#jewish magic and superstition: a study in folk religion

[ouroboros8ontology]

The mezuzah was also an object of suspicion, and at the same time desire. That it was regarded as a magical device by Christians we know, for a fifteenth-century writer admonished his readers to affix a mezuzah to their doors even when they occupied a house owned by a non-Jew, despite the fact that the landlord might accuse them of sorcery. Indeed, the Jews in the Rhineland had to cover over their mezuzot, for, as a thirteenth-century writer complained, “the Christians, out of malice and to annoy us, stick knives into the mezuzah openings and cut up the parchment,” Out of malice, no doubt—but the magical repute of the mezuzah must have lent special force to their vindictiveness. Yet even Christians in high places were not averse to using these magical instruments themselves. Toward the end of the fourteenth century the Bishop of Salzburg asked a Jew to give him a mezuzah to attach to the gate of his castle, but the rabbinic authority to whom this Jew turned for advice refused to countenance so outrageous a prostitution of a distinctively religious symbol.

Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion; The Legend of Jewish Sorcery

[yiddisheyfe]

איצט לייענען ~

ייִדיש כּישוף און גלייבעכץ: אַ לערנען אין פאָלק רעליגיע פֿון יהושע טראַכּטנבערג (געשריבן 1939) לייענען די פּדפֿ בעכינעם דאָ.

Now reading~

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg (written 1939) Read the pdf for free here.

[hailruth]

From Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Rabbi Joshua Trachtenberg

[haorev]

I got some new underwear, the Ashton dice from Critical Role, and two kerchiefs and Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg from Jewitches! Overall, a very nice birthday selection.

[alchemy-fic]

My book wishlist!

Egyptian Magic by E.A. Wallis Budge (1901)

Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism by Gershon Winkler, David Carson (2003)

Ashkenazi Herbalism: Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern European Jews by Deatra Cohen, Adam Siegel (2021)

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg (1939)

Ancient Jewish Magic: A History by Gideon Bohak (2008)

The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic & Mysticism: Second Edition by Geoffrey W. Dennis (2007)

The Green Mysteries: An Occult Herbarium by Daniel A Schulke, Benjamin A Vierling (2023)

Reading Sumerian Poetry (Athlone Publications in Egyptology & Ancient Near Eastern Studies) by Jeremy Black (2001)

The Literature of Ancient Sumer by Jeremy Black, Graham Cunningham (2006)

Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia by Stephen Bertman (2002)

Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East by Amanda H. Podany

Auguste Racinet. The Costume History (Bibliotheca Universalis) by Françoise Tétart-Vittu

The Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature by Rachel Bromwich (2009)

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English: Seventh Edition (Penguin Classics) by Geza Vermes

Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) by Thomas Aquinas, Ralph McInerny

The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion by Thorkild Jacobsen

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Graham Coleman, Thupten Jinpa

The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Penguin Classics) by Wallace Budge, John Romer

History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History by Samuel Noah Kramer (1981)

The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Phoenix Books) by Samuel Noah Kramer

Welsh Witchcraft: A Guide to the Spirits, Lore, and Magic of Wales by Mhara Starling

An Annotated Sumerian Dictionary by Mark E. Cohen

A Sumerian Chrestomathy by Konrad Volk

Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture by Thorkild Jacobsen

Early Mesopotamia by Nicholas Postgate

Amulets and Talismans by E. A. Wallis Budge

Mundane Astrology by Michael Baigent, Campion, Nicholas, Harvey, Charles

[sapropel]

MAB give me your nonfiction recs

You're gonna notice a theme probably :^)

The Body Keeps the Score -- Bessel van Der Kok

Jewish Peoplehood: An American Innovation -- Noam Pianko

Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions -- Ron Suresha

Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism -- Douglas Rushkoff

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion -- Joshua Trachtenberg*

The Sabbath -- Abraham Joshua Heschel

Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism -- Judith Butler*

Ehyeh: A Kabbalah For Tomorrow -- Arthur Green*

Salt Fat Acid Heat -- Samin Nosrat

From Lokshen to Lo Mein: The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food -- Don Siegel

*haven't finished it yet :)

[thegospelofstjohn]

"The Sorcerer." From the Gospel of Saint John, 7: 10-13.

Jesus continues to frustate the folks with references to His Time, meaning a global revolution in the ways man governs himself. One at a time man will try to reform himself and seek the treasures of heaven, but until all men agree a world free of oppression, tyranny, avarive, ambition, and corruption is enforced underneath by the Gospel Hillels and overhead by the sciences of government, our time here is not going to be spent in bliss.

In between we will invest our time and wealth in displays of superstition, torture and futility. As in Jesus's time, and also in ours compliance with festivals of religiosity are required no matter how unimpactful they may be. Jesus spoke out openly against this. Some people listened, and they whispered, speaking of a sorcerer and sorcery that understood the scripture and the religion better than anyone else.

Whispers, kasaph, apparently had the magical ability to turn iron into gold:

"In the Bible, gold represents eternal natural laws, the study and industrial application of which is for an elite few (see our article on χρυσος, chrusos, processed gold). Silver is common and represents the creative economy of the whole of human interaction. Bronze is a profane form of gold, and corresponds to artistic intuition and soothsaying (see χαλκος, chalkos, copper). And iron is a profane form of silver, and corresponds to human legal codes (and their enforcement by police and military) that derive from a centralized human authority rather than either God's gold or humanity's silver."

10 However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, “Where is he?”

12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.”

Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 10-11: Where is He? The Number is 15099, אנצט "I will go, you will go."

v. 12-13: There was widespread whispering about Him. The Number is 11669, יאוסט, yost, ‎"He will add, He will increase" to the knowledge of the Law and the Host.

The Temple and the pew must have been worried Jesus was going to perform surgery on the religion like Saul of Tarsus. No such luck. He emphasized the entirety of the Torah and the Jewish practice His entire life. The implications of this to the sorcery, how to become a real man within an organized civil society and attain to heavenly society is the subject of this Gospel of John.

‎

[vaspider]

Hey, I have a question about judaism. I'm writing a ghost story that centers a house where multiple people are trying to stay for purposes of winning the house (typical 'can you spend the night in a haunted house' concept made a little more intense). I'm starting by working out each character's personal relationship with the concept of a ghost. Would you have any sources I could look at about jewish perspectives on ghosts/hauntings/etc? Thank you!

Sure:

I own both of these books and have used them in reference.

Of interest in this (but hardly the definitive in this case) is the incident from I Samuel -- Chabad translates her as a "necromanceress" and other translations (such as the KJV which we all know how I feel about that) call her "the woman who divineth by a ghost."

It's a complicated thing, for sure!

[arcane-offerings]

Joshua Trachtenberg. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. Foreword by Moshe Idel. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Paperback. 356 pages. 

Shop link in bio.

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[ouroboros8ontology]

So onerous did these recurrent accusations become that the rabbis of the Middle Ages found it necessary—forced to this step, no doubt, by Jewish public opinion—to suspend some of these customs. In the case of the clod-throwing, though “many were obliged to disregard the usage for fear that the Gentiles would accuse them of sorcery,” custom was proof against fear. But in other instances fear triumphed. The mourning rights of “binding the head” and “overturning the bed” lapsed during the Middle Ages for this reason. In Talmudic times fear of the same accusation had led Jewish authorities to excuse the head of the household from the rite of “searching out the leaven” on the eve of the Passover in places owned in common with a non-Jew; during the Middle Ages there was a strong but unsuccessful agitation to suspend this rite altogether, even indoors, “because we have Gentile serving-girls in our homes” who might spread the alarm. In Provence, however, the ritual cleansing of the public oven in preparation for Passover baking was neglected “because of the Gentiles’ suspicion of sorcery.” When a fire broke out in a Jewish house its owner dared expect little mercy from the mob, for he was a sorcerer seeking to destroy Christendom, and his punishment was commonly simultaneous with his crime. The rabbis of the time were unusually tolerant about violations of the prohibition to put out fires on the Sabbath and on the Dayof Atonement. At the slightest danger they set this prohibition aside, “for this is a matter of life and death, since they accuse us and persecute us.” We read of a lamb, slaughtered in fulfillment of a ritual obligation, which was cut up and buried secretly in sections, “so that the matter may not become known and they say, ‘it was done for magical ends.’” To such measures were Jews driven by fear of arousing the suspicions of their neighbors.

Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion; The Legend of Jewish Sorcery

[tav-alef-tav]

are you still looking for resources on Jewish folk magic? Joshua Trachtenberg wrote a book called Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion that might be of interest

I am! Thank you! This one is on my list.

[th-orne]

However unorthodox in principle, magic is perhaps the most tradition-bound of cultural forms.

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion, Joshua Trachtenberg

[scuffed-tarot]

Books I need to get

Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide, by Aryeh Kaplan 

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion, by Joshua Trachtenberg 

Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, by Aryeh Kaplan

Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, by Howard Schwartz 

Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, by Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis

Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism, by J.H. Chajes 

The Bahir, by Aryeh Kaplan 

The Book of Hebrew Letters: A Mystical Hebrew Alphabet, by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

The Jewish Book of Days, by Jill Hammer 

Miriam's Well: Rituals for Jewish Women Around the Year, by Penina V. Adelman 

Celebrating the New Moon: A Rosh Chedesh Anthology, by Susan Rerrin

The Rosh Chodesh Table: Foods at the New Moon, by Judith Y. Solomon

The Book of Legends, by H. Bialik and Y. Ravnitsky 

A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, by Nathan Ausubel

Yiddish Folktales, by Beatrice Weinreich

More will probably end up on my rec list. Thanks @dybbukdoll

[jewsome]

Books posted in June and July 2019

Here is the list of the 49 books that I posted on this site in June and July 2019. The image above contains some of the covers. The bold links take you to the book’s page on Amazon; the “on this site” links to the book’s page on this site.

…And Often the First Jew by Stephen Lewis Fuchs (on this site)

The Altru­ists by Andrew Rid­ker (on this site)

Ancient Texts and Modern Readers; by Gideon Kotzé, Christian S. Locatell and John A. Messarra (on this site)

Ariel Sam­son: Free­lance Rabbi by MaN­ish­tana (on this site)

The Art of Leav­ing: A Memoir by Ayelet Tsabari (on this site)

The Art of the Bible Translation by Robert Alter (on this site)

Ascensions on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders by Moshe Idel (on this site)

Be-Ron Yaḥad: Studies in Jewish Thought and Theology in Honor of Nehemia Polen  (on this site)

Bro­ken Strings by Eric Wal­ters and Kathy Kacer (on this site)

The Christian Kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books and Their Christian Interpreters by Joseph Dan (on this site)

Cock­ney Girl: The Sto­ry of a Jew­ish Fam­i­ly in WWII London by Gil­da Moss Haber (on this site)

Cre­ation Colors by Ann D. Koffsky (on this site)

Dreams of Being Eaten Alive: The Literary Core of the Kabbalah by David Rosenberg (on this site)

The Enoch-Metatron Tradition by Andrei Orlov (on this site)

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (on this site)

The Flight Port­fo­lio by Julie Orringer (on this site)

Gershom Scholem and the Mystical Dimension of Jewish History by Joseph Dan (on this site)

God’s Voice from the Void: Old and New Studies in Bratslav Hasidism by Shaul Magid (on this site)

Good Talk: A Mem­oir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (on this site)

Historical Atlas of Hasidism by Marcin Wodziński (on this site)

Hollywood’s Eve by Lili Ano­lik (on this site)

An Innocent Bystander: The Killing of Leon Klinghoffer by Julie Salamon (on this site)

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg (on this site)

Jewish Spirituality: From the 16th Century Revival to the Present by Arthur Green (on this site)

Justice, Justice Shalt Thou Pursue: Delaware’s Jewish Judges

Kabbalah: Webster’s Timeline History, 777 – 2007 by Philip M. Parker (on this site)

The Kosher Capones: A His­to­ry of Chicago’s Jew­ish Gangsters by Joe Kraus (on this site)

The Last Tsar’s Dragons by Jane Yolen, Adam Stem­ple (on this site)

Learning From the Tanya: Volume Two in the Definitive Commentary on the Moral and Mystical Teachings of a Classic Work of Kabbalah by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (on this site)

Long Live the Tribe of Father­less Girls by T Kira Madden (on this site)

Messianic Mystics by Moshe Idel (on this site)

Metropolitan Jewish Cemeteries: of the 19th and 20th Centuries in Central and Eastern Europe A Comparative Study by Rudolf Klein (on this site)

On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time by Gershom S Scholem (on this site)

The Paradoxical Ascent to God: The Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism by Rachel Elior (on this site)

Pic­ture Girl by Mar­lene Targ Brill (on this site)

The Rab­bi Slurps Spaghetti by Leslie Kim­mel­man (on this site)

The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume One: Revelation and Apocalypse by Erich Neumann (on this site)

Sav­ing Han­no: The Sto­ry of a Refugee Dog by Miri­am Halahmy (on this site)

Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran by Sidnie White Crawford (on this site)

Search­ing for Lottie by Susan Ross (on this site)

Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Transformative Paradigm for the World by Philip Wexler (on this site)

Souls in the Garden: Poems About Jewish Spain by Henry Rasof (on this site)

The Laws of Yichud: A Comprehensive Guide to The Laws of Yichud From the Original Sources to Modern-Day Applications and Rulings by HaRav Shraga Kallus (on this site)

The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather (on this site)

When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History by Massoud Hayoun (on this site)

Who Wants to Be A Jew­ish Writer?: And Oth­er Essays by Adam Kirsch (on this site)

Window to Yesterday: The Swordsman by Jeff Lefkowitz (on this site)

A Year with the Sages: Wisdom on the Weekly Torah Portion by Rabbi Reuven Hammer (on this site)

You Asked for Perfect by Lau­ra Silverman (on this site)

The post Books posted in June and July 2019 appeared first on Jewish Book World.

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[sapropel]

What do you mean I'm "not allowed" to bring Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg to the bar

[jewishbookworld]

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg

Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg

the background of what has become known as ceremonial magic is medieval Jewish magic. In turn this was based on the Kabbalah, the Jewish traditions known as Haggadah, and other esoteric beliefs. This is a comprehensive review of Jewish magic from the 10th to the 15th century, including a rich lode of folklore. Many well-known Jewish traditions are explained, such as why a glass is broken at a…