This Normal Life: Magic, demons and Judaism: what to do with troubling texts?
Source: Jerusalem Post

By Dr. Robin Stamler is a magic buff

It’s not magic tricks that interest him so much as the intersection between Jewish tradition and the mysterious and inexplicable.

In a brisk one-hour session at the recent Limmud Jerusalem conference, Stamler laid out some of the more esoteric examples of Judaism’s quirkier, some would say darker, side.

What is clear is that by the time the Talmud was being redacted, magic was very much a part of Judaism; not just a tangent but an accepted reality in the daily lives of our ancestors. Warding off demons, particularly through the writing of protective amulets, played a large role.

Stamler shared a story from the talmudic tractate of Pessahim that discusses a man who was set upon by 60 demons that were living in a sorb-bush. The man went to a rabbi who was also a local amulet maker. The rabbi wrote for him the necessary text, but it was mistakenly only for a one-demon bush. It didn’t work, naturally, and the demons “laughed at his expense,” so another scholar was called in. He wrote the correct 60-demon amulet and “the demons fled at once.”

Archeologists have found many amulet “bowls,” particularly in Babylonia, confirming that this was not an infrequent practice.

Stamler also gave examples of protection against Lilith, who, unlike the feminist hero she has become in recent years, complete with her own magazine, has a much bleaker back story.

Before Eve was created, Lilith was said to be Adam’s first partner, but she was expelled from the Garden of Eden over a difference of opinion on sexual positions (she wanted to be on top).

During her flight, she turned to the dark side and, by the Middle Ages, was widely feared as a killer of infants – so much so that countless amulets at great cost were written to ward off the dangers of this terrible demon.

To my modern eyes, it was all rather amusing.

Ah, how primitive our forefathers were! And how foolish they were to spend good money on such things. We, of course, know better these days.

That is, until Stamler got to Rebbetzin Aidel Miller, a master of the art of “lead pouring,” a relatively modern feat of Jewish magic that originated in the late 19th century and is also known by its original German name bleigiessen.

Miller is operating today, in 2015, not hundreds of years ago, charging a tidy sum ($101 per session – after the 101 shofar blasts some congregations blow on Rosh Hashana)

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