"Release Us and We Will Release You!" Rabbinic Encounters with Witches and Witchcraft

Jonathan Seidal

Anthropological analysis of witchcraft in diverse settings may fruitfully be applied to the culture represented by Rabbinic literature in Late Antiquity. This study investigates several stories in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds and tentatively suggests that both Rabbinic society in Sasanian Babylonia may be interpreted as a "witchcraft society" along the lines delineated by Mary Douglas. "Witches" and "witchcraft" are labels applied by Rabbinic editors to lethal women and sometimes men who threaten Rabbinic power and masculinity. These literary encounters reveal Rabbis casting apotropaic counter-spells and engaging in the defense of society. Rabbis also learn essential defense mechanisms from more benign witches with whom they are engaged in conversation. Images of evil semi-human witches and the language of powerful incantations have been inherited from Mesopotamian tradition, but have been reshaped to fit the Rabbinic social context in Palestine and Babylonia. The construction of the witch as "other" differs in these environments, and it is in Sasanian Babylonia where the attribution of Douglas' "witchcraft" society fits more appropriately.

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