כשיוצא אדם בלילה | When a person goes out at night: an apotropaic invocation of angelic protection in the Seder Rav Amram Gaon (ca. 9th c.)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (translation), Dan Levene, Dalia Marx and Amram Ben Rav Sheshna

Shared on:

14 May 2020 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Bedtime Shema, Travel

Tags:

traveler, danger, night, Angels, Angelic Protection, שכינה Shekhinah, mid-first millennium CE, apotropaic prayers of protection, 9th century C.E., 47th century A.M.

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Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)
כשיוצא אדם [יחידי] בלילה בלא שעה אומר:	When a person goes out [alone]^[1] The addition of “alone” is found in Ms. Opp. Add. Q° 28 (Bodleian Library) also known as the Manuscript O for Seder Rav Amram. Levene, Marx, and Bharyo note that “When the Tosefta defines the halakhic category of a fool, it mentions among other things ‘one who goes out at night alone,'” Tosefta Terumot 1.3. ‎ at night,^[2] See Bavli Berakhot 43b on the dangers of traveling at night. at no specific hour, they should say:
מימיני אל ומשמאלי עזיאל ומלפני נמואל ומאחורי שעשואל. שכינת אל על ראשי.	May El be on my right, and on my left, Uziel, and Nemuel before me, and behind me, Sha’ashuel. Shekhinat-El is above my head.
הצילני ה׳ מפגע רע ומשטן רע.	Save me YHVH from an evil affliction and from an evil satan.^[3] lit. accuser.

This “angels on all sides” formula for protection while traveling at night can be found on page 60 of the Codex Sulzberger manuscript of the Seder Rav Amram Gaon, transcribed by Dr. Daniel Goldschmidt (Mossad haRav Kook 1971) on p. 184. Codex Sulzberger is widely considered the best of all the surviving manuscripts of Seder Rav Amram. Named after Mayer Sulzberger (1843-1923), the manuscript first became known through the research of the scholar Alexander Marx in 1907. The full manuscript may be viewed online courtesy of the digital library of the Jewish Theological Society of America.

This invocation is discussed briefly within the context of other liturgical and theurgical works containing an “angels on all sides” formula in “‘Gabriel is on their Right’: Angelic Protection in Jewish Magic and Babylonian Lore” by Dan Levene, Dalia Marx, and Siam Bharyo in Studia Mesopotamica (Band 1: 2014) pp.185-198. The authors include a chart listing the various numinous entities associated with each direction in a number of comparative bowls, amulets, and other texts.

This is the second of four posts on textual variations of this formula: in an amulet bowl SD12 (mid-first millennium CE), in the Maḥzor Vitry (11th c.), and in a 20th century siddur.

The translation as it appears here differs slightly from that published in the article. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

Seder Rav Amram Gaon (Codex Sulzberger, JTSA) page 60

Seder Rav Amram Gaon, ed. Daniel Goldschmidt (Mossad haRav Kook 1971) p. 184

Notes[+]

Notes
1	The addition of “alone” is found in Ms. Opp. Add. Q° 28 (Bodleian Library) also known as the Manuscript O for Seder Rav Amram. Levene, Marx, and Bharyo note that “When the Tosefta defines the halakhic category of a fool, it mentions among other things ‘one who goes out at night alone,'” Tosefta Terumot 1.3.
2	See Bavli Berakhot 43b on the dangers of traveling at night.
3	lit. accuser.

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“כשיוצא אדם בלילה | When a person goes out at night: an apotropaic invocation of angelic protection in the Seder Rav Amram Gaon (ca. 9th c.)” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (translation)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer translator for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his translations, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin, Ministarot Nakeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also transcribes prayers and contributes his own original work besides administering the Open Siddur Project and this website.)

Dan Levene

Dan Levene is a lecturer of Jewish history and culture in the Department of History at Southampton University

Dalia Marx

Rabbi Dalia Marx (PhD) is the Aaron Pankin professor of liturgy and Midrash at the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College-JIR, and teaches in various academic institutions in Israel and Europe. Marx, tenth generation in Jerusalem, earned her doctorate at the Hebrew University and her rabbinic ordination at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem and Cincinnati. She is involved in various research projects and is active in promoting liberal Judaism in Israel. Marx writes for academic and popular journals and publications. She is the author of בזמן: מסעות בלוח השנה היהודי ישראלי (Bazman 2018), When I Sleep and when I Wake: On Prayers between Dusk and Dawn (Yediot Sfarim 2010, in Hebrew), A Feminist Commentary of the Babylonian Talmud (Mohr Siebeck, 2013, in English) and the co-editor of a few books. She was the chief editor of T'fillat HaAdam: Israeli Reform Siddur (2020). Marx lives in Jerusalem with her husband Rabbi Roly Zylbersztein (PhD) and their three children.

Amram Ben Rav Sheshna

Amram Gaon (Hebrew: עמרם גאון‎, or Amram bar Sheshna, Hebrew: עמרם בר רב ששנא, or sometimes: Amram ben Sheshna or Amram b. Sheshna; died 875) was a famous Gaon or head of the Jewish Talmud Academy of Sura in the 9th century. He was the author of many Responsa, but his chief work was liturgical. He was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for the synagogue. His Prayer-Book (Siddur Rab Amram or Seder Rav Amram), which took the form of a long responsum to the Jews of Spain, is still extant and was an important influence on most of the current rites in use among the Jews. He was a pupil of Natronai II, Gaon of Sura, and was exceptionally honored with the title of Gaon within the lifetime of his teacher. Upon Natronai's death, about 857, the full title and dignities of the gaonate were conferred upon Amram, and he held them until his death. It is characteristic of Amram's method to avoid extreme rigor; thus he decides that a slave who has embraced Judaism, but desires to postpone the necessary circumcision until he feels strong enough for it, is not to be hurried (ib. iv. 6, 11). He placed himself almost in opposition to the Talmud, when he protested that there is no sense in fasting on account of bad dreams, since the true nature of dreams cannot be known. (via wikipedia)

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A detail from page 60 of the Codex Sulzberger manuscript of the Seder Rav Amram Gaon (collection of the Jewish Theological Society of America)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established."–Psalms 90:17