Forbidden Books of Jewish Magic

A story from the field: In the fall of 1995, while working on my dissertation in Jerusalem, I learned that an important magical compendium by the 17th-century Rabbi Moses Zacuto, Shorshei ha-Shemot, had been published in the city. Strangely, the book was unavailable in stores and could only be purchased directly from its publishers. I telephoned one of them, Rabbi Shraga Boyer, at his Har Nof residence, and he asked that we meet for an interview the following day at a street corner in Mekor Barukh, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood adjacent to shuk Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s central market. At the appointed hour, I met Rabbi Boyer and his business partner, Rabbi Shraga Eisenbach. The three of us had a congenial conversation that lasted roughly 10 minutes.

The rabbis explained to me that it was their duty to determine the nature of the interest of prospective buyers before selling any copies of the newly printed work. This was in keeping with the terms of the approbation they had received from Rabbi Yitzhak Kadoori, Israel’s oldest and perhaps most eminent Kabbalist: