
Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Unknown Author(s)
Shared on ז׳ בכסלו ה׳תשע״ו (2015-11-18) — under the following terms: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license
Categories: Incantations & Amulets, Home, Theurgy
Tags: 19th century C.E., קמעות kame'ot, 56th century A.M., Epidemic, Asiatic Cholera, Pandemic, ברכת הבית birkat habayit, קמעות amulets, Needing Attribution
The Birkat Habayit is perhaps the most popular blessing in the Jewish world, appearing as a hanging amulet inside the entrance of many houses of Jews of all streams. I have added niqud to the blessing and I am very grateful to Gabriel Wasserman for his corrections to my vocalization. . . .

Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady (translation), Dan Levene and Dalia Marx
Shared on י״ח באייר ה׳תש״פ (2020-05-12) — under the following terms: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license
Categories: Incantations & Amulets, Bedtime Shema, Home
Tags: Angels, prophylactic, Angelic Protection, שכינה Shekhinah, mid-first millennium CE, apotropaic prayers of protection, קמעות amulets, amulet bowls
The text and translation of an amulet bowl discussed 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 apotropaic ward found in the amulet bowl, SD 12, contains an “angels on all sides” formula similar to that appearing in the Jewish liturgy of the bedtime shema. . . .
The earliest artifacts recording Jewish liturgy (or for that matter any Hebrew formulation found in the Torah) are two small silver amulets, discovered in 1979 by Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay. He discovered the amulets in a burial chamber while excavating in Ketef Hinnom, a section of the Hinnom Valley south of Jerusalem’s Old City. The inscriptions on these amulets conclude with parts of the Birkat Kohanim (Priestly Blessing), the three-part blessing in which the Kohanim are instructed to bless the people of Israel in Numbers 6:22-27. The script in the amulets dates them approximately to the reign of King Yoshiyahu (late 7th or early 6th century BCE) predating the Nash papyrus, and the earliest of the Dead Sea Scrolls by four centuries. . . .

Contributor(s): Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Alter Abelson
Shared on י״ח בשבט ה׳תשע״ט (2019-01-24) — under the following terms: Public Domain (17 U.S. Code §105 - Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works)
Categories: Tefillin
Tags: 20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, קמעות amulets
The poem “The Phylacteries” (1931) by Rabbi Alter Abelson. . . .
A popular prophylactic amulet in the event of an epidemic. . . .
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