As long as I remember, I have maintained a belief in the Evil Eye. To me, this boils down to the simple idea that the way you speak, whether about yourself, other people, or future events, can have an effect on what comes to pass. In addition to this, I believe in the power of a glance. One furtive look, one searing glare, sensing someone’s eyes burning into the back of your head, the feeling of someone sliding their eyes across your face, or getting “looked up and down:” all of these can have profound effects on our state of mind. It may sound far-fetched, but I believe that the way we speak and the way we cast our eyes can draw down a negative force – the Evil Eye – onto ourselves or others. There is another thing that is believed to bring one the Evil Eye, which I also accept: a sudden fright or shock can cause the Evil Eye to come upon you. Countless cultures have a concept of the Evil Eye – the phrase appears in dozens of languages, from Welsh, to Sanskrit, or Polish. In Yiddish and Hebrew, it is called the Ayin Hara.
There is debate as to whether belief in the Evil Eye can co-exist with Judaism. One may ask the question: Is superstition a legitimate form of religious and cultural practice or expression? The Evil Eye does not appear in the Tanakh, but it is taken seriously in the Talmud. Over the centuries, Jews have developed segulas (charms or remedies) for dealing with the evil eye, including amulets, inscriptions, incantations and rituals. I have practiced one such ritual: blay vaks, the practice of pouring wax into water to remove the Evil Eye from a person. Other sources speak of “blay gliessen,” or pouring lead. Lead can be used instead of wax, but I chose to use wax as lead has toxic properties.
Last semester, I had two close friends who were experiencing painful emotional stressors that were taking up much of their time and energy. One friend spoke continuously of “being in a rut.” He found himself frozen at a crossroads. He was engaging in self-sabotaging behavior and felt unable to free himself from these destructive patterns and move on to the next stage of his life. The other friend had become embroiled in a relationship of life-altering intensity, which exploded abruptly, leaving him in a state of emotional shock. Both seemed like they were experiencing a pattern of bad luck that was not abetting, and I secretly wondered if they might be affected by the Evil Eye.
With the first friend, I suspected that being involved in persistent interpersonal conflict had led to someone inadvertently casting the Evil Eye on him. For the second friend, I believed that the extreme shock he had experienced had brought the Evil Eye onto him. Around this time, I had enrolled in an online class from the Yiddish Book Center, the topic being Yiddish Women’s Folklore, Rituals, & Magic.
It was during this class that I first heard of a ritual called “Blay Vaks,” that is, pouring wax. I learned that this was a ritual that was performed in order to remove the Evil Eye from someone, and it was performed by both Jewish women and Christian Ukrainian women in the Pale of Settlement. It is still practiced by some elderly Ukrainian women and Jewish women today. In short, the ritual involves reciting an incantation against the Evil Eye and melting wax on the stove. Then, the practitioner, known as an Opshrekherin, (one who removes the Evil Eye) would pour the molten wax into a bowl of cold water held over the person’s head while they are sitting in a chair, at the same time counting backwards from nine. The wax solidifies immediately, and is removed from the bowl. The person is given three sips of the water to drink, and the shapes in the wax are interpreted, and the water is thrown out the door.
Throughout the class, an idea began to form in my head: I had tried to help my two friends by being a listening ear, giving gentle advice and encouragement, and offering to spend quality time with them, but perhaps it was time to attack the problem from another angle: Yiddish wax divination. I gathered my sources and materials, and drafted a procedure. I took meticulous notes in class, poured over incantations and tekhines for the Evil Eye in the original Yiddish, and gathered contemporary accounts from people who had undergone the ritual themselves. I collected leftover pieces of wax from my shabbos candles and havdalah candles each week in preparation to melt them down for the ritual. Finally, I approached my two friends with the unusual proposition: Let me determine if you have the Evil Eye, and let me try to remove it from you. (A side note: The first person I approached refused outright to let me attempt the ritual on him, though not for the reasons I expected. I asked him because I thought he might be interested as a fellow Yiddishist, expecting that he might say something like “I don’t believe in that kind of thing.” What he actually said was that I shouldn’t “mess with” the Evil Eye, and it might backfire on him!) Surprisingly, both friends consented. Understandably, they were tired of feeling how they were feeling, and they were ready to try anything.
The Ritual
The first time I performed Blay Vaks, it was a weeknight in mid-December. I packed the supplies I needed in my bike basket, put on my jean jacket and a wool scarf, and rode to my friend’s apartment on the other side of campus. I’ll call him Micah. Micah lived at this time on the second floor of a very small, very old brick house that was never meant to be two apartments, conveniently located a block away from the main library and Chabad house. He shared the second floor apartment with our friend Lydia, the layout of which necessitated that any visitor had to walk through Micah’s bedroom to get to the bathroom or kitchen. Micah let me in, and we walked up the narrow stars to the kitchen. I unpacked my supplies onto his kitchen counter, and began to melt the wax in a makeshift double boiler on the stove. The procedure I put together involved washing the pulse points with the water, and so Micah partially undressed to his boxer shorts and an undershirt, and his yarmulke. We waited in silence for the wax to melt, unsure of what we were getting ourselves into. As soon as the wax melted, I lowered the heat and began to read in Yiddish a tekhine for the Evil Eye, from a book called “The Merits of Our Mothers,” which I got at the library. At this point, something strange started to happen. What I had previously conceived of as a low stakes situation started to feel, well, dire. As I pronounced the words of the tekhine, I started sweating profusely, so much that a drop of sweat dripped from my nose onto Micah’s forehead, and the underarms of my shirt were completely soaked. My voice was shaking, my head was swimming, the text blurred on the page, and I struggled to formulate the words.
Finally, I finished saying the tekhine. Micah sat in front of me on a kitchen chair. I held the bowl of water over his head, my hand shaking, and poured the molten wax into the water while counting back from nine in Yiddish. I had also sprinkled dried rue in the water, a plant known for its anti-Evil Eye properties. Then when it was time to remove the wax from the water, something very poetic happened. The wax had formed a rippled yellow disk with thick bubbles in the water. When I tried to pick it up, a smaller disk of not-quite-solid wax slid gracefully off the surface of the first disk into the water. When I tried to pick up that disk, another disk slid off of that disk. We watched, transfixed, as again, and again, and again, smaller and thinner discs of wax slid out of each other each time I tried to pick one up, like a snake shedding its skin.
I removed the wax from the water and held the bowl of water to Micah’s lips for him to drink from, three times. Then, I dipped a cloth in the water and washed Micah’s pulse points. I chose to do this because I found a mention of washing pulse points in a similar ritual to remove the evil eye that involves extinguishing burning coals in water while counting backwards from nine, and washing pulse points with the water. I washed his temples, both sides of his neck, both sides of his chest above his ribcage, the fold of the arms, wrists, femurs, back of his knees, ankles, and the top of the feet. It was while I was washing his pulse points that I became aware of the erotic potential held by this ritual, present in the intimacy and vulnerability, and the sensuality of touching parts of the body that are not sexualized, but are usually hidden and not touched. After that, I threw the water out the window and we interpreted the shapes in the wax. We decided that it represented Micah seamlessly transitioning from one stage of life to another, one state of being to the next one, shedding the evil energy that surrounded him until all that remained was his pure self.
The second time I performed blay vaks was for my friend Adam. I was hoping that I would be able to help him move through the shock of the heartbreak he had just experienced, which surrounded him, almost as if he was tangled in a net. The ritual was the same, except I performed it in my own dorm, which is a huge wooden house by the woods. We had to run back upstairs to my room as quickly as we could after melting the wax in the kitchen downstairs, in order to pour it before it solidified. The same thing happened while I was reading the tekhine: I started sweating profusely, my voice shook, I struggled to pronounce the words. The wax did not form discs, but rather one tangled lump, like a jumbled knot. I believed the knot of wax represented the pain that trapped Adam, remnants, shockwaves, surrounding him.
I am interested in the rituals on the edges of tradition – what is unstandardized, what is almost forgotten, what has been passed down between women. Rituals that use the body, rituals that use wax and cloth and plants. They are still our inheritance if we choose to pick them up and dust them off. Judaism has so many practices to tap into, that have been built on and added on over hundreds of generations. They need not be forgotten. It’s not avodah zarah (idolatry); it’s a complimentary, parallel practice that satisfies different needs. Any Jew who does thoughtful research and prepares meaningful intentions can incorporate these rituals into their practice. Saying tekhines, making soul candles, blay vaks: these are just some examples of rituals that brought meaning to our ancestors’ lives, which we can use as spiritual tools today.
Here is my procedure for Blay Vaks, which I cobbled together from a few different sources.
- Melt wax in a double boiler. It is good to use leftover wax from shabbos candles, havdallah candles, or Hanukkah candles.
- Read incantation against the evil eye. You can find some here:
- Pour wax into a bowl of cold water held over your person’s head while they are sitting in a chair. I use water sprinkled with rue. Count back from nine while you are pouring in whichever language you choose.
- Remove wax from water.
- Hold the bowl to your person’s lips and have them drink three times. Try not to ingest the rue.
- Wash their pulse points with the water. There are nine symmetrical pulse points on each side of the body.
- Use your interpretational skills to decode the shapes in the wax. What is the source of their pain? Do they have the evil eye? What can they do about it ?
- Throw the water out the door.
- Finished 🧿
