Q&A: Angel
Angel
Question
1) What is an angel? A force? A kind of abstract being?
2) Do you believe that the commandments one performs really create a good angel, and sins a bad angel?
Answer
An angel is a messenger (literally speaking).
I do not know whether angels exist, although there are descriptions in the Bible and in the Sages’ literature of encounters with them. So it is possible that such beings exist (unless those descriptions are allegories).
But I find it very hard to believe that commandments and sins create angels or demons. Mainly, I do not see any source from which anyone could have drawn that information. So it seems likely to me that this is only a metaphorical description of the spiritual benefit that grows out of commandments and the spiritual harm caused by sins.
Discussion on Answer
As I wrote, it is possible that these are only allegories or visions.
And Rabbi, all the aggadic stories in the Talmud about demons and angels—don’t they count as a source from which one can infer that they really exist? Why not?