חוט של אשThe Spirit Driven Out

ḥut shel eshIn Gamatria ↗

Words alone made him a spirit; one lewd song let him in.

The Zohar on Vayikra reads 'if a soul sins and has heard the voice of the oath' as astonishment. Before birth each soul is led through 1,008 worlds, shown the scholars' glory and sworn not to sin. Still, no one should despair: a sudden fear of death is a herald's call to return. Then a story from the Ari's circle. The Ari sent R. Ḥayyim Vital to a possessed woman, warning that the spirit would lie about its name three times. Vital went at dusk; the spirit lied three times, named itself the fourth, and meant to leave through her throat and kill her. Vital held it there. Next morning it left through her little toe like a thread of fire. In life it had informed on Jews. It entered because she sang lewd songs lighting the Sabbath fire.

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