AMULETS
The oldest surviving Hebrew/Israelite text is in the Ketef Hinnom amulets. Just a couple of inches big, these two tiny silver amulets from 600 BCE inscribed with a version of the Priestly Blessing in Paleo-Hebrew script.
Here is one of the amulets:
(יז) וְשִׂפַּ֣ח אֲדֹנָ֔י קׇדְקֹ֖ד בְּנ֣וֹת צִיּ֑וֹן וַיהֹוָ֖ה פׇּתְהֵ֥ן יְעָרֶֽה׃ {ס} (יח) בַּיּ֨וֹם הַה֜וּא יָסִ֣יר אֲדֹנָ֗י אֵ֣ת תִּפְאֶ֧רֶת הָעֲכָסִ֛ים וְהַשְּׁבִיסִ֖ים וְהַשַּׂהֲרֹנִֽים׃ (יט) הַנְּטִפ֥וֹת וְהַשֵּׁיר֖וֹת וְהָרְעָלֽוֹת׃ (כ) הַפְּאֵרִ֤ים וְהַצְּעָדוֹת֙ וְהַקִּשֻּׁרִ֔ים וּבָתֵּ֥י הַנֶּ֖פֶשׁ וְהַלְּחָשִֽׁים׃
(17) God will smite the heads of the daughters of Zion with scabs, Yah will uncover their heads. (18) In that day, God will strip off the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the moon pendants; (19 the earrings, the bracelets, and the veils; (20) the turbans, the armlets, and the sashes; the talismans and the amulets...
In Talmudic times various protective amulets were fastened around the wrist or other parts of the body. Some, like tefillin, became elevated into central sacred objects that could only be crafted and used by men. Other amulet traditions were maintained by witches and other female healers.
The Talmudic sages often quote long chains of male lineage when they state their opinions. Abaya, a great Babylonian Talmudic sage of the 3-4th century, stands out because instead, he bases his authority on the following statement: "Amra li aim/Momma said to me...."
Abaya's mother, who adopted him, was an authority in protective magic.
אָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: תְּלָתָא — מוֹקְמִי, חֲמִשָּׁה — מַסּוּ, שִׁבְעָה — אֲפִילּוּ לִכְשָׁפִים מְעַלּוּ...
אָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: כֹּל מִנְיָינֵי — בִּשְׁמָא דְאִימָּא, וְכֹל קִטְרֵי — בִּשְׂמָאלָא. וְאָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: כֹּל מִנְיָינֵי דְּמִפָּרְשִׁי — כִּדְמִפָּרְשִׁי, וּדְלָא מִפָּרְשִׁי — אַרְבְּעִין וְחַד זִימְנֵי...
Abaye said: Momma said to me: Three qesharim protect, five heal, and seven are effective even against magic...
Abaye said, Momma said to me: All incantations that are repeated are intoned using the name of the mother of the one requiring the incantation, and all knots tied for the purpose of healing are tied on the left.
And Abaye said, Momma said to me: All incantations for which the number of times they must be intoned is specified, one recites them as they are specified; and those for which the number of times they must be intoned is not specified, one recites them forty-one times...
Rabbi Jane Litman
Saying Goodbye to Friends: A Ritual for Today from the Bar Kochba Caves
Lilith Magazine 12/19/1990
Several months ago, my friend Margaret, a Reform rabbi, moved away to Mendicino, California to serve a congregation there. Three of us — Sue, Zari and myself — wanted to send her off with a ritual that was 1) Jewish, 2) gave her something of us to remember and 3) reflected a sense of the importance of women’s history, since we all felt strongly about the need for women’s voice in Jewish practice.
We ended up making her a qesher, that is, a small bag of keepsakes, herbs, shells, semiprecious stones and the like, which she can use as a sachet....
For many hundreds of years this verse [Shabbat 66B: 8--see source above] was indecipherable. However, Greenberg cites the finds of Israeli archeologist Yigael Yadin in the Bar Kochba caves to show that small bags of shells, crystals and feathers were “protective amulets” which Yadin identified as the mysterious qesharim. They were bound to a person’s clothing — hence the name, “qesher” that is “bound.”
INCANTATION BOWLS
The incantation bowl above includes the following text:
1. BIBLE: NUMBERS 9:23
2. BIBLE: ZECHARIAH 3:2
3. BIBLE: PSALMS 55:8; 91:7-8
4. INCANTATIONS:
Tigers are placed upright on my head, and malicious pebble-stones are placed on my chest, and at their knees are sealed heaven and earth, fire, water, moon, stars, zodiak signs, sparks, air, demons, devs, accidents, no-good-ones, satans, danahish, male idols and female goddesses.
Again, I seal and double-seal, I, Dukhtanshah daughter of Gushnoi, by these three magical words with which they speak and listen, for the great hammer of splendour and the great axe of the beginning and scourge of 360 pure pebble-spirits.
Amen, amen, selah.
https://rb.gy/fvcsmu
Text on an incantation bowl from
An Aramaic Incantation Text by Bahaa Amer Al-Jubouri
(1.) By your great name I act; may there be healing and sealing and arming and guarding from heaven for Narseh son of Ginbod (2.) and for Hormizat Anahîd his wife, and for his house and his sons and his daughters; that they may be healed and sealed and guarded by the mercy of heaven from Liliths and monsters (3.) and curses and vows and all evil sorceries and all powerful magic practices and all species of dispatches of night and day, I adjure you (4.) Seraphiel, the angel who is appointed over all the roots of the world in the name of Yah- weh, Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, that dwells between the cherubim, stay firm, keep uprooting and annulling all malice and demons and she-demons and hateful (5.) dreams and evil visions and Liliths and monsters and curses and vows and sorceries and magic prac- tices and escorts from Narseh son of Ginbod and Hormizat Anahîd his wife and sons and his daughters, that they have and that they shall have, (6.) from his house and his dwelling and his residence and his seed and his property in the name of Gabriel, captain of the host, and Michael, the chief of holy ones, and Raphael, the master of cures, and Nuriel, the master of the head of fire, and ‘Aqalqiel, the angel, the great frightener of all the children of the Heights; (7.) you, seal and arm and guard Narseh son of Ginbod and Hormizat Anahîd his wife, and his sons and his daughters and his residence and his dwelling and his seed and his property and all of his house from escorts and demons and she-demons (8.) and Liliths and monsters and curses and vows and all evil sorceries and all powerful magic practices and all species of dispatches of night and day and dreams and evil and hate- ful apparitions, Amen, Amen, Selah.
This incantation bowl was commissioned by someone named Gia Bar Imma to exorcise a demon.
(https://rb.gy/fvcsmu)
HAMSA AND THE EVIL EYE
A "Hand of Ishtar" from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II 883-859 BCE), Nimrud, Mesopatamia, Sulaimaniya Museum, Iraq.
The Temple Hymns by Enhedauna
Translated by Sophus Helle in Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author
...Your lady is the lady who imposes silence. The great good Queen of Heaven. When she speaks, heaven shakes. When she opens her mouth, storms roar. Ninhursanga, Enlil’s sister, has built a home in your holy court, House of Kesh, and has taken her seat upon your throne...
The female face of the Divine affirms that the people are engraved on her hands:
Or disown the child of her womb?
Though she might forget,
I never could forget you. (16) See, I have engraved you
On the palms of My hands,
Your walls are ever before Me.
Hamsa from Morocco c1900 https://cja.huji.ac.il/gross/browser.php?mode=set&id=35793
The letter Shin
Bonus: the lineage of Yosef (and Dinah)--- queer folks, are not susceptible to the evil eye:
Rabbi Yoḥanan used to go and sit at the gates of the women’s immersion pools. Rabbi Yoḥanan, who was known for his extraordinary good looks, explained this and said: When the daughters of Israel emerge from their immersion, they will look at me, and will have children as beautiful as I. The Sages asked him: Master, do you not fear the evil eye? He said to them: I descend from the seed of Joseph over whom the evil eye has no dominion, as it is written: “Joseph is a bountiful vine, a bountiful vine on a spring [alei ayin]” (Genesis 49:22). “Ayin” can mean both “spring” and “eye.” And Rabbi Abbahu said a homiletic interpretation: Do not read it alei ayin, rather olei ayin, above the eye; they transcend the influence of the evil eye.
LILITH, PROTECTIVE MAGIC, JEWISH WITCHES
Many printed amulets were created to protect women in childbirth--- a highly dangerous process. These amulets, written by men for women and often administered by midwives, were usually written to protect the birthing woman from the demon Lilith. The mythologies say that Lilith, Adam's first wife, was banished from Eden for audaciously demanding equal rights to her husband, and exacts her revenge by killing newborn babies. If patriarchy shores up it's power by pitting women against women, there is perhaps no more appalling or tragic example that the birthing amulet that sets up Lilith as the antagonist of a birthing woman...
(לד) ה׳) א״ל המלאכים הממונים לרפואה סנוי סנסנוי סמנגלוף (11). כשברא הקב״ה אדם הראשון יחיד, אמר לא טוב היות האדם לבדו, ברא לו אשה מן האדמה כמוהו וקראה לילית, מיד התחילו מתגרין זה בזה, אמרה היא איני שוכבת למטה, והוא אומר איני שוכב למטה אלא למעלה שאת ראויה למטה ואני למעלה, אמרה לו שנינו שוין לפי ששנינו מאדמה, ולא היו שומעין זה לזה, כיון שראתה לילית אמרה שם המפורש ופרחה באויר העולם, עמד אדם בתפלה לפני קונו ואמר, רבש״ע אשה שנתת לי ברחה ממני, מיד שגר הקב״ה שלשה מלאכים הללו אחריה להחזירה, אמר לו הקב״ה אם תרצה לחזור מוטב, ואם לאו תקבל על עצמה שימותו מבניה בכל יום מאה בנים, עזבו אותה והלכו אחריה והשיגוה בתוך הים במים עזים שעתידין המצריים לטבוע בו וספרוה דבר ה' ולא רצתה לחזור, אמרו לה אנו נטביעך בים, אמרה להם הניחוני שלא נבראתי אלא להחליש התינוקות כשהן משמונה ימים מיום שיולד אשלוט בו אם הוא זכר, ואם נקבה מיום ילדותה עד עשרים יום. וכששמעו דבריה הפצירו לקחתה, נשבעת להם בשם אל חי וקיים שכל זמן שאני רואה אתכם או שמכם או תבניתכם בקמיע לא אשלוט באותו התינוק, וקבלה על עצמה שימותו מבניה מאה בכל יום, לפיכך בכל יום מתים מאה מן השדים, ולכך אנו כותבים שמותם בקמיע של נערים קטנים ורואה אותם וזוכרת השבועה ומתרפא הילד.
(34) ה He said to him, "The angels appointed for healing: Sanoy, Sansanoy, Semangalof. When the Holy Blessed One created the first Adam alone, They said, (Genesis 2:18) 'It is not good for this Adam to be alone.' They created for him a wife out of the Earth like he had been, and called her Lilith. Immediately they began to challenge each other. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the Earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the world's air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator and said, 'Sovereign of the universe! The woman you gave me has run away from me.' Immediately, the Holy Blessed One sent these three angels to bring her back. The Holy Blessed One said to Adam, 'If she agrees to come back, good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.' They departed and pursued her, and overtook her in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians would ultimately drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, 'We shall drown you in the sea.' She said to them, 'Let me be. I was created only to cause illness to infants. I have dominion over them for eight days after birth if they are male, and if female, after birth for twenty days.' When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted on taking her. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God, 'Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.' She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write their names on the amulets of young children, and she sees them, she remembers her oath, and the child is healed."
This birthing amulet oldest surviving print amulet is from Amsterdam c 1700. Across the top is says: "Adam and Eve Excluding Lilith."
Ashkanazim called birth amulets kimpetbrivl, Sphardim kame'ot.
These three anti-Lilith angels frequently show up in birthing amulets. Across the top it says "Adam and Eve Excluding Lilith."
At this contemporary birthing amulet from the Chabad Lubavitch community it includes the Biblical verse "Do not let a witch live" in six different permutations, the three anti-Lilith angels, and the command "Excluding Lilith and her group!"
Found here: https://rb.gy/fvcsmu
MISC AMULETS
photos by R Jericho from the collection of the Jewish Museum of Athens
SOME INGREDIENTS FOR A JEWISH PROTECTIVE AMULET
Commanding or prayerful language of the heart
Quotes from sacred texts
Illustrations
Hamsa
The Shield of David
Names of angels (often quality + "El"/Divine Power)
Eyes
Sacred geometry
Menorah
God names, especially "Shaddai"/Divine of Breasts/Nurturing Goddess or the letter Shin for Shaddai