March 15, 2021 - Nisan 2, 5781
Meet Joe Black
The Angel of Death figures prominently in many movies as an inescapably interesting character. While many of them depict him in an either distinctly Christian fashion or entirely exaggerated more akin to a Marvel comics character or fan-fiction creation, there is one movie that I have seen containing a scene with what seems like an astonishingly accurate portrayal according to Jewish sources.
The depiction of the Angel of Death in this movie accords with Judaism in the following ways:
- He refuses to reveal his name to the person he materializes to.
- He is not a rebellious angel committed to overthrowing God.
That movie is Meet Joe Black, in which the Angel of Death makes a deal with a multimillionaire head of a corporation whose time on earth has come to an end. The Devil strikes a deal with this man to permit him to live as long as he lives up to sufficiently capturing his interest with worldly matters, such as business and peanut butter.
The Angel of Death in Judaism
Before proceeding, a quick background on the Angel of Death in Judaism. What may come as a surprise to many readers, according to the Talmud (Bava Basra 16a) the Angel of Death is actually Satan; they are the same being. How, you ask, does the angel tasked with ending life have anything to do with tempting humanity to sin?
Given the terse writing style of the Talmud, I copied and pasted an excerpt in both English and Hebrew for those interested in cross-referencing. Both come from Sefaria.
Reish Lakish says: Satan, the evil inclination, and the Angel of Death are one, that is, they are three aspects of the same essence. He is the Satan who seduces people and then accuses them, as it is written: “So the Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with vile sores” (Job 2:7). He is also the evil inclination, as it is written there: “The impulse of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously” (Genesis 6:5); and it is written here: “Only upon himself do not put forth your hand” (Job 1:12). The verbal analogy between the various uses of the word “only” teaches that the evil inclination is to be identified with the Satan. He is also the Angel of Death, as it is written: “Only spare his life” (Job 2:6); apparently Job’s life depends upon him, the Satan, and accordingly the Satan must also be the Angel of Death.
אָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ הוּא שָׂטָן הוּא יֵצֶר הָרָע הוּא מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת הוּא שָׂטָן דִּכְתִיב וַיֵּצֵא הַשָּׂטָן מֵאֵת פְּנֵי ה׳ הוּא יֵצֶר הָרָע כְּתִיב הָתָם רַק רַע כׇּל הַיּוֹם וּכְתִיב הָכָא (רַק אֶת נַפְשׁוֹ שְׁמֹר) [רַק אֵלָיו אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדֶךָ] הוּא מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת דִּכְתִיב (רַק) [אַךְ] אֶת נַפְשׁוֹ שְׁמֹר אַלְמָא בְּדִידֵיהּ קָיְימָא.
A scene occurs in this movie where the Angel of Death introduces itself to William Parish, the owner of a large company. During this interesting and awkward interaction between the two, the Angel of Death slowly, gradually, and only implicitly reveals its identity to Parrish through their conversation. The most striking element of this interaction is that the Angel of Death seems to be deliberately avoiding revealing its name or identity to Parrish, instead opting to drawing it out of him through innuendo.
This immediately brought to mind the struggle between Jacob and the angel in Genesis:
And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. When he saw that he could not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip became dislocated as he wrestled with him. And he (the angel) said, "Let me go, for dawn is breaking," but he (Jacob) said, "I will not let you go unless you have blessed me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" and he said, "Jacob." And he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have commanding power with [an angel of] God and with men, and you have prevailed." And Jacob asked and said, "Now tell me your name," and he said, "Why is it that you ask for my name?" And he blessed him there. (Genesis 32:25-30)
According to Rashi on verse 25 above, "Our Rabbis explained (Gen. Rabbah 77:3, 78:3) that this was the prince (guardian angel) of Esau." According to Judaism, every nation has a "guardian angel," an angel that rallies on behalf of its nation and manifests God's will towards it on earth. The angel Michael is the guardian angel of the nation of Israel, i.e., of Jacob.
How do we know that that the Angel of Death is Esav's guardian angel? Yalkut Shimoni 110 says the following:
"And the children struggled within her," they were struggling over who would inherit this world and the next. At that moment Samael sought to kill Jacob in his mother's womb, but Michael stood before him when he sought to. Michael stood to burn Samael until God judged set up judgment between them. And God said to her (Sarah), "through Shem, the son of Noah," (as is written in the verse "and Sarah denied" [Genesis 18:15]).
ויתרוצצו הבנים בקרבה שהיו חולקין בשביל העולם הזה והעולם הבא באותה שעה רצה סמאל להרוג יעקב במעי אמו אלא שעמד מיכאל כנגדו באותה שעה עמד מיכאל ורצה לשרוף לסמאל עד שהושיב הקב"ה בתי דינים ביניהן. ויאמר ה' לה על ידי שם בן נח (ככתוב בפסוק ותכחש שרה):
During that cosmic wrestling match, when Jacob asks the angel for its name, it apparently refuses and says, "Why is it that you ask for my name?" For some odd reason in Meet Joe Black, the director sought for the Angel of Death to avoid saying its own name. This leads me to think that the director of this movie may have been familiar with the sources described above, and hinted to them in this scene. If the angel that wrestled Jacob was Esav's angel, and Esav's angel is the Angel of Death, and the Angel of Death refused to reveal its identity, this scene makes perfect sense.
6 comments:
Interesting read. Christians usually insist that Jacob wrestled with God. Mistakes like that happen when they don't study the Torah with Rashi, although Rashi sometimes cites a minority opinion.
I am into horror films, and speaking of scary films, I saw Rabbi Reuven's Tikkun HaBrit movie.
A Gentile man who spills semen wastefully is compared to a murderer according to the Divine Code by Rabbi Moshe Weiner, Ask Noah International, 2011, p 531. Rabbi Weiner derives the prohibition from Genesis 6:12: "As all flesh has corrupted its way upon the earth" (meaning that the men habitually ejaculated their semen upon the ground).
Yes, that's true, they do see it that way. My sense is not only do they see it that way due to their not reading the commentaries (which most would reject as Pharisees driven by their own traditions), but also because it is important for Christians to find physical manifestations of God in the Tanakah, i.e., "the Angel of the Lord" is a theophany, etc, etc, etc. The purpose of this is to eliminate their concern that belief in a materialized God is not authentic, which is done by finding it in the Tanakh, even if that means warping the text.
I've written more about this on the Trinity page: https://hashemisbeautiful.blogspot.com/p/finding-trinity-in-torah.html
I also have a knack for horror films and find them entertaining.
I haven't seen the Tikkun HaBrit movie; is it actually a movie, or more like a presentation?
Yeah, Tikkun HaBrit is some serious stuff in Judaism, and Jews also get into a lot of trouble with that aveira. Biblically speaking, Yehudah's sons all died for doing it (although they weren't technically Jews).
I need to find this book that you've written about (The Divine Code). I'm sure it's on Amazon. I'm very interested in seeing all of the derivations of the Noachide Laws. From what I understand they expand out to 66 or 67. That might be a future post.
Be well!
Also, regarding those minority opinions, Messianics love them because they need anything they can to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, or that Jews don't technically reject beliefs that are similar to Christianity. For example, and I haven't studied it inside, but Rashi apparently says in Sanhedrin 98a that Isaiah 53 is about the Messiah, although his commentary on that verse says that it's about the Jews.
This is easy to deal with for a few reasons. One is that this subject, and subjects that are even more basic, generate many opinions. The other is the concern that the Messianic brought up which is that Rashi sought to conceal his view on this passage to prevent Christians (or Jews) from knowing about it. My answer to that was that Rashi's writings were commonly studied and people would have known his view. The Christian rulers at that time had a practice of scouring the Talmud anyway, so they might have found it anyway.
In the worst case scenario that he was trying to conceal it from the wrong hands, it's actually quite sensible given how they'd use a misunderstanding to advance an incorrect position (as they've done with the Tanakh itself).
In short, we have no fear of ideas in Christianity that are similar to Judaism; they should be influenced by it... We only disagree with incorrect conclusions drawn from such similarities.
Horror goes beyond entertainment: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tale as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naively insipid idealism which deprecates the aesthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to uplift the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism. But in spite of all this opposition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness" (Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft, Introduction).
Tikkun HaBrit is more like a documentary presentation. Especially moving is the interview with American serial killer Ted Bundy who kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women and girls. He said he was motivated by a pornography addiction and that other men he met in prison were, without question and without exception.
While this sin is grave and punished by God, after Sinai, Gentiles are no longer liable to capital punishment for spilling semen.
I recommend the Divine Code. I use it every day. It is the most authoritative and comprehensive explanation of the Noahide commandments ever written. According to the 4th edition, there are 91 main precepts within the 7 Laws of Noah.
Rashi cites a minority opinion that Gentiles are forbidden to drink the blood of a living animal. But the actual Torah Law follows the majority opinion as cited by Rambam in Laws of Kings, that Gentiles were never forbidden to drink/eat blood of a living or a dead animal.
Because the Talmud is full of minority opinions that are not followed, studying from it without guidance is impractical. The parts of the Talmud that relate to the Noahide Code have been quoted and explained in the Divine Code.
I really need to get my hands on the Divine Code.
Speaking of Bundy (yimach shemo), take a look at what I wrote about Gary Ridgway (also yimach shemo).
Given what we've been speaking about, you definitely need to watch these two:
Nir Abujam's Near Death Experience
Seance in the Army
I've watched each of them several times in the past ten years or so.
Make sure to read some Tehillim when you're done...
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