Q&A: Idolatry
Idolatry
Question
Hello, honorable Rabbi, would you define people who call themselves rabbis and claim to open up one’s luck, remove the evil eye, provide amulets, and so on, as practitioners of idolatry?
And if not, is there a halakhic prohibition involved?
Answer
The question is too general. Halakhically, each case has to be judged on its own merits. In any case, I would keep my distance from them.
Discussion on Answer
Fraud also requires intentional deceit.
It may be that someone there really believes in it.
A true story: there was once some rabbi who “read” mezuzot (I don’t have those powers, so I have no idea what he was supposedly seeing there), and one day someone came to him who was suffering from something that had required doctors, but to no avail. So he went to this mezuzah-reader, who looked at the mezuzah and told him it was a punishment for having spoken disrespectfully about Rabbi Shach, and that he should go ask his forgiveness. The man went to Rabbi Shach, told him the whole story as it happened, and of course asked forgiveness. Rabbi Shach answered him: I forgive you on condition that you never go again to that mezuzah-reader.
I got an ad saying they do a “redemption of the soul” according to the Rashash every single month for livelihood, good fortune, and so on (of course for payment, and it’s even advertised on a website everybody knows). It sounds crazy to me. Doesn’t the Rabbi think this is basically a scam for a few shekels?