Jewish Love Magic From Late Antiquity To The Middle Ages – Ortal – Paz Saar

Write on the rib of a donkey and bury in a tomb Sheep ribs, on the other hand, served as a writing surface in magical recipes aiming to induce piety (literally, to turn a person’s mind towards God), which bear, however, strong similarities to recipes of love magic: t-s k 1.28, 2b:13–21 (= mtkg i, pp. 133–150)107 להפוך דעת האדם כת׳ על ג׳ צלעות של כבש או }ב{ שום בהמה ולא תהיה Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic, pp. 288–289; 347–348.

For other occurrences of the donkey in Jewish love magic, see pp. 241, 244. Parallel recipes, equally designed to create devotional love for God, not to install erotic love between partners, appear in two fifteenth-century European manuscripts, one from the Vatican (quoted below), and one from the Bibliothèque de Genève, Comites Latentes 145, p. 184:24–25, 185:1–6.

I thank Katelyn Mesler and Gideon Bohak for referring me to these passages: Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica ebr. 188, 84b קח ג׳ צלעות של שור או של כבש וכתוב עליהם )…( שתהפכו לבו וכליותיו של פלו׳ בן פלו׳ ליראת אלהים ואהבה גדולה לשם אלהים )…( ותבעיר התנור יפה ותשליך הצלעות בתוך התנור Take 3 ribs of ox or sheep and write on them (…) may you turn the heart and kidneys of n son of n to fear of God and (to) a great love to the name of God (…)

And kindle the oven well, and toss the ribs into the oven. I have located another parallel in an unpublished Genizah recipe, t-s k 1.43, 1b:12–15. In my doctoral dissertation, I mistakenly understood it to be for erotic magic, given its terminology (קמיע טב לדיבוק וחיבוק ‘ ,a good amulet for joining and embracing’) chapter 2 בשר על הצלעות משביע אני עליך סמאל הסטן קפציאל המלאך ולמפריאל המלאך )…( והשלך הצלעות באש או בתנור וזה אמת וברור To turn the mind of a person.

Write on 3 ribs of sheep or {in} (any) other beast and there shall be no flesh on the ribs; I adjure you, Samael the devil and Qaftziel the angel and Lampriel the angel (…) And toss the ribs into a fire or in the oven. And this is true and clear. While the symbolism of the dog and the donkey in practices for sowing hate may be easily explained, there is no clear association between sheep and emotions of adoration or affection.

Perhaps this is why the recipe added that other animal ribs are likewise acceptable, and thus the choice of sheep ribs may have been on account of their availability or their size. The burning of the bones was perhaps intended to represent the effect of the spell on the target’s soul: love for God may have been regarded as ‘burning’, just as love for a fellow human.

It is possible that a love-inducing spell written on human bone has also been preserved.

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)?

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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