The Halakhic Plight of Jewish Magicians

If you know anything about magic, you might be perplexed by this title. It goes without saying that there’s no shortage of Jewish magicians! Joshua Jay highlights many potential reasons in a Jewish Review of Books article, as does Asi Wind, in The Forward.

Yet despite the over-representation of magicians that happen to be Jewish in the profession, very few are Jewish magicians. Most people, I think, would be hard pressed to think of a Jewish magician they’ve seen (even an unambiguously frum-presenting one) who integrates substantive Jewish content into their performances. In other words, in the world of magic, there are many Jerry Seinfelds but seemingly no Eli Leibowiczs.

I can’t comment here on why Jewish magicians in general tend not to incorporate their religious identities into their work (with one notable exception being Arthur Kurzweil), but I have a few suspicions about why Orthodox ones don’t.

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Chaim Metzger, suggested that the lack of Orthodox magicians engaging in substantively Jewish content may be because they want to be “like Moshe and not Bilam and Balak.” This could use more unpacking than we have time for in this essay, but suffice it to say that the Biblical portrayals most like modern-day magicians (those who use trickery or even use real magic for what we can call entertainment purposes) are presented in a universally negative light in our holiest text. Yet, if that were all, we wouldn’t see the hundreds of kippah-clad magicians that we do in the first place! The fact that there are so many Orthodox magicians, yet so few integrate their Jewish knowledge with their magic, implies to me that something else is going on.

My primary idea is what I call the halakhic dissonance caused by the many legal sources that seem to forbid performing magic tricks, full stop.

Addressing the topic of attending a stage hypnosis performance in Nefesh HaRav, Rav Hershel Schachter records that Rav Soloveitchik was asked if it was permitted for someone to be put under hypnosis for entertainment rather than medical or therapeutic purposes. The Rav answered that it is forbidden. Pressed for reasoning, he explained that the matter is stupid and that it is forbidden to engage in such stupidity:

Hypnotism – They asked our teacher (Rav Soloveitchik) whether it is permissible to place someone under hypnotic suggestion, not for medical purposes, but merely for entertainment or joking around. Our teacher responded that this is forbidden.
When they asked for the reason behind the prohibition, he replied that such a thing is foolish (literally “סטופיד”), and he prohibited engaging in foolish matters.

An expansive reading of this position would equally forbid both performing (and even attending!) a magic show, but it would just as easily forbid any number of entertainment sources with which Jews universally engage. Thus, it would seem that this position isn’t followed within the Modern Orthodox community.

There are, however, additional halakhic considerations to keep in mind. Maimonides, for example, rules that “one who performs magic tricks and deludes those who observe him into thinking that he performs wonders although he is not doing so” is included in the prohibition against fortune-telling and is liable for the same punishments. This position is accepted by the Shulchan Aruch, Shach and Chochmat Adam. In more contemporary times, Rav Ovadia Yosef ruled the same way in Yechaveh Daat (3:68). His position is recorded by Rav Yitzchak Yosef in the Yalkut Yosef Kitzur Shulchan Aruch:

It is prohibited to hire a “magician” who performs sleight-of-hand tricks using quick movements and dexterity, even though he does not perform any actual acts of sorcery. This is [still] a Torah prohibition. It is forbidden to do so even for the sake of bringing joy to a bride and groom or for Purim festivities. However, if the magician is a non-Jew, it is permitted to watch his tricks.

According to this position, it might well be biblically forbidden for a Jew to perform as a magician, even in situations where it is known to be done by sleight of hand as opposed to supernatural means.

Ashkenazi authorities, however, find slightly more room for leniency. The OU, in their daily halakhah, summarize the position of Rav Moshe Feinstein:

Why is this different than any other special talent that seems inexplicable? For example, if a person is unusually strong, would it be forbidden for him to lift a very heavy object because it might appear to the onlooker to be a supernatural feat? Why would being quick with one’s hands be any different? Therefore, Rav Moshe maintains that it is only forbidden if one pretends to be doing black magic. However, if the performer makes it clear that his tricks are sleights of hand, it is permissible according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, Rav Moshe concludes, he does not wish to give a definitive ruling since there were many great rabbis who were strict.

Rav Moshe Shternbach also room for leniency provided certain conditions are met, but still advises staying away from such activities:

From a halachic standpoint, it appears to be completely forbidden to perform such acts when the audience doesn’t know what they’re seeing. This is because it gives the impression of sorcery. However, if the performer makes it explicitly clear that this is not sorcery but rather a skill that anyone can learn, then it is permitted. Still, I am concerned that people may see the sleight of hand but not hear the explanation that it isn’t sorcery. Therefore, the more appropriate approach is to be stringent, and it should only be permitted when the magician openly announces—using clear, everyday language—that "this is not magic or sorcery, just a skill." In that case, even though it may look like sorcery, it wouldn’t be prohibited. Nonetheless, this type of performance is not fitting for Torah-observant individuals or those like us, as it is not something we have seen practiced by our forebears.

… if the performer explains to everyone that there is no sorcery involved, only skill—and especially if they explain how the trick was done—then it appears there is no halachic prohibition, as noted above. Even so, it still seems proper to refrain from such activities, as previously stated.

Both Rav Moshes agree that the core issue is in misleading others by convincing them (or allowing them to believe) that acts are being accomplished by supernatural means. The prohibition at least theoretically (but not necessarily in practice according to either posek!) becomes inoperative once it is clearly explained to the audience that the act in question is accomplished by sleight of hand rather than through supernatural means.

The meta-concern for engagement in deception raises particular questions about the style of magic I perform - mentalism. Teller, of Penn and Teller, wrote that

when we see a mentalist, we are sometimes left wondering whether we have viewed a show or a science lesson. Many mentalists, doubting their ability to entertain as illusionists, dress their “entertainment” in quasi-scientific robes, suggesting, “if you concentrated on developing your natural abilities as I have, you too could do these wonders.” They hint that their illusions might be real.

This often involves the mentalist providing a real-world explanation, like psychology, for an effect that was really accomplished by a trick of the hands. Psychological suggestions, body language reading, and the like are real, but they rarely work consistently enough to rely on day after day in front of a paying audience. What mentalists do on stage, even if they say it is accomplished purely via psychology, is almost always as much a magic trick as “pick a card, any card.” There is a reason that Derren Brown articulates what he does as a mixture of “magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship” and Lior Suchard describes himself as using “three techniques: mind reading, mind influencing, and bullsh**.”

Presenting trickery as vast psychological insight is beyond question a violation of geneivat daat, as it can cause the audience to believe the performer is far more skilled, insightful, etc. than they actually are. The following story, for example, is recounted in The Definitive Mental Mysteries of Hector Chadwick:

Some years ago, I was taken aback by a clip from a TV show on a so-called “Science Channel.” The clip showed a mentalist’s performance of a book test [a commonly performed genre of mentalism tricks in which a book is opened to a random page and the mentalist divines the word being thought of by the participant], which it held aloft as a piece of scientific evidence for the ability to read facial cues. ‘[His] mind reading ability is not magic,’ Morgan Freeman’s dulcet voiceover informs us, ‘he’s reading tiny physical cues his subjects unwittingly give him.’ None of that is true, of course. His mind-reading ability is magic – a magic trick, to be precise. The mentalist in question backs up this view later in the same clip. I think every mental thought we have has some physical corresponding emission,’ he tells us. It’s difficult to know exactly who to blame here, and there’s always a chance that no one had any intentions of misleading the viewer. Possibly the producers were unforgivably ill informed and genuinely thought the mentalist was for real. Possibly the mentalist didn’t appreciate the exact context in which his performance and interview would be used. Whatever the case and wherever the blame, the end result remains the same: presenting fiction as fact and ignorance as understanding.

This problem is particularly bad in mentalism, but it just as easily can apply to magicians who say that they possess the dexterity to deal cards from the center of the deck but are (usually) only pretending to do so. Convincing others that you possess more dexterity than you do is no less a violation of geneivat daat than convincing someone you are an expert in psychology and body-language reading when you are not or even telling someone you possess psychic abilities. Greek Mentalist Phedon Bilek, in an article ironically dedicated to arguing against the use of disclaimers in performance, puts it well in describing a mentalist who uses disclaimers against the notion of psychic ability but takes credit for different skill:

Claiming he is using whatever ability (BS such as NLP, Body Language, etc.) is clearly NOT a lie for this performer. He is telling his audience that he could accomplish these incredible feats because Maria scratched her ear with her right hand’s middle finger while looking upward-and-to-the-left when asked to mentally list each letter of the alphabet backwards, and you know what, that’s fine. Yes, this guy is using disclaimers because he is ‘ethical’. Meaning: he doesn’t want to lie to his audience. This person doesn’t feel any guilt of having many people watching him believe this, and who then start buying everything pertaining to body language, NLP, or anything else he mentioned, in order to be able to do the same…

Moreover, nobody says anything when a magician uses subterfuges that creates the illusion of sleight-of-hand abilities he will never possess, or skills way greater than he actually has. Here, lying through one’s teeth is ethical. But, having the audience believe that telepathy might exist is unethical…

Certainly, then, Rabbis Feinstein and Shternbach are correct in requiring clear and obvious disclaimers that tricks are just that - not by passing the buck from God-given or supernatural abilities to being a master of psychological manipulation or expert at the card table, but by honestly admitting to the use of trickery and deception in their craft. Becoming, as James Randi called it, an honest liar. Returning to Teller, the silent magician recommends mentalists utilize a proclamation like the following:

“There are no psychic forces — no vibes, no auras, no influences from the stars, no voices from beyond the grave. I am an illusionist, but instead of conjuring with doves and tigers, I do tricks with information. If I do a good job, you’ll have something to think about on the long drive home.”

More language like that, in Teller’s words, will “help mentalism find its way out of the shadows of con-artistry and into the glowing area of real art.”

Even the clearest possible disclaimers, however, do not change how even Halachipedia summarizes the topic:

For Sephardim it is forbidden to perform a magic trick even though everyone there knows it is only slight of hand. According to many authorities it is a biblical prohibition. If it is a non-Jewish magician it is permitted to watch. Even Ashkenazim should be strict about this and not have a magic trick show. Others are lenient but preferable to have a non-Jewish magician.

With that being the common halakhic perception, there’s a clear impediment to being unapologetically Jewish while also performing as a magician or mentalist. I imagine that almost every magician coming from an Orthodox background at least somewhat wrestles with this dissonance and responds with some form of compartmentalization.

Is there, then, any way to craft a magic/mentalism performance that is unambiguously permitted by Halakhah? Yes. We’ll explore that in a few weeks. Stay tuned for part two!