the vows thrice, and did so before two witnesses, in accordance with Jewish law. A rabbinic court, a Beit Din, is convened. The families of the betrothed testified that the true bride and groom had been betrothed, not the groom and the corpse. Reuven also testified that it had been in jest, not a true wedding. The corpse testifies that he is her true husband, as she had never been married in life and had been denied this joy. At the end of this grueling case, the Rabbi declared that while the marriage had taken place, due to Jewish law, the following must be taken into consideration: as he had been previously betrothed, his second vow could not negate the first. Secondly, it had not been on purpose. And thirdly, there was no precedent for a living person to marry a corpse. Therefore, the marriage was annulled. Upon hearing this, the corpse bride wailed and shrieked, falling to the earth, returning once again still and deceased. The corpse was properly buried, far beneath the earth so nothing so tragic could ever take place again and her parents called upon to give her a proper ceremony. After this, Reuven and his bride were married.

• Does this story sound familiar to you? [hint: it should if you have ever seen Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride!] 
• What can we learn about Jewish ghosts from this story? 
• This story is folklore, rather than Talmudic text. Does that change how you understand the story? 
• Do you know any other Jewish ghost stories?? Share them if you do!