The Dybbuk

Plot Summary

Act I

The wife of Sander, a wealthy merchant, dies while giving birth to a stillborn baby. On the day of the funeral, Sander’s nine-year-old daughter, Leah, disappears from home. Sander and the nanny find her in the cemetery, where she watches pious women purify her mother’s body before burial. The scene leaves a deep trauma in the girl. Seven years later, Leah is sixteen. She was raised to be obedient and disciplined. During evening prayers, she and her friends, with the help of the women, admire the beauty of three wise yeshiva students who have arrived in the city. One of the avrechims, Hanan, leaves a deep impression on Leah. Sander invites Hanan and his friends to dinner. During the meal, Hanan secretly flirts with Leah. After the guests leave, Leah, moved and upset, admits that she longs for love, and confesses to her friends that she is in love. One of them, who has already been married by arrangement, talks about the suffering she goes through at night with her husband, a stranger to her.

At the synagogue, Hanan’s friends urge him to forget about Leah, because a poor beggar has no chance of marrying the daughter of a rich man like Sander, but Hanan cannot let go of his love. Just as Sander sets out to arrange a match for Leah with a member of a wealthy family, Hanan comes to him to ask for Leah’s hand in marriage. Sander becomes enraged and brutally beats him. Hanan remains bloodthirsty, and vows to do anything to win Leah. When Sander returns, he boasts in the synagogue about the matchmaking terms he has secured for his daughter. The worshippers celebrate with him.

After hearing of the expected matchmaking, Leah goes to her mother’s grave. Hanan, who has been following her, urges her to run away with him, but Leah refuses. A blind beggar, who overhears the conversation, predicts an approaching death. Leah comes with her foster daughter, Frida, to the mikveh to immerse herself before her wedding day. At the same time, Hanan goes down to the frozen river, in an attempt to appease hidden forces that will help him get Leah, but in the end he drowns in the river water.

Act II

Leah’s wedding day arrives. Sander hosts the area’s dignitaries and the town’s beggars come for a charity meal. The blind beggar tells Leah about “dybbuk” – restless souls that enter the bodies of living people. Leah dances a wild mitzvah dance with the beggars. When the groom arrives, Leah appears to be crazy. She speaks wildly and refuses to get married. The beggar declares Leah possessed by a dybbuk. Sander seeks the help of a tzaddik, a great rabbi in the Torah. After a long, humiliating wait, the rabbi agrees to come to his aid and expel the dybbuk from Leah’s body.

When Leah’s friends come to visit her at her home, they are horrified to find her chained up as if she were crazy. Frida tries to calm Leah down with a lullaby. Leah, for her part, sings about her father’s cruel oppression. In preparation for the expulsion ceremony, Leah is dragged to the synagogue. She begins to speak in the voice of Hanan, who refuses to leave her body and savagely confronts the tzaddik and Sander. At the height of the ceremony of expelling the possession, Leah enters a deep trance and sees Hanan in her mind’s eye. He begs her to escape with him again – this time to an inner world. Leah does not wake up from the trance. She remains alive, as a body empty of soul. Sander, left alone, mourns his beloved daughter who is lost to him forever.