[Avodah] Does Ru'ach Ra'ah (negative spirits) still exist today?

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, May 25, 2018 at 05:52:35PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: IIRC R' A Soloveitchik explained sheidim this way.

It was ruach ra'ah, as per our discussion. Thus, neigl vasr.

I think RAS's understanding was that Chazal were using evidence-based
reasoning. People were getting sick, and since bad vapors were believed
to be the cause of disease, Chazal presumed there was a ru'ach ra'ah.
Which means that given that we today attibute disease to microbes,
we would transvalue ruach ra'ah to refer to germs.

I don't think too many others understand ru'ach ra'ah as a physical
threat.

Rashi (Taanis 22b "mipenei ruach ra'ah") understands ru'ach ra'ah to
be a sheid entering the person -- "mipenei ruach ra'ah: shenichnas
bo ruach sheidah..." and then he might drown or fall and die. Perhaps
psychiatric illness? In which case, there is no clear transvaluation
to today's science, as minds kind of straddle the physica - metaphysical
fence. Sheidim /are/ intellects; so how do we map sheidim talk to
rationalist psychology talk?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

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