Maybe It's A Common Sense Thing

Tonight I'm wondering about dybbuks. Roger Ebert mentioned in his review of "A Serious Man" that perhaps the main character's ancestors had invited one across the threshold of their home, and this would be a bad idea.

A dybbuk is (usually) a soul that hasn't moved on for some reason. A cursory look through some websites said the dybbuk might have done something too bad to go to Gehenna, or that they weren't quite good or bad enough, or that they have unfinished business. The soul possesses another person, and this may be just so they can complete a task, or they may be trying to torment the person they possess, or any number of other possibilities.

I don't understand why it's necessarily a bad thing to invite one into your home. Yes, it's a soul possessing another person, and you don't know what it needs to do. It could be the dybbuk is here to settle something with you, but if so, then one would have to accept the possibility they wronged the lost soul, in which case it ought to be their responsibility to set things right. Maybe the dybbuk isn't even interested in you, it just needs to give the body a rest, and your home was nearby, looked like a nice place to catch some Zs.

Mostly, it strikes me as odd, the idea that because a couple let someone enter their home, and it turns out the body was possessed (and can they tell that somehow?), their descendants would be punished/cursed for it. Although, based on the review, I don't think that's the point of the movie, so much as the idea that for all our attempts to keep our lives orderly and under control, stuff we would rather not have happen will still happen, and we may not be able to figure out why.