The first time Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein was asked to be a ghostbuster, a man called and asked him for help getting rid of the ghosts that had taken over his building. Klein’s answer was straight and to the point. “Maybe -— but I can’t do it today. I could come maybe Sunday, but it has to be after I play baseball.”
The Rabbi has his priorities in order.
Known as somewhat of a renaissance man, Klein holds many official positions on campus. He is the executive director and founder of the Tannenbaum Chabad House Jewish Center, which is part of the campus ministry. He is also the kosher manager for the university’s kosher food program, a faculty fellow at the Communications Residential College, and Senior Chaplain of the Evanston Police Department, a position which has earned him the nickname “Rabbi Cop.”
Rabbi Klein also has had an interesting array of past employments and hobbies. On top of all his responsibilities on campus, Rabbi Klein has dabbled in cult-busting, worked as a photographer for the Chicago Tribune, and had his own sports radio show. And of course, he still plays baseball.
As for ghostbusting, Klein says that although he has done it a few times, it’s not his primary focus.
The first time the Rabbi attempted to rid someone of ghosts, he gave the man seeking help four steps to follow. A week later, he received a $10,000 check in the mail and the man’s gratitude for solving his ghost problem. Instead of keeping the money, Rabbi Klein donated all of it to the Chabad Organization.
Now instead of actively ghostbusting, he talks about his first experience dealing with supernatural spirits in a fireside called “Angels, demons, and ghosts: confessions of a Jewish ghostbuster.” In this fireside, which he presents each year around Halloween to Northwestern students, he also describes the different ethereal spirits recognized in Judaism.
“Judaism says that coexisting with this physical dimension are spiritual realities and spiritual dimensions,” Klein says. “When we talk about angels, there are positive angels, that want to reveal good in the world, and there are what we call demons, that are negative angels.”
In addition to angels and demons, which are agents of God, a third group exists in the spiritual dimension, which Rabbi Klein calls ghosts. But Klein’s idea of what “ghost” means is probably different from yours.
“A ghost, typically speaking, from a Jewish perspective, is a negative energy source that enters into an arena and can sometimes take on a physical form,” Klein says.
But the first time he solved a ghost problem, Klein says, he didn’t believe there were ghosts at all. What he sensed instead, when he visited the man’s workplace, was another spiritual entity: a dybbuk.
A dybbuk, according to Jewish lore, is a Jewish soul that has been blocked from reaching heaven and is stuck in Limbo.
“In Jewish tradition, we say that once a person dies, his soul or her soul is in Limbo,” Klein says. “During that period in time, it’s very painful for the soul.”
The only way the soul can escape Limbo and move on to the spiritual world is if the body is buried as soon as possible, Klein explains. Even if parts of the body become separated during life or death, all of the parts must be buried in order for the soul to continue on.
“Sometimes the soul will force its way back into this world and it can enter into another human being and possess it or it can just float into a specific location,” Klein says. “It wants to communicate with people in this world to help it escape Limbo."
Klein says that he doesn’t have any special supernatural powers that help him detect ghosts, but instead attributes his heightened perception to his intuition and spirituality.
“Yes, I’ve studied mystical things, which refines a person, but I’ve also trained myself not just to see the surface,” Klein says. “Sometimes we get so carried away in our corporeal self that we’re not in touch with our soul. But the soul can see a lot, a lot more sometimes than our corporeal self. That’s an acquired trait, to be able to be in touch with one’s soul.”
Despite his successes in ghostbusting ventures, Rabbi Klein says he’s not planning on increasing his participation in spiritual extermination. Instead, he hopes to continue to do what he really loves: advising and making connections with students.
“My rabbi used to say that his job is to help people reach their light switch so that they can turn it on,” Klein says. “I see that as part of my responsibility and job, that I have to help people reach their own light switch so they can create the miracle of their own life."