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Jewish Love Magic Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity

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Jewish Love Magic Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity Jewish Love Magic Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity Series Editors Shaul Shaked Siam Bhayro volume 6 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mrla Jewish Love Magic From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages By Ortal-Paz Saar leiden | boston Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Saar, Ortal-Paz, author. Title: Jewish love magic : from late antiquity to the Middle Ages / by Ortal-Paz Saar. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2017] | Series: Magical and religious literature of late antiquity; volume 6 | Based on the author’s thesis (doctoral) – Universiṭat Tel-Aviv, 2009. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2017017142 (print) | lccn 2017018785 (ebook) | isbn 9789004347892 (e-book) | isbn 9789004347885 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Jewish magic–History–To 1500. | Magic in rabbinical literature. | Magic, Ancient. | Love–Religious aspects–Judaism–History–To 1500. Classification: lcc bf1622.j45 (ebook) | lcc bf1622.j45 s33 2017 (print) | ddc 133.4/3089924–dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017142 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2211-016x isbn 978-90-04-34788-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34789-2 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. This book is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Ziv Peled, 1967–2003 ∵ “I could not begin better than by informing you regretfully that I am not in the possession of love charms, potions, or philtres. Nor am I in the least capable of influencing the favors of any young lady as may appeal to you.” “I have no need of artificial aids in that respect, sir.” The complacency unde- niably present in the general’s voice was stirred with amusement. “Do you receive many requests for such commodities?” “Enough. Unfortunately, an uninformed public tends to confuse scholarship with magicianry, and love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.” “And so would seem most natural. But I differ. I connect scholarship with nothing but the means of answering difficult questions.” The Siwennian considered somberly, “You may be as wrong as they!” isaac asimov, Foundation and Empire ∵ Contents Acknowledgements xi List of Figures xiii Abbreviations xiv Introduction 1 1 What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Love (Magic)? A Survey of Ancient Love Magic 32 1 Historical Background 32 1.1 Mesopotamia 34 1.2 Egypt 39 1.3 Greece 41 1.4 Rome 47 1.5 Christianity 50 1.6 Islam 53 2 Main Features of Love Magic 57 3 The Magical Rationale 59 4 The Uses and Abuses of Love Magic 64 4.1 Justifying an Impossible Love 64 4.2 Explaining Impotence 72 5 The Silence of the Targets: Reactions to Love Magic and Counter Spells 78 6 Summary 85 2 Making Love, Making Hate Practices of Jewish Love Magic 87 1 Introductory Remarks 87 2 Magical Practices: An Overview 89 2.1 Writing Magical Formulae 90 2.2 Uttering Magical Formulae 132 2.3 Manipulation of Materials without Writing 134 3 Products of Magical Practices 143 4 From Theory to Practice 144 viii contents 3 Of Loviel and Other Demons The Verbal Aspects of Jewish Love Magic 149 1 Introductory Remarks 149 2 Linguistic Aspects 151 2.1 Language, Person and Gender in the Magical Recipes 151 2.2 Language, Person and Gender in the Finished Products 156 3 Appeals and Demands: The Magical Formulae 167 4 Literary Devices in the Magical Formulae 173 4.1 Biblical Analogies 173 4.2 Biblical Quotations 188 4.3 Non-Biblical Analogies 191 4.4 Metaphors 193 5 Magical Signs 197 5.1 Magical Signs in Jewish Magic 199 5.2 The Erroneous Term ‘kol qatiraya’ 199 5.3 Magical Signs in Jewish Love Magic 200 4 A Time to Love and a Time to Hate The Temporal Aspects of Jewish Love Magic 207 1 Written in the Stars 207 2 The Timing of Magical Practices 214 2.1 Defining the Hour of the Day 216 2.2 Defining the Day of the Week 221 2.3 Defining the Day of the Month 224 3 Temporal References in Magical Products 226 4 Summary 229 5 You Shall Not Walk in Their Statutes? The ‘Jewishness’ of Jewish Love Magic 231 1 Introductory Remarks 231 2 Prohibited or Permitted Love? The Legitimacy of Love Magic in Judaism 233 2.1 Love Magic in the Talmudic Literature 234 2.2 Love Magic in the Halakhic Literature of the Geonic and the Medieval Periods 235 3 Traits of Jewish Love Magic 242 3.1 Abstaining from Non-sanctioned Foods 242 3.2 Refraining from Desecration of the Shabbat 246 3.3 The Attitude towards Supernatural Forces 248 3.4 Nomenclature of Supernatural Forces 250 contents ix 3.5 Employing Biblical Analogies and Verses 252 3.6 Logocentrism 255 4 Jewish and Non-Jewish Love Magic: Some Differences 255 4.1 Magical Practices 256 4.2 Explicit Sexual Terminology 260 5 Conclusions 264 Summary 266 1 In the Previous Chapters … 266 2 What is Jewish Love Magic? A Second Look 267 Bibliography 269 Index of Manuscripts 293 Index of Subjects 295 Acknowledgements This book explores the ways in which Jews employed magical means with the intention of achieving love in its various forms. It originated as a PhD thesis written under the supervision of Prof. Gideon Bohak at the Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University. In addition to being the most inspiring thesis supervisor one could hope for, Prof. Bohak—Gidi—has been, and will always be, a model of honest scholarship and authentic erudition. I am fortunate to have been his student. During my doctoral studies I participated in a research project conducted by Prof. Bohak, titled ‘Books of Magic from the Cairo Genizah’. The project was based on an initial list of fragments prepared by Prof. Shaul Shaked that was expanded and analytically examined by Prof. Bohak. My participation in this project, financed by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 725/03), allowed me to benefit from its products and from the work of Prof. Bohak’s research assistants: Irena Lerman, Shani Levi and Karina Shalem. They have meticu- lously and painstakingly transcribed from microfilms numerous manuscript fragments that see light for the first time in the following pages, and they deserve many thanks. During my research I have benefitted from discussions with friends and col- leagues from various fields, who kindly shared their knowledge with me or assisted me in different ways. I wish to thank Avriel Bar-Levav, Nasir Basal, Bar Belinitzky, Alessia Bellusci, Angelos Chaniotis, Christopher Faraone, James Nathan Ford, Patrick Geary, Mark Geller, Edna Engel, Mordechai Aqiva Fried- man, Hassan Halilieh, Nissim Hamawy, Dan Levene, Renée Levine Melammed, Uri Melammed, Kate Mesler, Jorg Müller, Bill Rebiger, Shaul Shaked, Deborah Sweeney, Alon Ten-Ami, Susan Weingarten, and particularly Yuval Harari, the first scholar who devoted significant attention to the topic of ancient Jewish love magic. Part of the work on this volume was conducted while I was a member of the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, whose staff, members and faculty deserve many thanks. I am particularly grate- ful to Julia Bernheim,Terrie Bramley, María MercedesTuya and Marian Zelazny for their kind and friendly assistance. At the ias I had the priviledge of getting to know Prof. Patricia Crone zʾʾl, an exceptional lady and brilliant scholar. Com- menting on one of the chapters in this book, Patricia crossed out the words ‘available sources’, and—in a remark typical both of her meticulousness and humour—wrote: ‘If they are not available, they’re not sources’.An insight many historians could benefit from. xii acknowledgements Especially profound thanks are due to Siam Bhayro, who carefully read the entire manuscript, polished the English, and, most importantly, found the right words to motivate me time and time anew. Siam is an extraordinary person, and I am privileged to have a friend like him. Three people who have left an indelible impact on my life and intellectual aspirations, and consequently on this work, are my grandparents, Silvia and Iancu Scorţaru zʾʾl, and my mother, Sofia Amalia Scorţaru-Saar zʾʾl. I am grateful for what they have given me. Lastly, my great thanks go to Ilan Peled, my husband, who paced next to me on the road to this book, helped me get over potholes, and encouraged me to advance step by step, with his wisdom and love. List of Figures 1 Eggshell inscribed in pseudo-script resembling Hebrew letters. VA.Bab.2840, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. 102 2 Modern amulet inscribed in Hebrew on a leaf. Gross collection 027.040.001. 109 3 Cloth amulet, probably intended to serve as wick for an oil lamp, and ignite love. t-s as 142.174 (= amb Geniza 1), cul. 122 4 Human skull inscribed in Aramaic, possibly with a love spell.
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