Leslie Wexner's Lifelong Dybbuk
The demon at the center of the Ohio Victorian's secret
“On the morning Leslie Wexner became a billionaire, he woke up worried, but this was not unusual. He always wakes up worried because of his dybbuk, which pokes and prods and gives him the itchiness of the soul that he calls shpilkes [“pins” in Yiddish]. Sometimes he runs away from it on the roads of Columbus, or drives away from it in one of his Porsches, or flies from it in one of his planes, but then it is back, with his first coffee, his first meeting, nudging at him.”
The name of the dybbuk that latched itself around Leslie Wexner’s soul when he was four years old was Tharamasheekkeityotel [תרעמאשהקיייוטאל].1
It was Tharamasheekkeityotel that rode him, Tharamasheekkeityotel that thrashed him, Tharamasheekkeityotel that pushed him toward certain dark alliances and skin-tithed exchanges. When he spoke of Tharamasheekkeityotel, and this is to himself, Leslie Wexner the man spoke sparingly, and always in walkaround tones. Except for two mentions, both in 1985, first to a national magazine and a few months later to a smaller publication, mainly to clarify his earlier statements.
The information in this piece about Tharamasheekkeityotel the dybbuk — or more precisely, the deveka — was gathered from an archived article to which the author was granted access.
Special thanks to the Archivist of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Perfidore.
“The main issue involving devekas2 is that in order to bind them to an individual, their name must be uttered3 in the presence and direction of the intended tether. Many contemporary kavessels4 speak of summoning and binding devekas or shaydim5 at their bar mitzvahs at the absolute earliest. Wexner’s deveka has been with him since he was four years old, which leads the question: who bound the demon to him as a child? And what was their reason for doing so?"
Judaism is a religion of dense and deeply unspoken names. Some are of the left, most are of the right. The longest names preceded the creation of life and all things, and the shortest ones will endure long after the memory of humanity has faded from the garden where the experiment was held.
The way Jews speak of God, colloquially, is by using a Hebrew word that transliterates into “the Name.”
T h e n a m e ǝ ɯ ɐ u ǝ ɥ ꓕ
In Hebrew, this reads as “Ha shame” [השׁם], which the quirks of Ashkenazi pronunciation turn into Hashem.
Hashem refers to a specific name made up of four letters. This is one of many.
In Judaism, God has more names than there are numbers, which is troubling to contemplate because numbers are infinite and what is more than infinity?
That which stands outside it. That which we call God. A being of endless names.
There’s the four lettered name. This one is called the Tetragrammaton and is the name most commonly used in prayer.
There’s the six lettered name. This one is inscribed in mezuzot on the doorframes of Jewish homes throughout the world (and, in seventeen instances, within it).
There is the eleven lettered name. This is how God introduced Himself to Moses at the burning bush. A scene of fire, eternity, and the vast eyes of the desert.
There’s the forty-two lettered name. Arranged in six groups of seven letters, this name is derived from a kabbalistic prayer of cosmic harmony. A song of calamity.
There’s the seventy-two lettered name. This one is accessed by combining three verses in the middle of the book of Exodus and reinterpreting them through a process of drash called resegmentation.6
There is the three hundred eighty three lettered name. Little can be said of this one.
The two thousand three hundred and forty lettered one. Even less about this.
And of course there is the 304,805 lettered name of God. This is the total number of individual letters in the Torah. Some mystics claim7 the entire Torah is simply God’s name broken up and resegmented into laws, stories, and strange histories.
The above names — and it’s important to note that even though there are infinite names for the thing, there is only one form of the thing — are found in numerous mystical sources I won’t link to here. The names are meant to be contemplated or visualized — their correct pronunciation is forbidden and reserved for deep mystical practice, which for Jews cannot commence until they reach the age of forty, or מ, and only then with the aid of a teacher.
Shortly after Leslie Wexner the man turned forty, he had a Godly experience that changed the course of his life. It involved snow, darkness, and a
t d h
e e a
a a n
c d d
h n l
e i e
r k rnamed Tharamasheekkeityotel.
“Inside The Limited’s million-square-foot distribution center, music is playing. It always plays wherever Les Wexner is — in all six of his homes, in his offices, in his 2,340 stores. It plays, even though he never listens, because he hates to hear nothing.”
In 1985, Leslie Wexner hated to hear nothing because from nothing, from the silence of the universe, would come the voice of his dybbuk, Tharamasheekkeityotel.
A short consideration of the word dybbuk. And, more precise to our case, deveka.
Both “dybbuk” and “deveka” come from the same Hebrew root, DVK, or דבק, which means to cling. In positive Jewish thought, the idea is devekut, a lofty state of “clinging” to God. In negative Jewish thought, the idea is the dybbuk/deveka, or a clinging spirit.
A dybbuk is an outwardly malevolent entity that possesses a living person on account of unresolved currents, a desire to be near to the God-spark slumbering in every human, or a third reason we cannot discuss here8.
A deveka is the same thing, with one notable difference: whereas the dybbuk appears and presents exactly as it is — a clinging negative force — the deveka is more deceptive, opting to appear as something good.
To Leslie Wexner, it came not as a devil, but an angel.
“The afternoons are long, filled with business calls, meetings, and an unyielding stream of papers for him to look over, edit, approve or disapprove, and sign. Staying so busy, Wexner claims, is central to his success. But it’s also central to his main hobby, outside of captaining the ship of his industry and enjoying the many toys his toils bring him: avoiding his dybbuk, which he does by plugging his brain into his business the entire clock through."
The demon Tharamasheekkeityotel appeared to Leslie Wexner six times in physical form. Three of these were as the man it was bound to. A demon with his own face. To Leslie Wexner, this was pure horror, a feeling like turning a corner of the world and encountering your identical twin, who does not exist.
After each of these meetings, Leslie Wexner the man retired to his mirror, where he sat before himself in reflection, long afternoons, powerless and entranced, decisions and rustlings occuring within and yet far from his plane of awareness or control. Enslavement. To himself and his achievements, but also to their source. Wealth and power and might are human gains and can often serve as reminders that there are worlds other than these9. Not all elites are so lucky.
On the first, fourth, and last10 occasion that the demon Tharamasheekkeityotel appeared to Leslie Wexner, it was in a different form, not as him, not as any man at all, but as a higher being.
And when a being of such gracious power materializes before you, a segment-swapping mood-sheltering spectre of internalized order, it’s difficult to see it for the devil it is.
When it suggests a certain merger with a small firm in Omaha, you ask no questions. When it tells you that the money manager with the long face and the bushy eyebrows should be trusted at all turns, you ask no questions. When it underlines his idea for the lingerie line, which he shares from the end of a thirty foot table of polished bone on the fifth floor of the townhouse you can no longer stand11, you ask no questions. When, at the end of all of this, it takes your hand and leads you through the light doorway to the dark place, you ask no questions. You cry a little, but you ask no questions. You know how much there is to repay.
“Leslie Wexner met this demon again when he was 40 and already worth half a billion, when he climbed the mountain in front of his house in Vail, almost froze to death, and decided to change his life. The mountain did this to Les, moved him up onto the peaks of noble visions.
On the mountain, things are remembered. On the mountain, people forge through themselves and are formed. The mountain in the desert was hot with names and lightning, but this mountain, in the Gore range of the Rockies, was cold and worn through with the scratched avian footprints of Leslie Wexner’s lifelong dybbuk.
Something happened between him and Tharamasheekkeityotel on the cold mountain the night forty-year-old Leslie Wexner nearly lost his life. Climbing his property in the middle of a snowstorm to show his might and his worth, his ability, his last hope was to encounter that figure again, sitting on an icy tree branch, calm as a snake in a garden. And when he heard the demon breathe, Leslie Wexner felt cold-blooded for the first and only time in his life. Time paused, the snowflakes froze, literally froze, as in stopped moving, and those familiar eyes, hideous and hooded, blinked once, twice, three times. He would say no more about what happened.
Leslie Wexner the man made four mistakes when confronted with Leslie Wexner the demon, as Tharamasheekkeityotel [תרעמאשהקיייוטאל]12 called himself when it wore his face. It’s something to wear another, isn’t it? the man heard his reflection whisper to him in the mirror. This was after its second appearance. Isn’t it wonderful — raw, really — to see me through the cuts in your eyes, dear? Sad, though, how limited. Thank you for the clothes. Thank you for the clothes.
One human life. One entity. One God. <Life is short.> Death is endless.
It’s acceptable to include this particular entity’s name, even in its original Hebrew, since the vowels are not shared and thus the acute and correct pronunciation is withheld. This component, as well as two others, is absolutely required for “ensnaring that which vorcexes,” as binding rituals are described in Sode HaSadeh, a short mystical tract from 12th century Italy. There is thus no immediate threat of the demon’s presence (and potence) being misused.
However, if you or someone you know is attempting to correctly pronounce demon names, don’t hesitate to call St. Theresa’s Greyhaired Gunt-Slayers at 888-8888 (dial it thrice, hit the 0 eight times, and wait)
As opposed to “dybbuk”
In its correct and precise pronunciation
Or “deveka vessels,” a concept explained in more depth earlier in the article
By erasing the vowels and breaking them up into different words, you find new meaning, or the idea hidden beneath the surface order of the words. It’s like how the smash of GODISNOWHERE can be broken into opposite meanings:
God is nowhere.
God is n o w h e r e.
God is nowhere. God is now here. How? In names. Always in names
Notably Nachmanides (which is also the name of a band based in New Albany)
This reason cannot be discussed to avoid perking the ears of the [REDACTED]
Keep roland roland with two Jakes in the chamber
This is before the actual final meeting of the two, still to come
You’ve hated the townhouse ever since that one instance two years earlier when you saw Tharamasheekkeityotel emerge from a bathtub a young woman had stepped into
Do NOT try to pronounce this name in its original Hebrew
Outstanding article. I landed here because I’ve been wondering if Wexner passed his dybbuk to Epstein…