The Cellar Case in Pozna

It is told that in the years 5441 and 5442 (1680–1681) there stood a stone house on the main road of Pozna whose cellar was kept closed and locked, so that no one could enter it. One day a boy somehow broke through the door and went in. The family found him lying dead at the cellar doorway, and the cause of his death was never known.

Two years later, forces of darkness came down the chimney of the kitchen while the family was cooking over the stove, and every pot was found filled with dust and ashes, so that all the food was ruined. The forces grew bolder and entered the living quarters, where they seized the chandeliers and ornaments that hung there and threw them to the floor. They did not yet harm anyone. In time they began to enter the rooms themselves, and fear and dread spread over the household until the family had no choice but to move out.

A great outcry went up in Pozna, and the whole kehillah gathered to seek a solution. They first turned to exorcists and various priests, but nothing they did could drive the forces away. Then they sent a messenger to the renowned Rav Yoel Baal Shem of Zamość.

As soon as Rav Yoel arrived, he adjured the forces by oath and bound them with Divine Names to explain why they had come into a house where people live. Such forces normally have no permission to dwell in settled places and keep instead to filth and desolate wastes. They answered that the house was theirs, completely and according to the letter of Torah law, and they agreed to appear before a Beis Din and argue their case before the rabbinical court of Pozna.

The dayanim sat together with Rav Yoel and held the trial. One of the demons spoke. All the dayanim heard his voice, though they could see no form from which it came. He argued as follows. In earlier times the owner of the house was a smith, who lived with a demoness. She bore him children, forces of destruction, besides the human children he had from his human wife. The smith was deeply attached to her, and at times he would leave shul in the middle of the services to do her bidding.

Once, during the Pesach Seder that he conducted like every Jew, the smith rose in the middle of the meal and went to the outhouse. His wife grew suspicious and followed him. Through the keyhole she saw a beautiful room, with a lavish table set with gold and silver and a bed where a beautiful demoness waited for her husband. Frightened and downcast, she went back home. A quarter of an hour later the smith returned, and she said nothing to him.

The next day she went to Rav Sheftil, the son of the Shelah HaKadosh, author of Vavei HaAmudim, and told him everything she had seen. The Rav sent for the smith, who admitted that a demoness was his wife. Rav Sheftil wrote him a kameah with Divine Names and made him give her up.

Before the smith's death, the demoness came and wept, asking how he could abandon her and her children. Then she smiled and enticed him with embraces and kisses until he relented. On his deathbed he promised that she and her children would have a share of his inheritance, and he gave them the cellar. In the wars that raged in Poland between 5400 and 5418, the smith died in battle together with his descendants and heirs. "We demons are the only descendants left," the demon concluded, "and we have a right to our inheritance."

The people of the house answered that they had bought it at a full price and paid their share, and so they had acquired it rightfully and lawfully from the smith and his descendants. Besides, they said, they were human beings, while the demons were children of a demoness who had drawn the smith to her against his true will.

The Beis Din heard the case and ruled that the forces of darkness had no rights to any part of the house, since their proper place is not among settled people but in desolate wastes and deserted places. Rav Yoel Baal Shem then adjured and bound them by oath to leave the house and the cellar and go to the forests and the wilderness.