What’s wrong with being “spiritual but not religious”?
Table for Five: Shoftim
In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
Edited by Nina Litvak & Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
Let no one be found among you who consigns a son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead. -Deut. 18:10-11
Rivkah Slonim
Associate Director Rohr Chabad Center at Binghamton University
Reading this verse can easily trigger eye rolls. Who would burn their child before a deity? Who is silly enough to consult ghosts? The Torah further delineates forbidden (seemingly weird) practices including consultation with a scorpion diviner and one who speaks from his armpit, among others. The next verse implies that some of these methods are indeed efficacious. Still, a Jew must refrain from these practices because they are an abomination to God.
Reading this, I mentally reframe this in contemporary terms: conventional medicine, alternative healing, acupuncture, cold plunges, supplements, psychedelics, talk therapy, breath work, yoga, guided imagery, massage therapy etc. We use these modalities seeking redress from discomfort, disease, or distress. Indeed some of these therapies raise an eyebrow, but we push forward determined to find peace, tranquility and health. And if we could divine and control the future — even by means seemingly bizarre—would we not try?
After listing the above prohibitions, the Torah prescribes the way forward in an iconic verse: Be wholehearted with God your God. Trust in the Orchestrator of all things and events; accept His plan. Finding the sweet spot between faith, trust in the Divine (two different things), and necessary human overture is tricky. Know, the Torah teaches, that despite the many available (mostly permissible) conduits, the blessing and healing flows only from God. Our destiny, both personal and national, is not bound by soothsayers, physicians or even, politicians. We are with God alone. Let us be wholehearted in that privilege.
Dr. Sheila Keiter
Judaic Studies Faculty, Shalhevet High School
Uh-oh, you may want to reconsider that Hogwarts acceptance letter. These verses seem quaintly antiquated in our post-Enlightenment age. No one believes that nonsense anymore. Or do they? According to a 2024 Pew Research study, 30% of Americans consult astrology, horoscopes, tarot cards, or fortune tellers at least once a year. 43% of American women under 50 believe in astrology, the stars and planets’ ability to affect their lives. All these prohibited practices seek a single aim: to control fate. Child sacrifice seeks to appease the gods. Oracles, diviners, and mediums seek other-worldly knowledge to inform our actions, a form of supernatural insider trading as it were. Wizards and witches seek to alter fate by using magic to control the behavior of others. All these practices supplant genuine faith and interfere with our relationship with Hashem. We are supposed to depend on God’s benevolence, not seek to defy cruel, capricious fate.
I once overheard a tarot reading in a coffee shop. The tarot reader spoke in gross generalizations, and the whole affair sounded more like psychotherapy in its indulgent focus on the self. The experience made me sad. Why place so much stock in a deck of cards printed in China? Our ingrained need for spirituality ought to lead to genuine faith. Instead, so many turn to cheap knock-offs, spiritual trends bereft of any depth or moral responsibility. Spirituality without religious duty is mere self-worship. No matter your star sign, today is a good day for a relationship with Hashem.
Rabbi Chaim Singer-Frankes
Multi-faith Chaplain & Spiritual Care Guide, Kaiser Panorama City
Our verse reads like a divine firewall. No soothsayers, no necromancers, no spell-casters, no pyromaniacal child sacrifice; an uncompromising rejection of the practices swirling through the ancient Near East. Yet the ever-spreading Jewish diaspora lived and lives cheek-by-jowl with cultures steeped in precisely such arts. Jewish history is also the history of living among neighbors—and neighbors always bring their charms, talismans, and whispered spells to the party.
One of the many genius moves of diaspora Judaism is ongoing calibration of the covenantal spam filters by “kashering” some local customs through intricate reframing. From Babylonian astrologers to Greco-Roman augurs, from Sufi mystics to Slavic folk-healers, diaspora Jews were rarely completely insulated from cultural currents rich in precisely what the Torah forbids. Protective amulets? Verses from Psalms worn in a pouch. Dream interpretation? Proscribed in theory, practiced with rabbinic commentary in hand. Visiting graves to seek blessing? Not communion with the dead, Heaven forbid—merely asking a righteous soul to put in a good word.
Deuteronomy’s wall remains standing; its resilient sentinels remain curious and cautious at the gates, debating one another over the balance of the two. The blunt prohibitions of the Torah were not discarded but reinterpreted over centuries — preserving Jewish uniqueness while quietly allowing some resonances of surrounding cultures to hum beneath the surface. This deft improvisation reframes our neighbors’ folk rites by repurposing them for the essential Jewish mission: reclaiming the powers of the world for the service of the One God.
Rabbi Johnny Solomon
Spiritual Coach, #theVirtualRabbi at WebYeshiva.org
The shocking practice of a parent who mercilessly chooses to give their young son or daughter as an idolatrous burnt offering should sicken anyone with a moral compass. This is why, as Rabbi Yitzchak Abravanel explains, our verse mentions this activity first, because doing so is a far more heinous crime than augury, soothsaying, divination or sorcery.
Of course, most of us look towards such practices within the context of ancient history with no obvious modern application. However, I was recently forced to make a major life decision which connects directly with this verse. Having served as a Rabbi in a particular community for the past year, I had to decide if I and my family were going to leave our home in a different part of the country to move to that community permanently, while knowing that if I didn’t do so, I may have to forgo this pulpit position. Professionally, this was a great opportunity for me. But in terms of my wife and children, they really wanted to stay in our home.
Some months ago I met Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter who shared some blunt yet priceless advice with me: “Don’t slaughter your children on the altar of the Jewish community.” Given this advice and balanced with the choice of my family over my pulpit, I chose my family and stepped down as the Rabbi of that community. And why? Because to do anything different would mean to worship my pulpit above my wife & children.
Rabbi Ari Averbach
Temple Etz Chaim, Thousand Oaks
I recently heard an interview with a magician. To create his best illusions, he would think of a trick he wanted to do, then work backwards for how to make it work. With this method, he wowed audiences night after night, often bringing people to tears.
When asked how he did it, he demurred, as all magicians would. But then he was asked how much it cost to make one trick, and he said, “About $10,000.” It’s a worthwhile investment, as these tricks landed him a television deal and months of sold-out shows.
When I watch magic, as with when I experience any great art, I am moved (and maybe a little jealous). They have honed their God-given talent, worked to perfect their craft.
The Torah worries that people will think that a conjurer is actually a god. If this human being can pull a rabbit out of a hat or saw someone in half – or even just pick my card out of a deck – then they must be like the Lord Almighty, who brought about plagues and manna and parted the sea.
There is a fear in this. When given the choice between the One Whose words created the universe and a common prestidigitator, we might choose the one closer to us, distracted by the shiny object, by their impressive slight of hand, and lose our path. When you enjoy magic, remember that it is a perfected skill by a talented person, not the work of a false god.
With thanks to Rivkah Slonim, Dr. Sheila Keiter, Rabbi Chaim Singer-Frankes, Rabbi Johnny Solomon and Rabbi Ari Averbach.
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