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| Introduction: The
War With The Spirits |
Fear of the supernatural has been productive of
the greatest number and variety of magical protective devices...
The method of warding off the spirits fell into three general categories:
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to drive them away, or at least
to render them powerless by the application of certain approved means; |
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to buy them off with gifts, to bribe them and
thus conciliate them; |
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to deceive them by disguising their
intended victims, or by pretending that the situation was other than it
actually was. |
Each of these methods, and often two or all three of them combined, was known
and employed by Jews and even found expression in special ceremonies which have
become part and parcel of Jewish ritual. We will focus in this article on the
third weapon in anti-demonic strategy — deceit.
Deceit figures prominently in the initiation, marriage and burial rites
of primitive peoples and not a few examples have been collected from European
folk-customs. Medieval Jews, however, resorted to this device only rarely. Apart
from several instances connected with birth and marriage...it was most commonly
employed in changing an invalid's name so that the spirits who might be charged
with effecting his death would be unable to locate him. This deception was also
practiced by individuals who had suffered a run of bad luck; just as criminals
adopt aliases to evade the police, so medieval Jews embraced new names to give
their spirit harriers the slip. Changing one's residence, or moving out of a
city altogether, was another way of confusing and eluding the demons; this remedy
was suggested to people whose fortune had soured, to couples whose children
had died young, to men who had lost their peace of mind through the operation
of love charms.
Medieval medicine was a curiously indiscriminate compound of science and superstition....
A quite extraordinary healing device was predicated on the belief that illness
and death are often visited upon man for his sins, by the angels, at God's command.
Jews visualized the celestial administration as conducted in much the same bureaucratic
manner as a mundane government. The decrees issued from the seat of the Supreme
Ruler were distributed among the various secretariats and in time assigned to
angelic attendants for execution. Not unlike their earthly counterparts, the
angels tended to go about their tasks methodically, but not over-intelligently,
carrying out the letter of their orders without any great concern with or comprehension
of the wider import of their errands.
The human analogy suggested the possibility of outwitting them by a crafty dodge.
The Talmud knew of four courses that might be pursued to counteract an adverse
decree from above, namely, alms-giving, prayer, change of conduct, and change
of name. Lest there be any doubt of the intent of this last method, Moses of
Coucy[2] plainly explained that the
one who changes his name as much as declares to the angel looking for him, "I
am not the person you are seeking, I am not the one who committed the sins you
charge me with." And, of course, the angel takes him at his word. During the
Middle Ages the belief that changing the name of a sick person can save his
life and effect his cure by hoodwinking the angel charged with bringing his
ailment to a fatal conclusion was very pronounced and much more generally accepted
than in earlier periods. It seems to have been acted upon universally among
German Jews when an illness was prolonged and severe. Interestingly enough,
the very same course is followed on the opposite side of the earth, in Borneo
and the Kingsmill Islands.
In modern times, when Jews effected such a change of name, they
usually selected one which in itself suggests a long life, to make doubly sure
that the angel of death will avoid the invalid, such as Hayim ("life"), Alter
("old man"), Zeide ("grandfather"), etc. During the Middle Ages the customary
procedure was to find a new name "by lot," opening the Bible at random and choosing
the first one that appeared. Israel Bruna,[3]
in his responsa, protested against the adoption of the name of a sick person
when such was the first found, and ordered it to be passed over for the first
righteous one, citing "the memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the
wicked shall perish" (Proverbs 10:7) in extenuation. Israel Isserlein[4]
went further, and demanded that the new name contain not a single letter of
the old and that it have a greater numerical value, although when he changed
his own son's name during an illness he adhered to neither of his requirements.
This change of name was and still is solemnly effected before an assembly of
ten persons by an expert reader who holds a Torah scroll in his hands while
he repeats a prescribed formula whose institution is attributed to the Geonim.
After announcing the new name, the ritual formally notifies the heavenly authorities
of the change, and requests them to take cognizance of it and to consider this
person as not identical with the one who bore his former name, "for he is another
man, like unto a newborn creature, an infant who has just been born unto a long
and good life." The new name then becomes the true name, even though the old
remains in use, and in legal documents the individual is identified by it with
the notation that he bears his former name as an alias.
However. Some Jews were known by their parents' names as well as by their own,
as Isaac son of Abraham and Sarah, there still remained some room for apprehension
lest the angel's order identify the child by its parents (which is especially
likely to happen when the child is being punished for its parents' sins); a
change simply of its own name would then be ineffective to save its life. The
way out was not hard to find — change his parents as well! Which is just
what was done. The real parents would sell their invalid child to another couple
who, because their children were alive and well, appeared to be in high favor
with the heavenly powers. Thus, the child acquired new parents, and the angel
of death was twice confounded. If he tried to locate the child through the parents
he could not trace it, and if he hunted up the parents to punish them by killing
their child, he found they had none.
| Civilized people lose their
religion easily, but rarely their superstitions. — Karl Goldmark[1]
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[1]
Karl Goldmark (1830-1915), Viennese Jewish music teacher, composer and conductor.
His autobiography (1922) was translated into English in 1927 as Notes
from the Life of a Viennese Composer. [back]
[2] Moses ben Jacob of Coucy (13th cent.), French scholar
and tosafist, the first example among French Jews of an itinerant preacher,
wandering from town to town and from country to country to rouse the masses
to draw near to God by the active observance of His precepts. [Back]
[3] Israel Bruna (c.1400-1480), German rabbi and communal
leader; after the deaths of Rabbis Jacob Weil and Israel Isserlein, he was
recognized as the halakhic authority of Germany, and his opinion in communal
and rabbinic matters was widely sought. His responsa, which provide valuable
information on the German Jewish scene of his time, were collected and published
posthumously (1788, 1860, 1960). [back]
[4] Israel Isserlein (1390-1460), the foremost rabbi of
Germany in the 15th century, erudite and profound scholar; also known as
Israel Marburg and Israel Neustadt, after the towns in which he resided.
Isserlein's most important work is his responsa Terumat ha-Deshen,
whose halakhic rulings provide an authentic picture of Jewish life in 15th-century
Germany. [Back] |
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From: Jewish
Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg. |
TOPSY TURVY Table of Contents
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