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I think there has been a curse placed on me and I have no idea how to remove it.

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Shalom, Kavod HaRav! So, a friend of mine brought some little cacti plants from AZ & was suspiciously eager to get rid of them. She originally intended to gift them to Indian family across the street, but they politely declined, citing their culture. As a committed Yid I know (& she knows) that goyishe "spirituality" is a bunch of shtuyot, but she says she now can't shake it off & the cute little cactus plants now seem to be tainted to her. Being a good friend, I took one home. Rabbi Google was silent about their significance in Judaism, but did enlighten me that, according to Feng Shui, they bring bad energy into the home due to pricklies, & some more neutral info actually attributed endurance & resilience to this plant as a symbolic virtue (positive things & very Jewish characteristics, I guess). Have you ever heard of any badness associated with cacti in Judaism? Kabbalistic sources? I just want to ensure I verified all my sources & be able to present my friend with Rabbinic refutation (though she agrees with me in principle that us, observant Jews, don't believe in that narrishkeit). Toda Raba! Please email me at anyemets@hotmail.com with response. -Chana

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To relieve my anxiety, my doctor, who is an Orthodox Jew, wants me to play with a set of commercially marketed stones called ‘worry stones.’ They are sold in catalogs that sell a variety of small objects based on various cultures around the world. The idea behind them is you spend time rubbing them together and it supposedly makes you feel less anxious. I am not orthodox myself, but I am well connected with orthodoxy and I know enough to think it sounds to me like what is termed avoda zara. What do you think?

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Hello! When my cousin moved to a new apartment with her fiancé, I gave them a glass blessing for the home to hang up. My cousin had a recurrence of cancer and died. Her then husband gave it back to me because she did not “live in health”. I don’t want to give it to someone else (superstition). What should I do with it?

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Shalom aleichem Rabbi Lauffer. Thank you for answering my last question. I came across something in the Artscroll Shmuel Aleph that might have a bearing on a question Rabbi Lauffer answered for me a couple years ago, but I'm not sure if it does or not. I asked Rabbi Lauffer "Is one allowed to do a coin flip in order to determine the result of a sports competition that he is betting on, or is this prohibited because of what the Shulchan Aruch (Y.D. 179:1) writes that “One should not inquire from stargazers and not through lotteries" and Rabbi Lauffer graciously answered me saying, "Personally, I think that it is forbidden. The Sages teach that it is sometimes permissible to do certain actions that are comparable to stargazing and the like but only when there is some kind of a connection between the "omen" and the thing that it is being done for." The note in the Artscroll Shmuel p. 243 writes "According to Radak, omens are prohibited only if they reflect commonly accepted superstitious belief. However, a person is permitted to devise a sign to aid him in making a decision. Thus, the Talmud's citation of Jonathan does not mean to state that his action was impermissible. On the contrary, the Talmud's use of Jonathan's incident is to teach that it is appropriate to rely only on an omen that has been clearly stipulated in advance. A disquieting incident that has not been specified in advance only appears like a bad omen, and should be given no credence. Rema assumes that Radak's interpretation of the verse is coincident with the opinion of Raavad [and in opposition to that of Rambam], and Rema cites these two valid opinions regarding the use of omens (Yoreh Deah 179:4)." According to this Rema cited in the Artscroll, would doing a weighted coin flip on a calculator be permitted to decide the winner of a sports contest that one is betting on, or would it be forbidden as Rabbi Lauffer paskens. Thanks a lot.

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Can a Jew recite any magical prayer or spell of non-Jewish gods just for healing, money or any relationship purpose?