Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 6

Sugya Map

• The Core Prohibition: The parameters of Ov (necromancy via vocal ventriloquism/skulls) and Yid’oni (divination via bird bones/trance).
• The Nafka Mina: Does Ov require a physical ma’aseh (action) to trigger karet or chattat? Does Yid’oni rely on the same threshold?
• The Legislative Tension: Maimonides’ classification of these acts as Avodah Zarah versus the Talmudic debate on whether these constitute distinct violations or a singular category of "prohibited sorcery."
• Primary Sources:
  • Leviticus 19:31 (The prohibition: Al tifnu el ha-ovot).
  • Sanhedrin 65a-b (The definition of the Ov and Yid’oni ritual).
  • Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Shegagot 1:1 (The classification of the sin offering for these specific acts).

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Text Snapshot

• "העושה אוב או ידעוני... חייב כרת" (MT 6:1): Maimonides opens with the chiyuv (liability). The term “haho’seh” (the doer) implies a deliberate, constructive act.
• "הקשת זרועותיו" (MT 6:1): Maimonides notes the Ov practitioner "waves" a myrtle wand or uses a skull. The dikduk here is crucial: Haqashah suggests a percussive, rhythmic, or ritualized movement that Maimonides defines as a ma'aseh (action).
• "קול נמוך" (MT 6:1): The yid’oni and ov phenomena are characterized by a voice emanating from the "armpits" or "below the earth." This is not mere acoustic illusion; it is the essential element of the prohibition, the "speaking" of the entity.

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Readings

The Peri Chadash: The Dialectic of Ma’aseh

The Peri Chadash (ad loc.) identifies a profound systemic tension in the Rambam’s categorization. He notes that in Hilchot Shegagot, Rambam lists Ov and Yid’oni as acts requiring a chattat. The Peri Chadash asks: If the Talmudic sugya in Sanhedrin oscillates between whether Ov is a single action or a composite, how does Rambam arrive at the requirement of a chattat for both?

The Chiddush of the Peri Chadash is to force a reconciliation between Rambam and the conflicting opinions of R. Yochanan and Resh Lakish. He argues that Rambam, by insisting on the "incense" (maqter) as the ma'aseh, effectively bypasses the debate. If the act is defined by the maqter (the burning of incense), then the ma’aseh is objectively present, rendering the debate over the "wand waving" or "bone in mouth" secondary. He concludes that Rambam accepts the ma’aseh as a prerequisite, distinguishing between the yid’oni that involves burning incense (liable for chattat) and the yid’oni that is merely placing a bone in the mouth (not liable for chattat).

The Tzafnat Pa’neach: The Jurisprudence of "The Act"

The Rogatchover Gaon (in Tzafnat Pa’neach) approaches this from a purely formalistic perspective. He posits that Rambam’s insistence on the maqter (incense offering) across both Ov and Yid’oni is not merely descriptive but definitional. For the Rogatchover, the prohibition of Ov is not the "necromancy" itself, but the Avodah Zarah (pagan worship) performed as part of the necromancy.

His chiddush is that Ov and Yid’oni are essentially subspecies of Avodah Zarah. Therefore, the ma’aseh required is not a "magical" act, but a "cultic" act. By offering incense, the practitioner validates the "entity" as a god. Thus, the karet is not for talking to the dead, but for establishing a cultic relationship with a power other than the Almighty. This solves the kushya of why the Yid’oni (the bone-in-mouth trance) requires a ma'aseh—the maqter elevates the trance to the level of sacrificial service.

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Friction

The Strongest Kushya: The Chattat Paradox

The central friction point is the contradiction between Hilchot Shegagot and the Sanhedrin discussion regarding the ma’aseh of Yid’oni. If the Yid’oni involves placing a bone in one's mouth, and the Talmud suggests this lacks a traditional ma’aseh (as the mouth is a natural cavity), how can Rambam mandate a chattat? A chattat is only brought for a ma’aseh. If the act is merely holding a bone, where is the ma’aseh?

The Terutz

Two solutions emerge:

1. The Maqter Anchor: As the Tzafnat Pa’neach suggests, the ma’aseh is not the bone; it is the maqter (incense) that accompanies it. The bone is the instrument of state, but the incense is the instrument of worship. Without the incense, one might be a ba'al ov in a colloquial sense, but one is not liable for karet or chattat because the Avodah Zarah element (the sacrifice) is absent.
2. The Formalist Distinction: One might argue that the ma'aseh in Yid’oni is the "falling into a trance" (k'mo epileptic). Rambam treats the loss of self-control as the ma’aseh. This is a brilliant, albeit radical, reading: the ma’aseh is the psychosomatic state induced by the practitioner. The act of "becoming the vessel" is the forbidden action.

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Intertext

• Sanhedrin 65b: The Gemara asks, "How is one who performs Ov liable? By waving his hand?" The Sifrei (cited in the Gemara) establishes the maqter as the defining feature. Rambam’s inclusion of the maqter in MT 6:1 is a direct mirror of the Gemara’s requirement to avoid the kushya of "non-actionable" sorcery.
• Leviticus 20:2-3: The text explicitly links Molech to Ov/Yid'oni. Rambam treats them sequentially because the issur (prohibition) is functionally identical: the transfer of human vitality or the human spirit to a non-divine locus. The Molech sacrifice is the physical extreme of the Ov spiritual extreme.

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Psak/Practice

The Psak here is that Avodah Zarah is not merely "belief"; it is "procedure." Rambam’s insistence on the physical acts (incense, wand, stones) serves as a meta-halachic warning: the Torah does not judge the intent of the heart in a vacuum. It judges the cultic manifestation of the intent.

In modern application, this serves as a heuristic against "syncretism." Even if one claims to be "praying to God" (as noted in the case of the kneeling stone), if the form of the prayer mimics pagan worship (prostrating on stone outside the Temple), the act is forbidden. The form dictates the essence.

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Takeaway

The Rambam reminds us that the Torah is a religion of the body as much as the soul; heresy is not just a thought, but a posture. Whether waving a wand or planting a tree, the halacha regulates the gestures of our devotion to ensure that our worship remains exclusively directed toward the Infinite, untainted by the mimetic structures of the surrounding culture.