Jewish Mysticism and Magic

An Anthropological Perspective

Maureen Bloom

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134103287
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Antropología cultural y social

Providing a unique anthropological perspective on Jewish mysticism and magic, this book is a study of Jewish rites and rituals and how the analysis of early literature provides the roots for understanding religious practices. It includes analysis on the importance of sacrifice, amulets, and names, and their underlying cultural constructs and the persistence of their symbolic significance.

Part I

1 PROLOGUE

This book examines and analyses early Hebrew and Jewish literature, offering a synthesis that is methodologically based in the anthropological tradition. Its opening sections introduce the Jewish scriptures, known to Jews as Tanakh and to the world as ‘the Old Testament’. The discussion moves to the later Rabbinical commentaries, the Talmud, and concludes with a selection of post-biblical Jewish texts. I do not seek to provide purely anthropological interpretations of these texts, nor do I superimpose a template from which to coax a set of diagrams or figures. I do, however, apply an anthropological technique – that of structural analysis – to show the development of certain themes and topics within the texts. In dealing with the emergence of particular themes, I shall argue that an analysis of those themes demonstrates evidence of progressive structural transformations relating to the beliefs and customs of Jewish tradition. Briefly, these themes relate to ancient Hebrew sacrificial rites, the nature of the relationship between the Hebrews and their God, and the development of rabbinic mysticism and magic; however, literature regarding miracles will not be treated. Magical texts were not written to procure or induce miracles, but were, in the main, emphatic and confident appeals to sacred symbols or beings, made in order to ward off the attacks of demonic forces.

It is not my intention to provide a micro-analysis of the minutiae of rites, laws or customs, but rather to observe the origins of a bigger picture emerging from the tradition. These origins, dating back two thousand years, are relevant still, and are in evidence in the contemporary private and public spheres. Today both in Israel and within orthodox diaspora communities, one sees affixed to doors, walls and windows of homes, business premises and even motor vehicles, various amulets that echo magical prayer formulae. Also commonly found are, for example, laminated cards inscribed with amuletic verses that incorporate the tradition of using patriarchal and matriarchal names (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Sarah, Rachel and Leah) as well as the names of three powerful angels dating back to the Talmudic period, as symbolic phylacteries for the bedrooms of infants or even older children. I am offering an explanation for these contemporary phenomena with a particular selection of ancient texts, analysing them in terms of general themes, where their underlying cultural constructs and symbolic significance have persisted and endured through time.

Bourdieu has described this phenomenon:

It is because subjects do not, strictly speaking, know what they are doing that what they do has more meaning than they know. The habitus is the universalizing mediation which causes an individual agent’s practices, without either explicit reason or signifying intent, to be nonetheless ‘sensible’ and ‘reasonable’. That part of practices which remains obscure in the eyes of their own producers is the aspect by which they are objectively adjusted to other practices and to the structures of which the principle of their production is itself the product.

(Bourdieu 1977: 79)

I would argue therefore that amongst the many who use contemporary amuletic modes of prophylaxis, few actually know the source, either in time or place, of the origins of their protective symbols and writings. In an offering of explication, I suggest that the subject of this book will give some indication as to the roots of Jewish use of symbols that date back to early sacrificial traditions and magical enterprises. Bourdieu wrote that habitus was ‘history turned into nature’. That concept gives rise to the practical realities, ‘the production of practice’, whereby the relationship between a social structure and the conditions that allow for the operation of habitus, is finally evident.

It is difficult to launch into a description of rites and rituals without providing a background, and this is one of the complexities of presenting my argument. Familiarity with scriptural texts is a fundamental requirement for the understanding of Rabbinic writings. These writings, the Talmud, consist of Mishnah and Gemara where Mishnah constitutes a ‘repetition’ of the scriptural texts, and Gemara provides the ‘completion’ of the Mishnah. In Rabbinic theory the discussion of the Mishnaic laws is considered a commentary on and extension of the scriptures. My initial task is, therefore, to scrutinize scriptural texts in order to establish the frame of reference for the Talmudic and non-Talmudic texts examined later.

Despite the traditional ideology of continuity between Scripture and Talmud, it is evident from the texts that the conceptual world of the ancient Hebrews, (later called ‘the Children of Israel’), differed from the conceptual world of the Rabbinic Sages. The relationship depicted between God and Adam and Eve was one of direct, open communication. The Rabbis are not so privileged. The early relationship between God and his creatures changes over time, and divine revelation was reserved for only a few righteous people. God’s promises of blessing and well-being are combined with exhortations to obey all his laws. Failure to do so would result in a cursed existence. The expulsion from the Garden of Eden was a validation of God’s threat. Knowledge of all things ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ and the gift of eternal life are not meant for humankind, for only God is omniscient and immortal.

In the Tanakh, privileged access to God is mediated by sacrifice. After Cain and Abel offered of their produce to God in a sacrificial rite, God spoke directly to Cain. God also spoke to the righteous Noah, telling him to build an Ark in order to escape the coming Flood. When Noah was eventually saved, he made a sacrificial offering to God in thanksgiving. Abraham was told, as a sign of his devotion to God, to offer up his son Isaac in sacrifice, but the divinely arranged substitution of a ram saved Isaac from immolation. Later, the revelation of God to the people as oikoumen, or community, had its culmination at Sinai, where all present heard the blare of trumpets and the thunderous rumblings of the mountain, all saw the smoke and lightning, and subsequently heard the word of God. But only Moses and the elders enjoyed the vision of a sapphire pavement that is considered to be part of God’s throne and majesty, and Moses alone ascended the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. Sacrifices to God followed the revelation at Sinai, and the people acknowledged God’s power and made communal pledges to obey his commandments. The sacrificial rite was accompanied by a sprinkling of the blood of sacrificed beasts over the mixed multitude, the erev rav, at the foot of Mount Sinai.

The significance of a sacrificial offering is given as evidence of a binding agreement between humanity and the divine. Regular ritual sacrificial offerings, qorbanot, are depicted throughout the Pentateuchal texts, particularly in Leviticus, the so-called Priestly code. Sacrifices took place in the wilderness, but later, when the Temple was built in Jerusalem, God decreed that sacrifices could be offered only at the Temple.

Prayers accompanied sacred services, and when the Second Temple was destroyed, the already well-established traditional liturgy took the place of the sacrificial rites. Alongside prayer, a new tradition developed in which the priestsacrificers were replaced by Rabbis chosen for their learning. Esoteric Rabbinic learning and mastery of mystical texts hint at the ascribed power and ability of certain Rabbis to control events by means of magical incantations and prayer formulae. Rabbinic holiness was a recognized attribute of some Sages, and their particular ability to gain access to God’s celestial kingdom was enshrined in Talmudic legend and ‘Hekhalot and Merkava’ texts. This same ability was utilized in the exercise of magical praxes, and the beneficent forces of God’s kingship were then made available to those who sought them.

Later Jewish beliefs sustained in Rabbinic teachings focus largely on matters of ritual purity and forbidden mixtures, (deriving from the scriptures), and upon the evolution of a complicated angelology and demonology. The nexus of scriptural teaching and Rabbinic exegesis is the concept of order, signified by obedience to God’s laws. The disordered existence brought about by lapses into ‘the ways of the Emorites’, darkei ha-Emori, includes worship of gods other than the single God who made Covenants with his people, indulgence in the practices of wilful bloodshed and murder, incestuous or banned sexual relationships, or in practices regarded as forbidden because they were part of the realm of witchcraft and sorcery, where demonic maleficence threatens well-being.

The battle against demons and misfortune was waged with magical incantations embodying particular notions of God’s holiness and power that were cryptically incorporated into letters, words and formulae. Many of these letters, words and formulae have as their inspiration and frame of reference the earliest significant evidence of a reaching out to the numinous in the scriptures, namely the sacrificial offerings made by those associated with such rites. God was concerned with the welfare of his people, but was unwilling to tolerate infractions of his codes of law. The power of such a God in areas of prevention and cure was a positive element in guaranteeing the efficacy of a ritual performance according to those codes of law. Whether the ritual performances were sacrificial offerings, ritualized prayer formulae, or magical incantations and praxes, they might ensure access to the divine kingdom and its power as long as they were executed within the constraints of acceptable requisites.

Rabbinic mystics of late antiquity had generated ideas that gradually filtered into the domain of magic and spell-writing. Rabbis themselves wrote spells for the health and wealth of paying customers, and these incantations appear on amulets and magic bowls. Less sophisticated spells, curses, incantations and imprecations were written by those eager to take advantage of the market in a belief system where demons were thought to influence fate and fortune. These ancient ideas were used throughout the years following the diaspora after the destruction of the Second Temple.

This book treats only the earlier traditions, hence the very brief inclusion of material relating to the emergence of the Kabbalah and Hasidism. Throughout the centuries the desire of the Jews for a close and personal relationship with their God has fuelled the aspiration to refine knowledge and practice that would lead towards passage to the Divine. The esoteric traditions of the mystical Sages of Late Antiquity were transformed by influential scholars and Rabbis, who followed centuries after, into other ways of approaching the kingdom of the holy God. Through the writings of the Zohar, ‘Book of Radiance/Splendour’, the Kabbalah that emanated from mediaeval Spain (in thirteenth-century Spain and later in Italy – Mantua and Cremona around 1560), the concepts were refined and elaborated in Kabbalistic treatises that influenced generations of Jews in Europe. Still later, the concept of d’vekut – cleaving to God – was made central to the adaptation of Kabbalistic ideas utilized by the Pietists, or Hasidim. In their development of Hasidism, a group of exceptional Rabbis of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Central and Eastern Europe believed that a mystical union with God would be possible via meditation and prayers of an ecstatic nature.

2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

My reading and interpretation of the works of early Judaism was prompted by a wish to discover and uncover an underlying social reality as revealed by the creativity of the authors. In the case of the rabbinical authors, I hoped to expose the mindset of this group of men who, in the main, succeeded in persuading their co-religionists to accept unquestioningly not only their opinions but also their decisions on issues that impinge on almost every detail of daily existence.

The texts under discussion are dated from Early to Late Antiquity, a division conveniently marked by the conquests of Alexander the Great around 331 BCE. Alexander’s Macedonian armies brought the ideas and cultural mores of Hellenistic civilization to the Levant and beyond, including areas in which major settlements of Jewish communities had been established following the first Diaspora of 586 BCE. The number of diasporic communities was increased after the destruction of the Second Temple in CE 70.

While looking closely at Talmudic medical texts, I expected to find therapies and remedies of a restrained and conformist nature, for the omnipotent God of Israel has the power to smite with disease and heal, to give and take away life itself, and, ultimately, to raise the dead.¹ Instead I found myself confronted with a paradox: strange recipes and magical incantations representing an apparent conflict with traditional Jewish beliefs.

The paradox of an omnipotent God challenged by magic or magicians drove me back to examine biblical laws and doctrinal beliefs, and drew my attention in particular to ancient Hebrew notions of purity, the sacred, sacrifice and sin. I then examined the development of magic in Talmudic texts, in Genizah material and the inscriptions on magic bowls. This meant extending my original self-imposed time frame of 150 BCE to CE 500 (the period in which the Talmud was conceived and finally edited) to a date around 200 years later. There are, nevertheless, good reasons to broaden the scope of the enquiry to include these materials. Scholars of Aramaic and Mandaic² magic bowl texts have assured me that these artefacts fall well within my original time frame, while scholars dealing with Genizah material agree that the tradition of writing magic spells and amulets is one of early antiquity. Artefacts produced as late as the seventh century are definitely part of this older tradition, even though archaeologically speaking, they are of ‘late antiquity’.

Fluency in Hebrew and some Aramaic has helped me in the analysis of the Miqrah, or Torah, the earliest holy Jewish writings. I have studied Talmudic texts and examined Hekhalot and Merkavah literature, which is an esoteric genre. Texts inscribed on Babylonian magic bowls are difficult to decipher and translate, and the same applies to the amulet texts of the Genizah. I have therefore relied on English translations of texts in some instances, one of the most valuable of which is Biblical and Talmudic Medicine by Julius Preuss.³ Leading academics in the fields into which I have ventured have been willing to give advice on or discuss their own work or deal with my problems with the texts.

An edition of the Talmud, one with a translation of the Aramaic into modern Hebrew, and another with a new English translation, has been prepared by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a leading Israeli Talmudist. Nevertheless, the problems facing scholars of Talmudic medicine are many, for the present-day knowledge of Sumerian and Akkadian was simply not available to early translators. Whether a plant mentioned in a Talmudic medical recipe is the same as a plant mentioned in an Akkadian medical text on a cuneiform tablet, and whether the given translation of that plant name in a particular edition of the Talmud is correct, is the sort of question that drives the research of the Assyriologists. Contemporary scholars and physicians read of the symptoms listed in cuneiform texts, pondering differences and similarities in an effort to identify diseases such as epilepsy or episodes of fever.

Scholars of mystical texts analyse structure and form, and, more particularly, address the problem of how the ‘Riders, or Descenders, ...