The most potent force in Jewish magic was not an herb, a stone, or a demon. It was a name. undefined Trachtenberg demonstrated that the entire architecture of Jewish supernatural practice rested on one conviction: God's names contain real, deployable power, and the person who knows how to speak them controls the forces of creation.
The logic began with a story. Methuselah advised Lamech to delay naming his son Noah "because the people of that generation were sorcerers, and they would have bewitched him if they had known his name" (Da'at (Knowledge) Zekenim on (Genesis 5:2)8). If a human name gave power over its bearer, how much more so the name of God? The Shem HaMeforash (שֵׁם הַמְפוֹרָשׁ), the Ineffable Name, was considered so dangerous that 83 written substitutes for the Tetragrammaton (the four-letter name YHVH) were developed. Even the particle <i>Yah</i> was avoided—which is why Jehudah became Judah and the final "h" was dropped from Elijah.
But secrecy bred elaboration. Beyond the four-letter name, Jewish tradition developed names of 12, 22, 42, and 72 letters, each with escalating power. The Sefer Hasidim records that pronouncing certain names could heal the sick, calm storms, and bind demons. Moses killed the Egyptian (Exodus 2:11) by speaking God's name aloud. The words <i>Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh Yah YHVH Tzevaot Amen Amen Selah</i>, written on a staff, could calm a raging sea (Bava Batra 73a).
The ultimate expression of name-magic was the Golem. According to tradition, certain masters could animate a clay figure by inscribing divine names upon it or placing a name-bearing parchment in its mouth. As Chayim Bloch recorded in his 1925 account, by the 17th century the question had become so pressing that rabbis debated whether a Golem could be counted as one of a <i>minyan</i>—the quorum of ten required for communal prayer. The name that created the universe, it seemed, could also create life.