¹ Goitein, S. D., A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah (5 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967-1988)Google Scholar.

² For Goitein's view of popular religion in the Genizah period, see Goitein, , Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge: Association for Jewish Studies, 1974) 3–17Google Scholar.

³ The classic study of Jewish magic in the Middle Ages is Trachtenberg, Joshua, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (1939; reprinted New York: Athenaeum, 1982)Google Scholar. On Jewish magic in antiquity, Blau, Ludwig, Das altjudische Zauberwesen (Budapest: Jahresbericht der Landes-Rabbinerschule, 1897-1898)Google Scholar is still the standard work. A fine survey of Jewish magical texts from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages is Alexander, P. S., “Incantations and Books of Magic,” in Schdrer, Emil, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (rev. and ed. Vermes, Geza, Millar, Fergus, and Goodman, Martin; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: Clark, 1986) 3.1. 342–79Google Scholar.

⁴ Previously, only a handful of magical texts from the Genizah have been published: Mann, Jacob, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature (2 vols.; New York: Ktav, 1972) 2. 90–94Google Scholar; Gottheil, Richard J. H. and Worrell, William H., Fragments from the Cairo Genizah in the Freer Collection (New York/London: Macmillan, 1927) 106–7Google Scholar; see also 76–81. Eight magical texts from the Genizah, five of which are amulets, have been published in Naveh, Joseph and Shaked, Shaul, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985) 216–40Google Scholar. See also Naveh, Joseph, “A Recently Discovered Palestinian Jewish Aramaic Amulet,” in Sokoloff, Michael, ed., Aramaeans, Aramaic, and the Aramaic Literary Tradition (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1984) 81–88Google Scholar; “Kibbus Tov 'En Kamohu,” Tarbis 54 (1985) 367-82Google Scholar; and Shaked, Shaul, “A1 Sifrut ha-KiSuf ha-Yehudit be-Arsot ha-Islam: He'arot ve-Dugma'ot,” Pe'amim 15 (1983) 15–28Google Scholar. Moses Margalioth used several Genizah fragments in his Sefer ha-Razim: Hu' Sefer KeSafim Mi-Tequfat ha-Talmud (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1966)Google Scholar. A fragment of a magical handbook is also published in Schafer, Peter, Geniza-Fragmente zur HekhalotLiteratur (Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1984Google Scholar) Text #20 (TS A.S. 142.13) 169–70. On Jewish amulets see Gaster, Moses, “Charms and Amulets (Jewish)” in Hastings, ERE, 3. 451–55Google Scholar. Peter Schafer recently announced plans for the publication of a catalogue of magical texts from the Genizah, to be undertaken by Shaul Shaked. Schafer and Shaked are also planning a joint edition of a corpus of Hebrew and Aramaic magical texts from the Genizah. See Schafer, Peter, “Jewish Magic Literature in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” JJS 41 (1990) 75–91Google Scholar.

⁵ Schiffman, Lawrence H. and Swartz, Michael D., Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah: Selected Amulets from Box Kl (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991)Google Scholar. The transcriptions and translations presented here are from this edition, where more detailed critical notes are given. I wish to thank Professor Schiffman for numerous suggestions for this article. Professors Mordechai A. Friedman, Ross R. Brann, and Elliot Wolfson also provided helpful comments for our joint study. However, only I am responsible for any errors in this paper.

⁶ Margalioth, Sefer ha-Razim. Margalioth's text is translated in Morgan, Michael A., Sepher ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983)Google Scholar. A more comprehensive and useful study is Niggemeier, Hans, Beschworungsformeln aus dem “Buch der Geheimnisse” (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1975)Google Scholar. Sefer Raziel, a manual of esoterica that includes material compiled by the German pietist Eleazar of Worms, was used extensively by Trachtenberg in Jewish Magic. On Sefer Raziel see Dan, Joseph, “Raziel, Book of,” EncJud 13, cols. 1592–93Google Scholar; Ta-shema, Y. M., “Sifriyatam 5el Hakhme ASkenaz ba-Me'ah ha-y'-yb',” Kiryat Sepher 60 (1985) 298–309Google Scholar; Secret, Francois, “Surquelques traductions du Sefer Raziel,” REJ 128 (1969) 221–45Google Scholar; Sed, Nicolas, “Le Sefer ha-Razim et la methode de ‘combinaison des lettres,’” REJ 130 (1971) 295–304Google Scholar.

⁷ For example, MS TS K1.137, line 5. The Hebrew text of this amulet was published in Naveh, and Shaked, , Amulets, 239–40Google Scholar.

⁸ On scribal practices, see Goitein, , Mediterranean Society, 2. 228–40Google Scholar.

⁹ Heinemann, Joseph, Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns (trans. Sarason, Richard S.; Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1977)Google Scholar. On Heinemann's method, see Sarason, Richard S., “The Modern Study of Jewish Liturgy,” in Neusner, Jacob, ed., The Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Ktav, 1981) 1. 107–79Google Scholar.

¹⁰ See, for example, Alexander, , “Incantations,” 344Google Scholar, and the sources cited there. “See Naveh, and Shaked, , Amulets, 29–30Google Scholar.

¹¹ See Naveh and Shaked, Amulets, 29–30.

¹² Printed incantations employing the basic forms described here can be purchased in Jerusalem and New York today. For examples of written amulets of relatively recent provenance, see Casanowicz, I. M., “Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum,” JAOS 36 (1916) 154–67Google Scholar; idem, “Two Jewish Amulets in the United States National Museum,” JAOS 37 (1917) 43–56Google Scholar. For a striking example of the persistence of formal and narrative motifs in magic, see Naveh, and Shaked, , Amulets, 105–22Google Scholar.

¹³ Cf. Betz, Hans Dieter (The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986] 1. xlviGoogle Scholar) on the use of earlier poetic and literary formulae in the Greek magical papyri.

¹⁴ On the place of the qedušah in Hekhalot literature see Bloch, Philipp, “Die Yorde Merkavah, die Mystiker der Gaonzeit und ihrer Einfluss auf die Liturgie,” MGWJ 37 (1983) 18–25, 69–74, 257–66, 305–11Google Scholar; Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism(2d ed.; New York: Schocken, 1954) 60Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Seder 'Avodat Yisrael, ed. Baer, Seligmann (1867; reprinted New York: Schocken, 1936/ 1937) 78Google Scholar. Cf. the version in the liturgy of the Babylonian Gaon Rav Amram in Seder Rav 'Amram Ga'on, ed. Goldschmid, Daniel (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1971) 13Google Scholar, where the word uve-yir'ah “and in awe,” does not appear. Our amulet is closer in wording and orthography to the present-day liturgical version.

¹⁶ Baer, , Seder 'Avodat Yisrael, 211–12Google Scholar. On this hymn see Fleischer, Ezra, Ha-Yosrot beHithavvutam u-ve-Hitpathutam (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984) 47Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Heinemann, , Prayer in the Talmud, 37–69Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Several hymns employing this motif are found in early Jewish liturgical literature. See the hymn ‘el barukh gadol de'ah in the statutory weekday morning liturgy; cf. Siddur Rav Sa'adia Ga'on, ed. Davidson, Israel, Assaf, Simhah, and Joel, Issachar (Jerusalem: Mekise Nirdamim, 1970) 36–37Google Scholar. In the Hekhalot text Ma'aseh Merkavah a similar passage is incorporated into a hymn (Schšfer, Peter, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur [Tubingen: Mohr, 1981] §596)Google Scholar. See Altmann, Alexander, “Sire QeduSah be-Sifrut ha-Hekhalot ha-Qedumah,” Melilah 2 (1946) 5Google Scholar; see also Swartz, Michael, Mystical Prayer in Ancient Judaism: An Analysis of Ma'aseh Merkavah (Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1991) chap. 14.1.2Google Scholar.

¹⁹ The Hebrew text of this amulet is also published in Naveh, and Shaked, , Amulets, 237–38Google Scholar.

²⁰ On this motif see Levine, Baruch A., “The Language of the Magical Bowls,” in Neusner, Jacob, A History of Jews in Babylonia (5 vols.; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970) 5. 371–73Google Scholar.

²¹ A close parallel to this passage is found in MS TS K1.68; see also MSS TS A.S. 143.427 and TS A.S. 143.322; cf. also MS Oxf. Heb. e44 (=Neubauer #2668) and TS A.S. 143.45. Sefer Raziel refers to the seventy-two-letter divine name as the name “which Moses, our teacher…invoked at the [burning] bush. Anyone who invokes it over a demon, it will flee, or over fire, it will be extinguished, or over a sick person, he will be healed.” Cf. the claims made for the “god of the Hebrews” in PGM IV, a well-known Greek magical papyrus said to be related to the Jewish magical tradition: Preisendanz, Karl, Papyri Graecae Magicae: Die Griechischen Zauberpapyri (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973) 170–72Google Scholar, lines 3034–79, translated in Betz, , Greek Magical Papyri, 96–97Google Scholar. On that passage see Daissmann, Gustav A., Light From the Ancient East (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910) 250–60Google Scholar; cf. Blau, , Zauberwesen, 96–112Google Scholar.

²² Yahalom, Joseph, Piyyute Šim'on bar Megas (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1984) 169–70; cf. p. 26Google Scholar.

²³ Siddur Rav Sa'adiah, 389–90. This piyyut is an expansion of the commandment “Do not take the name of the Lord in vain.” For similar traditions in the prayer rites of the Byzantine empire, cf. Goldschmidt, Daniel, Mehqere Tefillah u-Piyyut (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978) 133–34, 250Google Scholar.

²⁴ This distinction, which sees magic as coercive and prayer as requiring the assent of the deity, plays a pivotal role in the evolutionary schemes of Tylor's, Edward BurnettPrimitive Culture (New York: Henry Holt, 1874)Google Scholar and Frazer's, James GeorgeThe Golden Bough (2d ed.; 12 vols.; New York: Macmillan, 1935)Google Scholar see vol. 1, esp. 220–43. See also Heiler's, Friedrich classic study, Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932)Google Scholar. However, as Keith Thomas points out, “the conventional distinction between a prayer and a spell seems to have been hammered out not by the nineteenth-century anthropologists…but by sixteenth-century Protestant theologians” ( Religion and the Decline of Magic, [New York: Scribner's, 1971] 41Google Scholar; see also 61–62, 113–50). Recent studies of prayer suggest that for many cultures this characterization of magic opposed to prayer cannot be maintained. See Gill, Sam, “Prayer,” in Eliade, Mircea, et al., eds., The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1987) 11. 489–94Google Scholar and the references cited there; cf. also Reichard, Gladys A., Prayer: The Compulsive Word (1944; reprinted Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1966)Google Scholar. On the state of the question in the study of Hellenistic magic, see Segal, Alan F., “Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition,” in Broek, R. van der and Vermaseren, M. J., eds., Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions: Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981) 349–75Google Scholar; and Gager, John G., “A New Translation of Ancient Greek and Demotic Papyri, Sometimes Called Magical,” JR 67 (1987) 80–86Google Scholar. An argument for the conventional distinction is made in Barb, A. A., “The Survival of the Magic Arts,” in Momigliano, Arnaldo, ed., The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 100–125Google Scholar.

²⁵ Cf. Niggemeier, , Beschworungsformeln, 63Google Scholar. On the use of hymns in Hellenistic magical texts, see note 13 above; see also Segal, , “Hellenistic Magic,” 352–53Google Scholar.

²⁶ Cf. the Aramaic of marriage contracts (ketubbot) from the Cairo Genizah, described by Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, A Geniza Study (2 vols.; Tel Aviv/New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1980) 1. 48–87Google Scholar.

²⁷ MS TS K1.94, for headaches; TS K1.18 and TS K1.30 (two leaves of the same amulet) for protection in childbirth.

²⁸ MS TS K 1.168. On love charms in Palestinian magic and their parallels in the Genizah, see Naveh, and Shaked, , Amulets, 85–89Google Scholar, 216–17; on spells in the Genizah for the attraction and alienation of affections, see Friedman, Mordechai, RibbuiNaSim be-Yisrael: Meqorot Hadašim mi-Genizat Qahir (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Mosad Bialik, 1986) 166–68Google Scholar.

²⁹ MS TS K1.42.

³⁰ MSS TS K1.100 and TS K1.157. See the following note.

³¹ This function is often tied to that of success in business or public life. In MS TS K1.157 the angels Rahmiel and Hasdiel are adjured to bring grace and favor to Shalom ben Zuhra', “so that he may transact business with every person in the world” (lines 20–21). In MS TS K1.6, the client apparently wishes to be favored by high officials.

³² See, for example, MS TS K1.18 and 30, in which the same incantation appears in He-brew and Aramaic.

³³ Cf. the structure of Sefer ha-Razim incantations described by Niggemeier, , Beschworungsformeln, 73–118Google Scholar. Our incantation formulae are often more extensive than those of Sefer ha-Razim.

³⁴ Lieberman, Saul, “Some Notes on Adjurations in Israel,” in Lieberman, , ed., Texts and Studies (New York: Ktav, 1974) 23Google Scholar.

³⁵ See Lieberman, , “Notes,” 23Google Scholar; and Lieberman, , Tosafot Ri'Sonim (Jerusalem: Wahrman, 1937) 1. 188Google Scholar.

³⁶ Following Alon, Gedalia (“Be-Šem,” Tarbis 21 [1950] 33Google Scholar, reprinted in idem, Mehqarim be-Toledot Yisra'el be-Yeme Bayit Šeni u-vi-Tequfat ha-MiSnah ve-ha-Talmud [Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1967] 194–205), Saul Lieberman argued that the formula beŠen bereithen berio in PGM 2. 110 was derived from the formula beŠem de-baryan, “in the name of our Creator.” See Lieberman, , “Notes,” 22–24Google Scholar.

³⁷ This inversion is found in Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2.

³⁸ In rabbinic poetry and piyyuf, it is common to construct appellatives from biblical verses. On these forms, which have been called hidduSe seruf, novel construct pairs, see Mirsky, Aaron, “Ha-Sirah be-Tequfat ha-Talmud,” Yerushalayim: Senaton le-Divre Sifrut ve-Hagut 3–4 (1970) 161–70Google Scholar. On the use of these forms in Hekhalot and related liturgical literature, see Swartz, Michael D., “Alay le-Shabbeah: A Liturgical Prayer in 'aseh Merkabah,” JQR 11 (1986-1987) 179–90Google Scholar; idem, Mystical Prayer.

³⁹ See Blau, , Zauberwesen, 124–28Google Scholar, and the references cited in Trachtenberg, , Jewish Magic, 288 n. 21Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ On this tradition see Dan, Joseph, “The Seventy Names of Metatron,” Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division C (1982) 19–23Google Scholar.

⁴¹ See Lieberman, , “Notes,” 21–28Google Scholar; Friedman, , Jewish Marriage, 1. 91Google Scholar; idem, “Marriage as an Institution: Jewry Under Islam,” in Kraemer, David, ed., The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) 40–41Google Scholar.

⁴² The tractates Nedarim and Sebu'ot are especially concerned with these subjects. On the relationship of these formulae to the rabbinic regulations see Lieberman, Saul, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Feldheim, 1965) 115–43Google Scholar.

⁴³ Or, “the King of angels,” reading MaPakhim with the manuscript. This confusion, or conflation, of the two terms is not unknown in medieval manuscripts. See Stefan Reif s comment in Reif, Stefan C. and Emerton, J. A., eds. Interpreting the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 186 and noteGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁴ See Ginzberg, L., “Asmodeus,” JE 2. 217–20Google Scholar; and Scholem, Gershom, “Peraqim HadaSim me—‘Inyene’ Ashmedai ve-Lillit,” Tarbif 19 (1947/1948) 160–75Google Scholar. On archangel traditions see Scholem, Gershom, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkavah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965) 43–55Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ See b. Sabbat 66b, where a series of traditions attributed to Abbaye's mother includes the custom that “all incantations which are repeated must contain the mother's name;” on this passage see Jastrow, Marcus, comp., A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (2 vols.; Brooklyn: P. Shalom, 1967) 1. 801Google Scholar, s.v. minyan.

⁴⁶ On these symbols see Trachtenberg, , Jewish Magic, 141Google Scholar. These symbols, which usually consist of intersecting lines tipped with circles, are also found in Palestinian and Samaritan amulets. See Naveh, and Shaked, , Amulets, Amulets 2Google Scholar, 4, 5, 8, and 14; see also Gaster, Moses, “Samaritan Phylacteries and Amulets,” in Studies and Texts 1. 400–403Google Scholar; idem, “Jewish Knowledge of the Samaritan Alphabet in the Middle Ages,” in Studies and Texts 1. 607. Manuals purporting to provide keys to the decipherment of these symbols can be found in medieval esoteric manuscripts. See Weinstock, Israel, “Alpha-Beta' 5el Metatron u-Ferušah,” Temirin 2 (1981) 51–76Google Scholar; and Scholem, Gershom, Origins of the Kabbalah (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987) 328 n. 267Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ On the composition of magical names in Jewish magic of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, see Trachtenberg, , Jewish Magic, 78–103Google Scholar; Schrire, T., Hebrew Magic Amulets (2d ed.; New York: Behrman House, 1982)Google Scholar; Scholem, , Jewish Gnosticism, 94–100Google Scholar. On more conventional ways of expressing the name of God in medieval Jewish manuscripts, see Lauterbach, Jacob Z., “Substitutes for the Tetragrammaton,” PAAJR 2 (1930-1931) 39–67Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ TS K1.152 lines 26–29.

⁴⁹ TS K 1.137 lines 23–24.

⁵⁰ See m. Yoma 3.8, 4.1-2, 6.2. On the formula see also Schiffman, Lawrence H., “A Forty Two Letter Divine Name in the Aramaic Magic Bowls,” Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies 1 (1973) 97–102Google Scholar.

⁵¹ For examples of legal formulae of divorce in the Babylonian magic bowls, see Levine, , “Language of the Magical Bowls,” 349–51Google Scholar.

⁵² Durkheim's, Emile remark that the magician “has a clientele and not a church” (The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life [New York: The Free Press, 1965] 60)Google Scholar is appropriate to our magical practitioners. Cf. Walter Burkert's description of “religious craftsmanship” in the ancient Greek world: “Craft Versus Sect: The Problem of Orphics and Pythagoreans,” in Meyer, Ben F. and Sanders, E. P., eds., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 3: Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 6Google Scholar.