THE LEGEND of the Jew as sorcerer supreme was of Gentile making, fashioned after the latest pattern of the up-to-date thaumaturge, but like most ready-made fables it fitted the truth none too closely. For if Jews were not the malefic sorcerers that Christian animosity made them out to be, they still possessed an ancient and honorable tradition of magic which had been solicitously nourished until in the Middle Ages it reached its highest stage of development. Sheltered from Christian eyes by secrecy and the impenetrable wall of a strange tongue and an even stranger mystical vocabulary and method peculiar to itself, there flourished in Jewish circles a magic lore as extensive and potent as any known to the non-Jewish world, yet markedly different in character and technique. The Biblical allusions to the practice of magic indicate a widespread acquaintance with its manifold forms at an early time, but this can hardly be called "Jewish" magic. It was merely a reflection of the superstitions of the Canaanites, re-inforced by importations from Babylonia and Egypt. Even the Talmudic period, reaching to about 500 C.E., did not yet produce a distinctive amalgamation of the various strands of tradition that led into it, duplicating in large measure the eclecticism of Hellenistic-Gnostic magic, which it itself influenced. Thus we find ensconced in the Hebrew lore beliefs and practices emanating from the entire Mediterranean world: representatives of ancient Babylon and Egypt nestled against Græco-Roman specimens, newer Egyptian developments, entering by way of the Hellenistic recension, hobnobbing with the latest Chaldaic doctrine, as exemplified in the Babylonian Gemara. Not until the Geonic age, which succeeded the Talmudic, do we find the beginnings of a definitely Jewish magic. It was in this period that Jewish mysticism, influenced to a considerable degree by Gnostic thought, Who was the Jewish magician? What sort of person engaged in this profession, if profession it was? We can do no better, to gain our first impression of the craft, than to inquire into the character of its practitioners. The orthodox picture of the sorcerer discloses some malevolent, dark creature, shunning the ways of men, haunting the black hours The popular notion of the witch, which was in the making as early as the eleventh century, is likewise reflected in the Jewish sources, but the use of such terms as lamie, broxa and estrie to describe the witch and her activities indicates the non-Jewish origin of the concept. We read in thirteenth-century works of witches with disheveled hair who fly about at night, who feed on the blood and flesh of infants and adults, who are accompanied and aided by demon familiars, who assume animal forms to carry out their nefarious designs. A story in Sefer Ḥasidim is a replica of dozens found in non-Jewish works: a man was attacked by a cat which he fought off; Though these ideas, taken over bodily from Christian superstition, occur from time to time in Jewish works, most writers make it clear that they have not Jews in mind when they advance them. "There are men and women" who do these things, but not Jews specifically. Yet some writers were prepared to admit that Jews, too, might be engaged in such activities. If the precentor prays for a sick witch, one should not respond "Amen"; if certain women are suspected of cannibalism a warning of the punishment that will be meted out for such crimes should be pronounced when they are present in the synagogue; when an estrie who has eaten children is being buried one should observe whether her mouth is open, for if it is she will persist in her vampirish pursuits for another year unless it is stopped up with earth. These remarks imply that Jewish communities suspected the presence of witches in their midst.4 But a study of the Hebrew sources, and of the factors that influenced 5 Yet, however true this dictum may once have been, their activity in magic proper was now narrowly restricted by virtue of the esoteric and learned base of that magic. Man asserted his supremacy by relegating to himself, along with all the other prized pursuits of this life, the big-game of magic. Knowledge of the names, through which Jewish magic worked, was inaccessible to women, for it required not only a thorough training in Hebrew and Aramaic, which most of them lacked, but also a deep immersion in mystical lore, from which they were barred. Evidently what the authorities had in mind was that women were the spearpoint of the forces of superstition, that it was they who propagated the bizarre notions upon which the popular imagination Nor was Jewish magic the exclusive skill of the "magician"—it is hazardous to assert even that there were such people as magicians, by profession. One may define the Jewish magician as a scholar by vocation, a practitioner of the mystical-magical arts by avocation. Every mystic, properly trained, could practice magic as a side-line. Indeed, the dangers of invoking the spirits without an adequate education in mysticism were frequently stressed, and the possessor of esoteric traditions and writings was sternly counselled to keep them hidden from the common glance, lest they be misused, and to pass them on only to a select circle.6 Early mystical and magical lore was successfully guarded by a limited oral transmission. The secret lore of the German school, founded by the Kalonymides, who removed to the Rhineland from Lucca in the tenth century, was first written down in the thirteenth by the followers of Judah the Pious, among whom Eleazar of Worms was outstanding both for his prolific pen and the depth of his learning. Jewish life had turned more and more inward, as relations with the Christian world grew more difficult, and intensive study of the Talmud had become almost its sole intellectual pursuit. The result was that religious emotion, stifled by an exclusive emphasis upon hair-splitting technicalities in interpretation and observance of the law, finally burst its casuistical bonds, as has so often happened, and sought a free and ecstatic outlet in the luscious green fields of theosophy. This inner need was the prime incentive for the popularization of mystical doctrine that began at this time, concurrently in Germany and in Spain. But the German Kabbalah never attained the theoretical depth of its Spanish counterpart, nor did it exert so much influence. A word about the Kabbalah and its relation to the subject-matter "The Germans, lacking in philosophical training, exerted all the greater influence on the practical Kabbalah, as well as on ecstatic mysticism." Their school stressed the inner significance and higher mystical values of Hebrew words and letters—going to the extent of counting the words in the prayer-book so that none might fall out or be altered—and the rôle of Kavvanah, a profound concentration upon these inner values, in bringing to fruition their mystical promise.8 Here we have the heart of the teaching concerning magical names, which, while adumbrated in the Talmud and developed in the Geonic period, reached its choicest and richest flowering in the doctrines of this school. What was put in writing became the common property of all who could read—and many who did not understand professed to be able to perform miraculous deeds by the bald repetition of what was written. The common fate of popularizations befell this mystical learning: the would-be experts flourished, oblivious of the bitter censure of the truly learned. So we may say that every Jew whose desire led him thither essayed a little magic in a small way. But it was generally recognized that only a minor portion of the mystical lore had found its way into books; much of it still remained private, jealously guarded property. The keepers of this treasure were the great magicians of the Middle Ages, in the public imagination at least, not because they were magicians, which is an unavoidable paradox, but because they were the supreme masters of the learning of which magic was an incidental offshoot. This It is this paradox, and the generally legalistic approach to the subject, which make medieval Jewish discussions of magic so unprofitable. The medieval writers sought to hew close to the Talmudic line, and adhered to the rabbinic classification at a time when it was essentially obsolete. As a result the generic terms usually applied to the magic arts, kishshuf and laḥash, occur in a dual sense, sometimes to record the condemnatory verdict of the ancient law books, and again to designate the less reprehensible contemporary forms. The purpose of the medieval observations on the magic arts, we must bear in mind, was not to describe them, but to determine the degree of guilt attached to them, in accordance with Talmudic law. In conformity with the usual legal propensity for rehearsing precedents, the Talmudic definitions and distinctions were usually repeated verbatim, shedding little or no light upon the current varieties and forms. The Bible had pronounced an unqualified condemnation of sorcery. The Talmud, while maintaining this fundamental attitude, pursued its customary function of clarifying and classifying Jewish law, and so broke up the all-inclusive category of sorcery into several divisions, establishing varying degrees of guilt. Two main types of forbidden magic were distinguished: that which produces a discernible, material effect, by means of "the performance of an act," and that which only creates the illusion of such an act or its effect (aḥizat ‘ainayim, "capturing the eyesight"); or, as a further observation defined them, the one operates without the aid of demons, the other requires their assistance. The practitioner of the first type merits the Biblical penalty of death; the second is forbidden but not so punishable. Still a third kind of magic, "permitted from the start," involved the use of "the Laws of Creation," a term which was later interpreted to signify the mystical names of God and the angels.10 So stated, the distinction between the first two is far from clear Moses Isserles brings us closer to an understanding of what the It is characteristic of magic that with the advance of religious thought and the recognition of a spirit world, it tends to move closer to religion, and to depend increasingly upon the spirit forces of religion for its effects. The rabbinic authorities set their face against all practices that smacked of Israel's heathen origins, and prominent among these was "the performance of an act" without resort to supernatural aid, which was for them the forbidden "magic" to be punished by death. Their opposition was not to magic generally, but to this particular "idolatrous" form; the use of angels, names, and even demons, involving an appeal to the supernatural and a recognition Now we can understand why such categories as good and bad, white and black magic are foreign to Jewish thought. These distinctions are concerned with the purpose of the magic act, while Jewish discussion centered around the method, and the legal attitude toward it. I do not mean, of course, that rabbis had no interest in the ends toward which magic was pursued, that a "legal" technique could be used criminally with their approbation. They often expressed disapproval of even the legally recognized methods just because they might be harmfully applied, and strenuously objected to placing mystical information in the hands of people who were not to be trusted with it. But the scholarly and pious character of the student of mysticism and the essentially religious nature of Jewish magic ensured a minimum of misuse of this lore. There was never any question that the immoral practice of magic was not countenanced by Judaism and therefore the discussion could remain on a legal plane. However, Jews were acquainted with this prevailing non-Jewish classification, as is indicated by the effort of Menaḥem Ẓiyuni and others to interpret the word necromancy: "'Nigromancia' is a combination of two words, nigar [Hebrew], 'gathered together, collected,' like water that has been stored up, and mancia, the name of the incense that magicians burn to the demons; but I have heard another explanation, that nigre means 'black,' and this is why the Germans call it Schwarzkunst." As an example of nigromancia he cited "those who offer up their sperm to the spirits or demons with appropriate incantations."15 The popular attitude toward magic and superstition, leaving aside the legalistic approach, recalls an incident that illustrates it perfectly. A teacher of mine, out for a stroll, was suddenly confronted with a black cat from which he shied away nervously. One of his students, observing this, twitted him, "You're not really afraid of a black cat, Professor!" "No," he replied indignantly, "of course I don't believe in such nonsense. But there's no harm in being careful." He might have been quoting Sefer Ḥasidim:16 "One should not believe in superstitions, but still it is best to be heedful of them." This qualified skepticism was the farthest advance toward the modern spirit on the part of the religious authorities; the masses, if we may judge from the innumerable superstitions that were cautiously honored, took that qualification earnestly to heart. The Zeitgeist overpowered even the most rationalistically inclined of the rabbis. The Jewry of Southern Europe owned several daring spirits who uncompromisingly stigmatized magic and superstition as "folly" and "untruth," but in the Germanic lands none dared go so far, though a few singled out one or another phase of magic for their contempt, or proved themselves free of one or another superstition by their actions. The authorities, whose religious convictions and position obliged them to voice at least half-hearted disapproval, could do no more than threaten the practitioners of magic with disaster. They would be punished for their acts, whether by the spirits whom they had momentarily enslaved, or by the wrath of God. According to some, it was the prevalence of superstition and magic among the Jews that delayed the redemption of Israel from exile. One opinion had it: "If you see a Jew who apostatized neither because of love nor through compulsion, you may know that he or his parents engaged in sorcery."17 Sometimes the rabbis sought to counteract the influence of traditionally received techniques by arguing that they were no longer applicable, "for it is known that nature varies from place to place and from time to time," or on the ground that the requisite skill had been lost. Often they tried to soften the impact of superstitious practices by re-interpretation, by injecting religious meaning into them.18 But the validity of superstition and magic was universally accepted, and the very rabbis who deprecated them were often obliged to condone them also. Moreover no matter Yet we meet at the same time, recognition of a profound psychological truth, far in advance of the spirit of the age: "Superstitions can harm only those who heed them."21 It requires more courage and skepticism than the Middle Ages could lay claim to (or than we can boast even today, for that matter) to be free of the yoke that superstition and magic saddle upon the credulous masses. The material gathered in this book is the most telling evidence of the inadequacy of mere proscription to countervail ignorance and the blind "will to believe." In the succeeding chapters we shall examine first the beliefs concerning the spirit world (Chapters III-VI), which were fundamental to superstition and magic, and the powers ascribed to what we may designate as the magic word, namely, the names of God and the angels, and the word of God enshrined in Scripture (Chapters VII-VIII), which were the most potent tools of magic. Chapters IX-XIII contain a description of the various elements that constituted the actual practice of magic, including a discussion of medicine. The concluding chapters (XIV-XVI) are devoted to an examination of the divinatory arts, among the most popular of magical exercises.THE TRUTH BEHIND THE LEGEND
JEWISH MAGIC
THE MAGICIAN
FORBIDDEN AND PERMITTED