Is this allowed in Torah?
A fair question, and an old one. Here is the honest answer, with the sources.
The short version
There is a genuine, centuries-old disagreement among the greatest Torah authorities about astrology. Some forbade it outright. Many of the most important Rishonim studied it, wrote about it, and considered it a real part of the world Hashem created. What everyone agrees on is this: the stars may incline, but they never compel — and for a Jew, they are never the final word.
Mazalot is built to live firmly inside what the permitting view allows: a tool for self-understanding and reflection, never for fortune-telling, and never for deciding what to do. We explain the line below.
What the Torah clearly forbids
The Torah prohibits divination and sorcery: ov and yidoni (necromancy and mediums), me'onen and menachesh (reading omens and "lucky times" to decide one's actions), and asking the dead or false powers about the future (Vayikra 19:26, Devarim 18:10–11). The Rambam (Hilchos Avodah Zarah, ch. 11) takes the strict view: he holds that using the stars to predict or to choose when to act is forbidden, and dismisses it as without substance.
So: using the stars to tell the future or to decide what to do — "I won't start this because the day is unlucky" — is exactly what the Torah warns against.
What many great Rishonim permitted
The Ramban (Nachmanides) and the Ibn Ezra held that the constellations are a real system through which Hashem governs the natural world. Ibn Ezra wrote serious astrological works and wove this understanding into his commentary on the Torah. In their view, studying the cosmic order — as a way to understand the natures Hashem placed in creation — is not forbidden sorcery; it is studying the world.
Their key qualification: a Jew is not meant to live under the stars. Through Torah, mitzvos, and closeness to Hashem, a person rises above whatever the mazal would otherwise incline them toward.
"Ein mazal l'Yisrael"
The Gemara (Shabbos 156a) records the famous teaching of Rabbi Yochanan: ein mazal l'Yisrael — Israel is not bound by its mazal. The Gemara brings stories where a decree "written in the stars" was overturned: Rabbi Akiva's daughter was foretold to die on her wedding night, and her act of tzedakah set the decree aside. The lesson the Sages draw is that tzedakah (charity), tefillah (prayer), and teshuvah (return) transcend the mazal. The chart is not a sentence. It is, at most, a starting tendency that a person is free — and obligated — to elevate.
The principle we build on
This is the line the Sages draw and the line Mazalot is built around: the mazal predisposes; it does not decree. A chart can describe a raw energy you were given — but what you do with that energy is yours. The same fierce drive can build or destroy; the work of a life is to channel it well. A reading here is meant to be a mirror for your middos (character traits) and your free choices, not a forecast of what will happen to you.
So where does that leave Mazalot?
We deliberately stay inside the permitting view:
- For reflection, not prediction. We describe character and tendencies. We do not tell you what will happen or what you must do.
- No divination. No ov, no yidoni, no contacting anything, no "lucky days" to govern your decisions.
- Free will first. Everything here assumes you are free to rise above any tendency the chart describes — exactly as ein mazal l'Yisrael teaches.
- Rooted in Torah sources. The framework draws on Sefer Yetzirah's letter and planet correspondences and the classical Jewish understanding of the cosmos.
An honest word
Because there is a real machlokes here, the responsible thing to say is plainly: if this matters to you halachically, ask your own Rav. Some will follow the Rambam and prefer you avoid it entirely; many will be comfortable with reflective study in the spirit of the Ramban and Ibn Ezra. We offer Mazalot in that second spirit — as contemplation and self-knowledge, with free will and Hashem's providence always above the stars.