Kameot as Ancient Practice

Amulets, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as anything “worn about the person as a charm or preventive against evil, mischief, disease, witchcraft, etc.”, have been widely used by Jews for as long as there have been Jews. In the famous work on the subject, Rabbi Joshua Trachtenberg’s 1939 Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion, it is noted,

Even in our supposedly non-superstitious age[,] the good-luck charm is still quite familiar, apologetically displayed on a watch-chain, or carried furtively in the recesses of pockets and purses--the rabbit’s foot, the horseshoe, lucky coins, rings engraved with Chinese or Hebrew letters, animal molars. How much more common, then, are such objects in societies which unashamedly and openly accept them for what they are . . . in the medieval and ancient worlds, which did not for a moment doubt their efficacy! As a matter of fact, it has been suggested that all ornaments worn on the person were originally amulets. (1)

Think about that quote for a second, do you have good luck charms? Do you wear certain jewelry that connects you to memories, to the loved ones who gifted the charms to you or once wore them themselves, or to the meaning represented therein? It could easily be argued that you wear an amulet. We all wear amulets. Or, as I, as an artist and scholar immersed in the culture, tradition, and texts of Rabbinic Judaism, like to call them, קְמֵעוֹת kəme'ot (singular קָמֵעַ kame'a). For ease of form and reading, I will henceforth transliterate this word as kamea and kameot.

This word appears originally in the Mishnah and Tosefta, the earliest works of Rabbinic Literature, compiled around the year 200 CE. Its origins are unclear. According to Rashi, the 11th century French commentator on the Babylonian Talmud (henceforth, the Bavli), on Shabbat 61a, “קמיע אינו אלא לשון קשר”, “kamea simply means tying”. That is, the word is connected to the Hebrew word for tying or binding, presumably on a pendant around one’s neck. Alternatively, scholars suggest that its etymology might be related to an Arabic root meaning “to hang”(2). Whatever the case, this word contextually refers to a charm worn to protect the wearer from some form of malady.

Now let’s return to another aspect of Trachtenberg’s introduction to kameot, that the people of the ancient and medieval worlds did not doubt the efficacy of such items. While we, as modern, hyper-rational students of medicine and social science, can explain away their abundant usage in the ancient world as folk practices in response to the terrors of (what were then) inexplicable disease and danger, for our ancestors, the wearing of amulets was just a part of life. This basic cultural assumption, that amulets are normal and that there exist efficacious amulets, is core to the rabbinic understanding of kameot and their uses. This is particularly apparent in the Bavli and the later rabbinic law codes’ discussion of kameot as they relate to Shabbat, of which I offer a translation and close reading.

How ancient is the Jewish practice of writing and wearing amulets? As old as Biblical times or even the Biblical text itself. In 1979, at an archeological site near the Old City of Jerusalem, called Ketef Hinnom, two small scrolls made of silver, were unearthed. One is about four inches long, the other an inch and a half. They were discovered rolled up. They are inscribed, in Paleo-Hebrew script, with a version of Numbers 6:24-26. That is:

יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃

יָאֵ֨ר יְהוָ֧ה ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃

יִשָּׂ֨א יְהוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃

May Hashem bless you and keep you.

May Hashem deal kindly and graciously with you.

May Hashem bestow God’s favor upon you and grant you peace!

The Priestly Blessing, the one recited by the Kohanim upon the people on Festivals(3), the one that parents recite upon their children, the most Jewish of well-wishes, is here recorded, on a silver amulet that was rolled up and clearly intended to be worn to guard the wearer. Astoundingly, this pair of amulets has been dated to the sixth century BCE, while the First Temple still stood, before its destruction in the year 586 BCE. This is the earliest known recording of Biblical text, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by five hundred years! Our earliest record of Torah is in the form of an amulet. The use of Biblical verses as inscriptions on protective jewelry has at least a 2600 year history. The pair of kameot are on permanent display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.