An Analysis of Cryptic Historic Amulets

As an observant modern Jew who has spent many years in yeshivot beginning my delving into and mastery of the Jewish legal and folkloric tradition(1), I have been intrigued by the tradition's forays into what might be called magic and the occult. The rabbis of the Bavli, as well as the Jews of their time and onward, were immersed in a world where angels and demons were considered real forces in the world that needed to be reckoned with. As such, so many pre-modern kameot call upon the names of angels as a means of adding power to the kameot’s effectiveness and call out specific demons that the kamea will repel. Added to these invocations that are foreign to at least my Jewish sensibilities and practice, in order to save space and perhaps cultivate a sense of mystery and magic, historical kameot often contain acronyms of Biblical verses, rather than the verses themselves. This results in a puzzling collection of letters that was likely only understood by the inner circles of amulets writers and aficionados. I have encountered several exceptionally cryptic examples, cataloged and deciphered by Theodore Schrire in Hebrew Magic Amulets: Their Decipherment and Interpretation, here are two, which have legible letters, but are impossible to comprehend at first glance:

Here is another example from Schrire of a cryptic kamea, this one invokes several angels:

I speculate that in times past, the contents of a kamea were intended to be kept secret from everyone but the writer and wearer. Given the personal nature of the topics addressed by many historical kameot, namely fertility issues, especially with the social stigma that (unfortunately) remains to this day(10) and must have been even greater in times past, I can understand the wearer’s desire to keep their inscription a private matter. Still, I am troubled by the mystification of the Biblical verses, I think that using verses to create codes draws close to the Rambam’s most general criticism of kameot, in his famous philosophical work, Moreh Nevukhim, the Guide for the Perplexed,

Every other name of God is a derivative, only the Tetragrammaton is a real nomen proprium, and must not be considered from any other point of view. You must beware of sharing the error of those who write amulets (kameot). Whatever you hear from them, or read in their works, especially in reference to the names which they form by combination, is utterly senseless; they call these combinations shemot (names) and believe that their pronunciation demands sanctification and purification, and that by using them they are enabled to work miracles. Rational persons ought not to listen to such men, nor in any way believe their assertions.(11)

The Rambam is critiquing the use of codes in kameot to form what are often called shemot (names of God). He is vehemently opposed to assigning any sort of transcendent power to any name other than the Tetragrammaton. The use of codes, even when they innocently conceal verses of Hashem’s Torah, can easily come to represent new “holy” names, like the ones that the Rambam forbade in reference to mezuzot.

1. Commonly known as Halakhah and Aggadah
2. Schrire, Theodore. Hebrew magic amulets: their decipherment and interpretation. New York, NY: Behrman House, 1982. Photographic appendix, 152.
3. Exodus 23:26, NJPS translation via Sefaria.org
4. Deuteronomy 7:14, NJPS translation via Sefaria.org
5. Apparently in the setting at the top. The photographs in the book are black and white.
6. Rabbi Meir, a Tanna (a Rabbi of the Mishnah) is called by tradition בעל הנס (Ba’al haNes, The Master of Miracle). The tradition of invoking God as the God of Rabbi Meir originates from a story in Bavli Avodah Zarah 18a, in which the sister of Rabbi Meir’s wife Bruriah has been kidnapped into a brothel. On a rescue mission, a disguised Rabbi Meir bribes a Roman brothel guard to free his sister-in-law. He tells the skeptical guard (who is worried for his own life at the hands of his Roman governmental bosses) that everything will be alright, even if his superiors notice that there is a woman missing from the brothel. He tells the guard to say, “אלהא דמאיר ענני” (“God of Meir, answer me”), and he will be saved from trouble. Thus invoking Hashem as the God of Rabbi Meir is calling out to a God that answers in times of danger.
7. Schrire, 169-170
8. Genesis 49:22, NJPS translation via Sefaria.org. The verse is from Jacob’s blessing to his children before his death. Perhaps this strange verse was chosen because Joseph was the fulfillment of Rachel’s desire for a child, and she gave birth to him without complication, while she died giving birth to her second son Benjamin.
9. Genesis 49:18, NJPS translation via Sefaria.org. This verse is found four lines before the previously quoted one and is a plea for salvation from danger.
10. But the conversation is shifting/coming into existence in the public sphere. Yesh Tikva is a an organization raising awareness about infertility in the Jewish community.
11. Guide for the Perplexed 1:61:2, translation from Sefaria.org. Here I do not provide the Hebrew, as the Hebrew is also a translation from the Judeo-Arabic that the Rambam originally wrote this in! Thanks to my Tanakh teacher at the Conservative Yeshiva, Vered Hollander-Goldfarb, for pointing this out to me in her creation of source sheets.