A harm of insularity: Magic and superstition

Last time, I began discussing the harm of intellectual insularity. This time, I want to analyze another negative consequence of insulating a society from the knowledge of modernity: the persistence of magic and superstition. By this, I mean a wide variety of things such as protective amulets and magical actions that promote wealth, health, children, etc.

The Torah does not explicitly tell us why it prohibits such actions and beliefs, only that they are prohibited. This led to a split among wise men (each using the knowledge and science available in the premodern era): Are these practices effective, but prohibited because they remove us from trust in God and contravene his will? Or, are they prohibited because they’re stupid lies that don’t work at all?

Why doesn’t the Torah explicitly tell us which of these two possibilities is correct? I believe it is because if the Torah said magic and superstition were false, then someone would counter and say that only the false ones are prohibited but the ones that work are perfectly fine (and there are always going to be ones that people think really work). Therefore, the Torah left the reason vague, because whether or not they work, they are harmful and bad.

A thousand years ago it was still possible for intelligent educated people in certain places to believe that magic and superstition were real. However, this is no longer a reasonable belief throughout the vast majority of the world exposed to modern knowledge. It can only persist in communities that insulate themselves from modern knowledge and science.

While there is ample reason for an ultra-Orthodox community to be insulated from the light of modern knowledge due to its harmful effects on those unprepared for how to deal with it, intellectual isolation has negative consequences. The persistence of magic and superstitions is bad for those who believe and practice them for at least three reasons.

First, there’s the very reason the Torah prohibited magic and superstition. They take a person away from reliance on God and direct one’s trust in something other than the ultimate source of reality. True reliance on God would be to abandon these practices and trust that God will provide those who reject magic and superstition with wealth, health, children, etc.

The second harm to the Jewish community is its inability to properly sanctify God’s name to the nations through presenting the Torah as a system of wisdom. When the intelligent educated nations see Orthodox Jews with foolish “religious” beliefs, they say that the Torah is a system based on foolish outdated errors. This is no sanctification of God’s name through the Torah and is in fact the exact opposite of what the nations should say of the wise and understanding Jewish people when we keep the Torah properly.

Third, when magic and superstition are identified with leading religious figures and communities, Jewish children believe that they are part of the Torah. When those children are exposed to modern knowledge, as sometimes happens in even insulated communities nowadays, they are left with the impression that the Torah is a primitive religion like all the other false religions.

In conclusion, while there is justification for ultra-Orthodox needing to insulate themselves from modern knowledge and science, it is not without harmful consequences. An ideal Modern Orthodoxy must be able to raise the next generation in the light of modernity but reject magic and superstition as inauthentic distortions of the Torah.