The Starvation Dybbuk: A Cruel Tale of Love and Exorcism

Yehiel is a wealthy Jewish timber merchant in a shtetl in 18th century Poland, with a happy family at home, including a teenage daughter for whom he soon hopes to strike a fine marriage match. But then one night she suddenly refuses to eat and starts to cut and scratch at her own skin. Over the succeeding days and weeks, her behavior becomes ever more erratic and baffling. Terrified and confused at what could be happening to his beloved daughter, Yehiel desperately searches far and wide for answers until, at last, the famed kabbalistic master Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, comes to his aid. The Baal Shem Tov confronts the wandering spirit, the dybbuk, that has possessed her and performs a dramatic exorcism. But as Yehiel will learn, the exorcism was not the end of the spirit’s entanglement with his daughter.