NEWS: (Jewish) Magic and sorcerers of ancient Babylon
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Jewish novelist writes about real magic and sorcerers of ancient Babylon By
Greg Garrison | <[log in to unmask]>
"Rav Hisda's Daughter"
Plume, 452 pp., $16
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Jewish novelist Maggie Anton has found herself dealing
with some of the same subject matter as fellow female novelist J.K. Rowling
of "Harry Potter" fame, but Anton's magic stories are based on real history.
Anton, author of the novel "Rav Hisda's Daughter," (Plume, 452 pp.,
$16) will speak Tuesday at noon at Temple Beth-El's Sisterhood luncheon.
She'll be talking about her historical research on the Talmud and ancient
Babylonian Incantation Bowls, featured in her novels.
"I've been studying Talmud for 20 years," Anton said. "There's magic stuff.
I didn't realize my book would focus so much on ancient sorcery. During the
first 500 to 600 years of this millennium, sorcery was ubiquitous. They had
incantantions, amulets and magic spells.
"As I discovered that sorcery was rampant, it was interesting to see the
differences between sorcerers. Today we think of wicked witches, but
according to the Talmud, sorcerers are actually in league with the angels.
In Jewish tradition, nobody has ever burned witches. Now I can understand
why. There was a tradition of healing magic."
Anton's novel is set in Third Century Babylon, where enchantresses were
sought out for spells and amulets for everyday needs. Jewish rabbis not only
didn't condemn sorcerers, their commentaries on the scriptures, known as the
Talmud, give advice on how to find a good sorcerer whose spells are
trustworthy.
Anton theorizes that the sorcerers, all women, were typically the wives and
daughters of rabbis, because the spells were the work of highly literate
women writing Aramaic with Hebrew lettering.
After the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D., the dispersed Jews
had to develop rules and procedures for practicing Judaism without the
temple.
That's the purpose of the Talmud, Anton said in an interview.
"The Talmud is the basis of Judaism as we practice it today," Anton said.
"When the temple was there, Jews would go to Jerusalem and sacrifice
animals. After the temple was destroyed, they came up with a way to practice
Judaism wherever you were. They collected all the laws and put them in a
book, the Mishnah, that's about 600 pages. Then somebody's going to have
questions, and they had to answer the questions. The Talmud is a book
discussing the Mishnah, how to make Jewish law, how to understand Jewish
law. The post-biblical traditions and laws all come from the Talmud. It's
the customs and laws we follow today. The Bible is not many books. The
Talmud is a whole bookcase."
Questions would be asked, and answered, in a running, voluminous commentary.
But in the sixth century, the rabbis cut off discussion, Anton said.
"The whole point is how we're going to do Judaism now that we have no temple
and no priesthood," Anton said. "How are we going to atone for our sins?
They innovated new ways to do Judaism. It enabled the Jews who spread
everywhere to take their religion and spread their religion. They were
forced to come up with new ways to practice Judaism wherever they were."
Anton learned about the Babylonian magic or incantation bowls during her
research. "I was trying to find authentic Jewish names from back then," she
said. "The spells and incantations were said with a person's mother's name."
During the Iraq war, archeologists began digging in ancient Jewish
communities. Under every home, they found an incantation bowl, or sorcery
cup, about six inches across.
"They all come from Iraq, unearthed by archeologists," Anton said.
"All of these bowls are unique. They were composed by sorcerers for clients,
buried under person's house, to protect against sickness and ward off
demons. They call upon Jewish angels, quote from the Torah or Mishnah. This
is the only archeological evidence we have from fourth to sixth centuries
when the Talmud is being created. In the 1800s, they found them and were
ashamed. When the Iraq war happened, there was no security, and looters and
archeologists flooded Iraq. This is people going to ruins to dig. They found
these bowls under every house where they looked. Thousands of them found
their way into museums.
These were under every house. This is what everyone was doing.
Suddenly the study of Jewish magic became cool."
Magic had its rules and regulations.
"The Talmud has a lot to say about sorcery," Anton said. "Sorcery is the
province of women. The rabbis have rules - when you need an amulet spell,
how do you find an expert, how do you know it works? They want you to go buy
the amulets."
For example, "The magical procedure to protect yourself in the privy is wash
yourself three times and say a prayer as you come out," Anton said.
"There is a place in the Talmud where the rabbis consult the head
sorceress," Anton said. "These were not a bunch of wacko ladies living in
caves. The rabbis consult them a lot and tell you how to find a competent
one. If it's their wives and mothers, of course they're respectable. They
have to be literate to be able to write one."
But it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a prayer and an
incantation, she said.
"It's a fuzzy line, whether it's a prayer or blessing, or if you're
conjuring demons or angels. The Jewish incantations are almost always
directed toward angels, to dispel demons. It would look to us like a prayer
for protection. During the Enlightenment, Jews tried to distance themselves
from superstitious stuff."
Echoes of the old incantations remained.
"We have prayers in every service, prayers for healing, with the name of the
person's mother," Anton said. "If you have a blessing, a healing blessing,
that's done with the name of the mother."
The tradition of Jewish sorcery is indisputable, she said.
"Catholics pray to the saints," Anton said. "Most of these Jewish
incantations are directed to angels. God is too busy running things.
God has a big bureaucracy. When you want something, you go to the secretary,
the guy behind the counter; they saw the angels as part of the bureaucracy."
Modern-day Judaism is a bit conflicted about this bit of Hebrew history, she
said.
"It's embarrassing; it's superstitious," Anton said.
The parts of the Talmud she writes about are not taught in rabbinical
schools.
"It's scattered all through there - how to find a good amulet maker, a
proven spell," Anton said. "If you're sick; you need protection from
sickness or healing, you can wear an amulet on the Sabbath, but only a
proven amulet written by an expert. Some of the discussions just come from
out of nowhere. The Talmud is not organized in as good a fashion as you
would like. There are certain sections that everybody studies.
But that's a small section."
But experts on the Talmud know about the magic spells. "They know it's
there," she said. She keeps bibliography and footnotes, in case anyone
questions the validity of her research.
Rav Hisda was a real Tamudic scholar, and his daughter, Hisdadukh, the
heroine of her novel, is mentioned in the Talmud nearly two dozen times, she
said.
"He's a historical guy who really lived," she said of Rav Hisda. "She (the
daughter) is mentioned in more places than any other woman.
There's a scene in the Talmud where the rabbi is teaching and she's in the
classroom. He calls up his two best students. He asks which one she wants to
marry. She answers, 'Both of them.' The younger one says, 'I'll be the
last.' First she marries the older boy, has kids, is widowed, then marries
the second, and has more kids. I read that and said, 'I've got to write her
story.'"
"Most of my audience is women," Anton said. "People are finding it
fascinating. This is not something they learned in religious school, this is
not something they learned from their rabbis preaching. This is not what
Judaism is now, and we don't want everybody out there making amulets and
incantation bowls."
Anton uses her novels to take people back in time to a very real period of
history.
"When they read my novels, they're there," she said. "They're experiencing
it."
For Anton, it's a fun period of Jewish history.
"I like to write about a time period when there's no persecution, no
pogroms," Anton said.
"I want a happy ending, a satisfying ending, in a time period when things
are good for my people. There are times when things were good."
Anton said there's still magic spells out there today.
"In a Judaica shop on Long Island, I was looking for amulets, and I bought
one of the most common ones," Anton said. "It has a spell from Talmud, to
protect merchants on the road, a traveler's prayer, or blessing. It looks
like a keychain. There's lots of that ancient magic that still permeates
Judaism in ways that people don't realize what it is."
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