Balak: How Bad Omens Can Harm You (Even According to the Rambam)

Many people believe that bad omens are harbingers of real harm. Rambam is not one of them. But even he might hold by the exception noted by R' Yehuda ha'Nasi.

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Artwork: Divination, by Matt Stewart

Balak: How Bad Omens Can Harm You (Even According to the Rambam)

Rambam codifies the Torah prohibition of nichush (divination) in Hilchos Avodah Zarah v’Chukos ha’Goyim 11:4:

One may not engage in nichush like the nations, as it is said: “You shall not practice nichush” (Vayikra 19:26). What is considered nichush? For example: someone who says, “Since my piece of bread fell from my mouth,” or “my staff fell from my hand, I will not go to such-and-such a place today, because if I go, my objective will not be fulfilled.” Or: “Since a fox passed on my right, I will not leave the entrance of my house today, because if I go out, I will encounter a swindler.” Likewise, those who hear the chirping of birds and say, “Such-and-such will happen,” or “Such-and-such will not happen,” “It is good to do such-and-such,” or “It is bad to do such-and-such.” Also included are those who say, “Slaughter this rooster that crowed like a raven,” or “Slaughter this hen that crowed like a rooster.” Similarly, someone who sets up signs for himself: “If such-and-such happens, I will do such-and-such,” and “If it does not happen, I will not do it,” like Eliezer, the servant of Avraham. All things of this sort are forbidden. And anyone who performs an action because of one of these things receives lashes.

Rambam’s position on magic, superstition, and other occult phenomena is well known (ibid. 11:16):

These matters are all falsehoods and lies, and they are what the ancient idolaters used to deceive the nations of the world in order to draw them after them. It is not fitting for Israelites, who are exceedingly wise, to be drawn after these vanities or to entertain the thought that there is any benefit in them, as it is said: “כִּי לֹא נַחַשׁ בְּיַעֲקֹב וְלֹא קֶסֶם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל – For there is no divination in Jacob, and no sorcery in Israel” (Bamidbar 23:23), and it is said: “For these nations, whom you are about to dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners, but as for you, Hashem your God has not permitted this for you” (Devarim 18:14).

Anyone who believes in these matters and those like them, and thinks in his heart that they are true and matters of wisdom, but that the Torah forbade them, is nothing but a fool whose mind is deficient, and belongs among the women and children whose minds are not fully developed. But those who are wise and sound of mind know, through clear proofs, that all these things the Torah forbade are not matters of wisdom, but rather nothingness and nonsense, which those with deficient minds are drawn after, abandoning all the ways of truth because of them. And for this reason the Torah, when warning against all this nonsense, said: “You shall be wholehearted with Hashem your God” (ibid. 18:13).

One might assume Rambam holds that so-called “bad omens” are harmless. I disagree. There’s at least one group of people even Rambam would say is susceptible to harm from omens: those who believe in them.

This claim is supported by a midrash (Nedarim 32a) on the verse from Parashas Balak cited above:

Rebbi [Yehuda ha’Nasi] said: “Anyone who engages in nichush, the omen [will harm] him, as it is stated, ‘For there is to him [לו = lo] nichush in Yaakov.’”

[The Gemara objects:] But isn’t [the word “lo” in the verse] written with lamed aleph? [In other words, the verse is written as לֹא נַחַשׁ, meaning “there is no nichush” as opposed to לוֹ נַחַשׁ, meaning “there is to him nichush.”]

Rather, [the reason he will be harmed is] due to midah kneged midah (measure for measure punishment).

Those who believe in the reality of nichush will take this midrash at face value, assuming that those who practice omen-reading are harmed when the very omens they fear come true, while those who “walk wholeheartedly with Hashem” are protected. But the Torah Temimah (Bamidbar 23:23, note 12) offers a more nuanced take:

[This midrash] means to say that anyone who engages in nichush and sees every matter as a sign or omen—the omen ends up pursuing him. For it is human nature that the more a person invests his mind in a particular idea and believes in it, that very idea begins to pursue him, preoccupying him in all his ways, actions, and thoughts. And it seems that this is the meaning of what is said in Pesachim 110b: “Whoever fixates on [these forces], they will fixate on him”—see there. And in the Yerushalmi (Shabbos 6:9), the language is: “Anyone who engages in nichush, in the end it will come upon him.” The intent is the same, as we wrote above.

The Torah Temimah understands our Gemara as describing the self-fulfilling nature of mental fixation on omens. He references the Gemara in Pesachim, which deals with zugos—literally “pairs”—a superstition in the time of Chazal that associated pairs with mazikim (destructive forces or “demons”). Here’s the full passage:

In the West (i.e., the Land of Israel), they weren’t fixated on zugos. Rav Dimi from Naharde’a was fixated [about zugos] even with regard to the signs on a barrel (i.e., he wouldn’t write pairs of symbols on a barrel). There was an incident [in which there were pairs of symbols on a barrel] and the barrel burst. [What do we make of this?] The rule of the matter is: anyone who fixates [on zugos, the mazikim] fixate on him, but if one isn’t fixated, they will not fixate on him. However, one should [nevertheless] be concerned [about the harm that might result from zugos].

The Torah Temimah clearly holds that this Gemara isn’t describing actual harm from actual mazikim. Rather, someone who believes zugos are unlucky will start seeing evidence of that belief everywhere. That confirmation bias will shape how he experiences the world. If that’s his mindset, he will be harmed by omens—whether through the way he interprets events (like Rav Dimi), or through the irrational choices he makes trying to avoid them.

If the Torah Temimah is correct, then why does the Gemara conclude by advising one to be concerned about zugos? Perhaps because we’re more superstitious than we think. While Chazal cautioned us not to fixate on such things, they recognized that it’s not so simple to just tell people to ignore widely held superstitions.

According to the Meiri (Pesachim 109b), this is why Chazal didn’t try to eradicate such beliefs:

In several places, we have explained that in those times, the people were drawn after popular superstitions—such as incantations, omens, and various folk practices—and so long as these did not involve a trace of idolatry or the ways of the Emorites, the Sages did not concern themselves with uprooting them. All the more so in cases where these customs were so widespread that they had become second nature to people, affecting them psychologically—either giving them strength or weakening them. This is as the Gemara testifies in this sugya: “To one who is particular about it, we are particular; to one who is not particular, we are not particular.”

The only part of the midrash that remains to be explained is its conclusion: that the harm of nichush is due to midah kneged midah. The commentator on Nedarim 32a (attributed to Rashi) understands this to be a rejection of the initial interpretation of the verse in Parashas Balak. The Torah Temimah (ibid. note 13) disagrees, maintaining that the midrash actually sheds light on the peshat (straightforward meaning):

In my opinion, it is possible to say that even according to this answer, it is still derived from the verse. For at first, Bilam assumed that Yaakov engaged in omens and sorcery. But once he heard in prophecy “there is no divination in Yaakov”—meaning that our forefather Yaakov does not engage in such practices—it follows that such things will neither harm nor destroy him. As it says, “one who is not fixated, [these forces] do not fixate on him.” However, had the opposite been true—had Yaakov engaged in nichush—then omens and sorcery would have harmed him. It therefore emerges that “anyone who engages in nichush, the omen pursues him.” Examine this carefully.

When Bilaam exclaimed, “For there is no divination in Yaakov, and no sorcery in Yisrael,” he was acknowledging that the Israelites were immune to his sorcery because they didn’t engage in such practices themselves.

I see no reason why Rambam would disagree with the Torah Temimah’s take on the midrash. This is exactly why Rambam so often speaks of people being “drawn after” superstitious thinking: once someone starts thinking this way, it colors everything. But he’d add that the real harm of believing in nichush isn’t physical—it’s intellectual. Belief in “nothingness and nonsense” causes “those with deficient minds” to “abandon all the ways of truth.”

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What do you think of my take on the Torah Temimah and the Rambam, or the Torah Temimah’s take on the Gemara in Nedarim? Do you have any outstanding examples of this “nichush-mind” phenomenon?

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