Demons, the Torah, Maimonides, Arizal and the Kotzker Rebbe

Had a Torah conversation about demons with a Nahmanically oriented coworker today.

He quoted, via the Arizal, an Aggadah from the Talmud about Adam having begat demons in the 130 years prior to the birth of Seth. The Aggadah says that these demons didn’t have a form, and came from Adam’s nocturnal emissions.

I quoted Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed on this subject. Maimonides says that “form” means a certain human quality of intellectual perception, not the actual physical shape of one’s body, and says that these “demons” Adam begat were wicked human beings, who misused their intelligence and judgement for evil. He explains that the word for “begetting” someone is also used for educating them and forming them intellectually.

I also came across a saying by the Kotzker Rebbe, who, when asked whether demons were real, said that they had been real until the time of Maimonides, who said that they were not real. At which point, Maimonides being a halachik authority, the demons obeyed his halachik ruling and ceased to exist.

At this point, our coworker, a Nadvorno Hasid, started laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” I said. “The Kotzker Rebbe was not joking. He knew that Maimonides said that demons are real for those who believe in them, and that therefore, once he told Jews not to believe in them, and those Jews listened, demons ceased to exist for them. If you wish for demons to exist, you can believe in them, and they’ll exist for you. As for me, I have more than enough of the human demons that Maimonides talks about, and don’t need to create supernatural ones to keep me busy.”