book, XLII (1932), 316-60; Ber. 7b; Hag. 3b-4a; S. Has. 363, 364, 366, 375, 377, 1118, 1551, 1552, 1871; S. Has. B 477; Testament of Judah, 26, 28, 61; Hochmat HaNefesh, 24c; Ziyuni 17b; cf. Landshuth, p. xiif., for Biblical and Talmudic references; also Bischoff, 32 ff.

I, 403-47. Methusaleh advised Lamech, father of Noah, to delay naming his son “‘because the people of that generation were sorcerers, and they would have bewitched him if they had known his name” (Da‘at Zekenim on Gen. 5:28).

practice; cf. Ziyuni, 22a: wary 9992 729n [8501 Hipwa woanwnd sw 1s 1D AS 3331p AX mowen. Even the invocation of angels involves a measure of coercion

288 JEWISH MAGIC AND SUPERSTITION

upon God, who is ultivately responsible for their actions; cf. Lebush on Orah Hayim 584:1: nywo and tn) ’n) owny son yo meneNn miypswan nmdsap most gw 85a gy awen aT Iwyrw oxo pind.

p. 81.

7a. Bischoff, 192f., 195, offers an ingenious Hebrew derivation for this word.

S. Has. 1458 (cf. Kid. 71a); Foseph Omez, 279. The practice of altering the names of God in one way or another when writing them, or of substituting short- hand forms, grew up at a very early time. Eighty-three written substitutes for the Tetragrammaton have been listed. For fear of writing even the particle Yah proper names were abbreviated, so that Jehudah became Judah, the final “h” of Elijah and Isaiah was dropped, the number 15 was written 3” instead of n“», etc. See Lauterbach, Proc. Amer. Acad. for few. Research, 1931, 39-67; S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, N. Y. 1937, III, 48;—Raziel, 2a.

1444, 1448, 1449. Nishmat Hayim III, 28, contains a general discussion of the powers that reside in the holy names, with quotations and proofs.

on the same verse; cf. Giid. I, 169.

Chayim Bloch, The Golem, Vienna 1925; cf. Shelah, III, 65a. In the seventeenth century the question was raised whether a Golem could be counted as one of a minyan (FE, loc. cit.).

Die Golemsage und thre Verwertung in der deutschen Literatur, Breslau 1934.

Moses killed the Egyptian (Ex. 2:11) by merely speaking God’s name; the name of God, engraved on Moses’ staff, caused the sea to divide (Blau, 50, 60). The words ehyeh asher ehyeh yah YHVH zebaot amen amen selah, written on a staff, caused a stormy sea to subside (B.B. 73a).

Ashkenazi, 54 ff. Cf. also J. Mann, Texts and Studies, II, 90 ff.

wsipmam ow concerning which there is considerable difference of opinion, see Griinbaum, Ges. Auf., 190 and 238 ff.; Blau, 125; Grunwald, MG7V, V, 35 and X, 95; 7E, XI, 262 ff.; L. Geiger, Kebuzat Maamarim, ed. Poznanski, Warsaw 1910, p. 98, and Ginzberg’s note, p. 394; H. H. Schaeder, Esra der Schreiber, Tubingen 1930, 53 ff. This term was applied in post-Talmudic times not alone to the Tetragrammaton, but also to the longer names; cf. Hai Gaon in Ashkenazi,

NOTES 289

loc. cit.; Rashi, San 60a, Suk. 45a, Erub. 18b, etc. Raziel, 7a, has a shem hame- forash which altogether defies classification.

the name of 42 letters. The only other reference to this latter name in Talmudic literature is in Lekah Tov to Ex. 3:15, p. 10a, ed. Buber. The name of 72 letters (or elements) is not mentioned in the Talmud, but does occur in one frequently repeated passage of the Midrash: Gen. R. 44:19, Lev. R. 23, beg., Nu. R. 1:11, etc.: MMs ows o yaw nav“apm Sw inwyw. Cant. R. to 2:2 has: In minw 3”y n“apn Sw inww. Blau, 137 ff., suggests that the oldest mystical name is that of 12 letters; 42 and 72 developed out of it later. The name of 72 was known, at the latest, by the first half of the third century. The Talmudic literature, however, gives us no information about these names, what they were, what were their component elements, or how they were constructed.

the list given in the ms. S$. Gematriaot, 72b ff.

V, 5, n. 10. There were several theories as to just which name of God was re- sponsible for the creation of the universe. The one most often advanced is that it was the Tetragrammaton alone, or in conjunction with the particle yah, that did the job. See Eleazar of Worms, Commentary on S. Yezirah, 1c; Jellinek, 33; Grunwald, 77V, I, 388, n. 4. Raziel, 12b, offers an interesting and original hypothesis: God had 73 of His names inscribed at His right hand when He was about to commence the work of creation. Out of the first name there came forth three drops of water which filled the universe; the second provided light; the third, fire; and so forth. When His task was completed He set the name of 42 to keep the celestial waters apart from the terrestrial; it was the removal of this name that caused the flood (p. 14a).

iow 555 sas nwiy inws; Blau, 102 f.; Wohlstein, 30; Montgomery, 60; Jellinek, 33; Grunwald, MFV, XIX (1906), 112; etc.

29, <iyuni 11a, 30b; see also Raziel, 24a-b, 33b.

go. An effort has been made by some scholars to reconstruct the three names known in Talmudic times, those of 12, 42 and 72, on the assumption that they were not the same as those employed in later times. Bacher (Agada der babylonischen Amorder, 17-20) suggests that the 12-letter name was based on the three creative potencies myt m313n msn; and the 42 on the full ten: Dn TON wewr pI¥ Mpa AIA MD Myt m312n ADIN with the addition of the Tetragrammaton. Franck (Kabbalah, 71) derives the name of 42 from the ten Sefirot (cf. also Bischoff, 35 ff., 107 ff.), which, as Ginsburg (Kabbalah, 183) points out, is an obvious anachronism. Robert Eisler (RE7, LXXXII [1926], 157-9) bases the names of 42 and 72 on the thirteen Middot of Ex. 34:6-7. Blau (p. 144), on the analogy of the Greek magical papyri, in which the seven Greek vowels play a great rdle, works out a triangular anagram which, beginning with one YHVH builds up by the addition of one letter at a time to three—this, he maintains, contains the 4-letter name in the first line, the 12 in the last, the 42 in the last four, and the 72 in its totality. Finally, A. Haffer (Hagofeh, II [1912], 127 ff.) derives the 12-letter name from the first three names of God that occur in the Shema‘,myn» 339nd5s 5x, and to make up the 42-letter name he adds the final two words of the Shema‘ and the doxology sys odiyS inis5 T1259 ow 7192. The name of 72 he derives from Deut. 4:34. See also Schwab, Vocabulaire, 28 ff.

290 JEWISH MAGIC AND SUPERSTITION

These theories ring false, and certainly bear no relation to what was con- sidered a potent magic name in the post-Talmudic period; in any event, such efforts are entirely a matter of conjecture and invention, which can in no way be substantiated from the available facts. It seems to me that there is a strong probability that the names of 42 and 72 employed in the Middle Ages were che same as those in use during the first few centuries of the Common Era. Hai Gaon (1oth-11th century) (Ta‘am Zekenim, 57) spoke of them in words which imply that they had been well known for a long time, and the tenacity of tradi- tional lore, especially in a field such as that of mysticism and magic, in which letter-perfection is one of the prime requisites, is a well-known phenomenon.

Nwiy 8? Jona) ow ninw; <iyuni, 6ob:n“apm Ow iaw 4a) JINwss 7A DID) OND ney sae ery te phe a") Ts Nin socks Li -Zunz, Die tsynagogate Poesie des Mittelaliers, Berlin 1855, p. 146.

33- Ms. S. Gematriaot, 74b: pips. nian wowe ssi minis 3”) 1 Dy omspow muenisa miponnm minis 7) on) mim? ums mA? om ON? prow.

intercalated between the second and third verses of the Priestly Blessing. The other three were probably originally included in the text, but dropped out before it was printed in the eighteenth century).

J. Perles, MGW7, XXI (1872), 259-60; ibid., LXXVII (1933), 246; Schwab, op. cit., s. v.; Cordovero’s Pardes, 21:14 (ed. Lemberg 1862, p. 113a), vocalizes the name as I have given it.

(1908), 251-2; Nathan Hanover’s Sha‘are Zion, Vienna 1817, 34b, 35a, 28a, 60a, 63a; REF, LXV (1913), 59-60, where Aptowitzer cites acrostics containing this name which are somewhat older than those in Sha‘are Zion.

Mytd 8) Jews) mA D2) om minis a“> yy Mian wen Nxin1; <iyunt, 6od: miips 1) Sy Jona xvi (a“> read) 3”) Sw ow 9D ATIAYR 19y2 MON ony yt woip oN on > Tmos (85) owsnb) O99) 8799 AnD NPONT O53 DAN 435) ONDE 13w~m) OnpsN yiwsin minw />. An incantation in a sixteenth-century manuscript employs “‘the 22-letter name of the Priestly Benediction” to conjure a divinatory spirit (Grunwald, M7V, XIX [1906], 106). By means of this name the dead will be recalled from their graves at the resurrection; cf. Gaster, Studies and Texts, III, 230; Gollancz, Clavic. Sal., 42. The “Jerusalem” type of amulet- mezuzah (see p. 150 above) includes both benediction and name in a manner indicating their close relationship; cf. Aptowitzer, REF, LXV (1913), 59. An additional item of evidence is provided by a late Italian ms. entitled Sefer Ha- Razim (Ms. D 146, J. T. S. Library) which (p. 18a) combines the name and the blessing in an amulet.

246, 351-2.

1931), Hagigah, 20f. In connection with this name Maimonides launched a bitter denunciation of all these mystical names of God (cf. More Neb. I, 61, 62) which aroused only the faintest echo in Northern Europe. —

niny 2”) on} IN8 ow xsi) own. There were other versions of the name

NOTES 291

of 42, such as that which the Zohar constructed out of the ten divine names mentioned in the Bible (see Ginsburg, Kabbalah, 186-7), and the mnemotechni- cal signs for the ten plagues in the Passover Haggadah which a sixteenth-century ms. designated as this name because their numerical sum (by mispar katan) is 42 (Grunwald, M7V, XIX [1906], p. 119; see also FE, IX, 164); but these were “sports” which never challenged the position of the true name.

This prayer was made much of by the Kabbalists, who also composed other such prayers containing this name in.acrostic; cf. Landshuth, p. xxv; EF, II, 857.

vans Sw pippas mowsnas ssi minis. (See also Bacher, REF, XVIII [1889], 292-3, whose interpretation of this statement is far wide of the mark.) Raziel, 24b: 2 Sw 73 Jy mows Ow /a Te sin mnlw rw piper 19 NSU), own nt; Kiyuni, 2c: 1 Ow nwa nnis wy wy miain> niwena pips; Ms. S. Gematriaot, 74b:nsins /n siwnn sym. Sw /n oy miwsoa pipse Nyame a“ 72 ow mnin Sw; I may add that while the other works cited do not specify that the name of 42 to which they refer is the one of which I have been speaking, Raziel makes it clear that this is so. Cordovero (Pardes, 21:13, ed. Lemberg 1862, p. 112b) offers a complete exposition, through alphabetical permutations, of the derivation of this name from the opening verses of the Bible.

12 f., woefully misunderstood this passage when he stopped at the word 155 and translated it literally as “vessel,” thus making the use of a vessel (he had in mind the many clay vessels that have been found inscribed with Aramaic incantations) obligatory upon the magician. The sentence quoted, and the context, make it unmistakably clear that the “vessel” or “tool” referred to is the name of 72.

40b; ms. §. Gematriaot, 35a, 74b; Seance Kabbalah, 133 ff.; FE, TX, 164.

Tie TeRo tm hes lee Base ad Olio, | OL Ono): IIe DIN T3py>% read: pwp 127 959 ON Uy wes Tipyd on wd 3%) Donn.

XIV (1874) 6-8, 33; Kizur Shelah, Inyane Limmud, p. 150. I have not at- tempted, by any means, to be exhaustive in this presentation of angelic and godly names, Hebraic and foreign. The material is far too vast to permit of any- thing more than a sampling here. Schwab has made the largest collection of such names, and if his etymologies are as often as not dubious, he presents a good survey of the entire field. The purpose of this discussion has been solely to illustrate the type of material under consideration.

sary Volume, Leipzig 1909, p. 345; Gaster, Sword of Moses, p. xiv, 1. 25; Raziel, 5a; Grunwald, M7V, XIX (1906), 112, and fahrb. fiir jiid. Gesch. und Lit., IV (1901), 130-31.

292 JEWISH MAGIC AND SUPERSTITION

Lauterbach, Proc. Amer. Acad. Few. Research, 1931, 40, n. 3; M. Gaster, The Samaritans, London 1925, p. 67.

200, 201; Gaster, MGW7F, XXIX (1880), 554 ff., Folk-Lore, XI (1900), 157 f., Sword of Moses, 19; cf. however, Grunwald, M7V, XIX (1906), 107, where these three terms are invoked not against Lilit, but to gain inspiration for the preparation of an amulet. See also Grunwald, MGW7, LXXVII (1933), 241.

Krauss, ibid., LVI (1908), 253-4; Heller, ibid., LVII (1909), 107-8; Brill, Fahr- biicher, I (1874), 154 ff.; Gaster, Studies and Texts, III, 228; Montgomery, 99.

MG7V, V (1900), 79-84; E. Lévy, REF, LXXXII (1926), 401 ff.; Stein- schneider, Cat. Munich, p. 109.