4131522

The Master of an Evil Name: Hillel Ba'al Shem and His "Sefer a-heshek"
Author(s): Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 217-248
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies
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AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 217-248
THE MASTER OFAN EVIL NAME:

HILLEL BACALSHEMAND HIS
SEFER HA-IHESHEK
by
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
I. INTRODUCTION:THE MANUSCRIPT
Back in 1993, as senior librarianat the VernadskyLibraryin Kiev, Ukraine, in
chargeof cataloguinga newly uncoveredJudaicacollection, I came acrossan enig-
matic manuscriptentitledSefer ha-heshek.It did not matchthe bulk of the Judaica
holdings.' Nor did it fit in Abraham Harkavy'scollection of medieval manu-
scripts.2It was too Ashkenazic for AbrahamFirkovich'sKaraitepapers,3and too
I am gratefulto ArthurGreen and JonathanSarna,who have readpreviousdraftsof this paper

and generouslysharedwith me theircriticism.I am especially gratefulto Ze'ev Gries and Moshe Ros-
man, whose invaluablecommentshelped me to improvethe final draft.
1. On the fascinatingfate and composition of this collection, see ZacharyBaker,"Historyof
the Jewish Collections at the VernadskyLibraryin Kiev,"Shofar 10 no. 4 (1992): 31-48; Binyamin
Lukin, "Archiveof the Historicaland EthnographicSociety. History and PresentCondition,"Jews in
Eastern Europe, 1 no. 20 (Jerusalem, 1993): 45-61; YohananPetrovsky,"Zapisnyeknigi evreiskikh
obshchestv na Ukraine. Iz arkhivaA. Ia. Garkavi,"Novyi Krug 2 (Kiev, 1992): 274-288; Nikolai
Senchenko and Irina Sergeeva, "Jewish Scholarly Institutionsand LibraryCollections in Kiev after
1917: A Brief HistoricalSketch,"SovietJewishAffairs2 (1991): 45-50; Mykola Senchenkoand Iry-
na Serheeva,"Zistorii formuvanniakolektsiievreiskoiiliteraturyTsentral'noiNaukovoiBibliotekyim.
Vernads'kohoAkademiiNaukURSR,"Svit. ChasopysNarodnohoRukhuUkrainy2-3 (1991): 64-67.
The only in-depthdescriptionof the collection, togetherwith a preliminarylist of some two hundred
manuscripts,is given in Dov Walfish, "'Osef ha-sefarimve-kitvei ha-yad be-sifriyat vernadskybe-
kiev,"Mada'ei ha-yahadut34 (1994): 68-86.
2. AbrahamHarkavy(Abram lakovlevich Garkavi, 1835-1919), the founder of Russian Ju-
daica and Hebraica,was in chargeof the Departmentof OrientalManuscriptsat the St. PetersburgIm-
perialLibrary,responsiblefor cataloguingandacquisitions.A followerof Wissenschaftdes Judentums,
Harkavyoverlookedkabbalisticworks,concentratingchiefly on Spanish-Jewishliteratureof the Gold-
en Age. On Harkavy'smanuscriptcollection, see YohananPetrovsky,"The Lost Chapterof Russian
Judaica:AbrahamHarkavy'sMSS in The VernadskyLibrarycollection,"Jews and Slavs 5 (Jerusalem:
HebrewUniversity,1996), 157-168.
3. AbrahamFirkovich(1786-1874), a Karaitecommunalleader,traveler,sui generis historian
of Karaismand authorof the most well-knownninteenth-centurymanuscriptforgeries,amasseda sig-
nificant collection of Genizah fragmentsand Karaitemanuscripts,which he sold shortly before his
deathto the St. PetersburgImperialLibrary.See V L. Vikhnovich,KaraimAvraamFirkovich:evreiskie
rukopisi,istoriia,puteshestviia (St. Petersburg:"Peterburgskoevostokovedenie,"1997).
217
YohananPetrovsky-Shtern
early for most of S. Ansky's nineteenth-centuryfolkloric materials.4The manu-

scripthad a wooden cover, separatefrom the text, with a copper monogramSefer
ha-heshekin Hebrew (hereafter-SH). SH's title appearsrandomlyas a running
head; the authoroccasionally refers to the title of the manuscript.5Primarilybe-
cause of its size-411 folios, 23 of them blank, some 760 filled pages altogeth-
er-and due to its magical contents, I discarded any attempts to identify the
manuscriptas a version of the well-known Sefer ha-heshek,a twenty-or-so-page
kabbalistic treatise on the names of the archangel Metatronattributedto Isaac
Luria.6Also, since the manuscriptis not a commentaryon the book of Isaiah or
Proverbs,it could neitherbe Solomon Duran'snor Solomon ha-Levi'sHeshekshe-
lomoh.7
The manuscriptis stronglyreminiscentof a lost Yiddish book on practical
Kabbalahand folk medicine entitled Sefer heshek, apparentlywritten at the be-
ginning of the eighteenth centuryby the doctor Wolf Binyamin ben Zevi Hirsch
from Posen, who studiedmedicineat the Universityof Frankfurtam Oderandpur-
portedlypublishedhis composition in 1727 in Hanau.8Like the Hanaubook, the
newly discoveredSH drewheavily frompopularKabbalahand folk medicine.Yet,
unlike the Hanauone, it was Hebrew,notYiddish;it claimed a differentauthorship
(not Wolf Binyamin);it was composed in East Europeand not in Germany;and it
seemed much more complex than its Hanau prototype.In addition,nobody has
seen the Hanaubook since the early eighteenthcentury,9if indeed it ever existed
as a book. Shatzky,who himself never saw the HanauSH, which is not listed ei-
therin the Friedberg,Benjacob,orVinogradcatalogues,reconstructedits contents
throughobliquereferencesto its sourcesmentionedin Steinschneider,who did not
see the book either.Thoughit is possible thatthe newly discoveredSH in terms of
its title and genre is somehow relatedto the lost Yiddishmedical tractate,the com-
4. SemionAnsky (ShloymeZanvlRapoport,1863-1920), a Russian-JewishandYiddishwriter,

populist,Kulturtreger,and ethnographer,amassed severalhundredJudaicamanuscriptsduringhis ex-
peditionto the Pale of Jewish Settlementin Russia between 1911 and 1914. OnAnsky'sexpeditionand
the materialshe collected, see V Lukin,"Otnarodnichestvak narodu(S. A. Ansky-etnografvostochno-
evropeiskogo evreistva),"in Trudypo iudaike: istoriia i etnografiia 3, ed. Dmitrii Eliashevich (St.
Petersburg:Peterburgskiievreiskii universitet, 1993), 125-161; Aleksandr Kantsedikas and Irina
Sergeeva,Albomkhudozhestvennoistariny SemionaAn-skogo(Moscow and Jerusalem:Mosty kul'tu-
ry-Gesharim,2001); Rivka Gonen, ed., Ba-hazarahla-'ayarah.Ansky ve-ha-mishlahatha-etnografit
ha-yehudit 1912-1914 (Jerusalem: Museon Israel, 1994); Avram Rekhtman, Yidisheetnografie un
folklor: zikhroynesvegn der etnografisherekspeditsie,angefirtfun Sh. Ansky(Buenos-Aires:Yidishe
wisnshaftlekherinstitut, 1958). See also the forthcomingcollection of articles Between TwoWorlds:
Anskyand Russian-JewishCulture,ed. GabriellaSafranand Steven Zipperstein(Stanford:Stanford
UniversityPress, 2005).
5. VernadskyNational Libraryof Ukraine,OrientaliaDepartment,JudaicaManuscriptcollec-
tion, Sefer ha-heshek,[OR. 178], f. 14b, 18b-19a, 28b-29a.
6. 1 used the Lemberg reprint(1865) of the first Yizhak Meir Epshtein edition (Jerusalem,
1865). Because of the size of the manuscriptI also ruledout the possibilityof identifyingSH as Yohanan
Aliman'sSefer sha'ar ha-heshek(Livorno, 1690).
7. Firstpublicationcorrespondingly-Venice, 1588, and Saloniki, 1600.
8. Jacob Shatzky,"Seferheshek:a farfalnrefu'oh-bukhin yiddish fun 18tnyorhundertun zayn
mekhaber,"YIVOBleter 4 (1932): 223-235.
9. Ibid., 223.
218
The Masterof an Evil Name
parisonbetween an unknownmanuscriptand an unseen book will hardlybe help-

ful.
This SH is an in quarto manuscriptwrittenon a plain paperwithout water-
marks.It has a leatherspine and no back cover.The worn, greasy edges of the pa-
per signify thatthe manuscripthad been not only in use, but in intensive use. The
author'sconsistentyet awkwardearly-eighteenth-century Ashkenazicsemicursive
script, differentfrom the contemporary rabbinic script,' along with his occasion-
al Hebrewmisspellings, is telling. " Apparently,he was not a learnedrabbiandnot
a rabbinicalscholar (talmid hakham), although he had access to an amazingly
broadgamutof books both knownand unknownto us. The name of the author-
Hillel Ba'al Shem-appears throughoutthe manuscript.12The dates scatteredin
the text did not go beyond 1739 or 1740. Accordingto the qualityof the paper,the
ink, and the script,SH was writtenmost likely ca. 1740-1741, since at thattime a
regularconsumerpurchasedpaperin orderto use it, not stock it, and the last date
mentioned in SH is 1739/1740. The manuscriptis complete. It opens with the
words "Andthese are 32 rules against 32 paths of wisdom""3and ends with the
words "these are the words of Hillel."14Hillel wrote mostly in Hebrew,rarelyin
Yiddish, inserting clumsy Slavic (Polish and Ukrainian)incantations,which he
transliteratedin Hebrewcharacters.In addition,Hillel illuminatedhis manuscript
with some ninety drawingsof kabbalisticamulets and anthropomorphicand tra-
ditionalJewishsymbols, as well as diagrams,tables,and series of magical signs.'5
Some of them were copies from contemporarybooks on practicalKabbalahal-
readypublished,whereasotherswere unique.16
10. Forthe mid-eighteenth-centurycalligraphy,see the facsimile reproductionfrom the manu-

scriptwrittenby one of the colleagues of the Besht: Dov Baermi-Mezrich,Magid devaravle-yaakov,
ed. AvrahamYizhak Kahn (Jerusalem:Yeshivattoldot aharon, 1971), 6 (unpaginated).See also later
eighteenth-centurycalligraphyin the YehoshuaMondshinefaximile edition of the Habadcopy of "In
Praise of the Besht"by Dov Baer ben Samuelof Linits:Shivheiha-besht:faksimil mi-ktavha-yad ha-
yehidi ha-noda' lanu ve-shinuyeinushavleumat nusah ha-defus: be-zerufve-nispahim(Jerusalem:Y.
Mondshine,1982). Cf. handwrittenlate-eighteenth-centurydocumentsandlettersby LevyYizhakfrom
Berdichev in Kedushatlevy ha-shalem (Jerusalem:Zeev Derbarimdiker,1978), 576, 578, 580 (un-
paginated);the handwrittencommentaryon the Zohar (parashatShelah) by Vilna Gaon, in Yeshayahu
Vinograd,'Ozarsifrei hagr "a (Jerusalem:KerenEliyahu,2003), 357.
11. AlthoughSH was writtenby one and the same person, it containeda numberof pages by a
differenthand.Apparently,the authorcommissioned them to a professionalTorahscroll scribe; see f.
239b-251a.
12. SH, f. lb, 162b, 206a, 216b, 329a, 355b, 389a.
13. SH, f. lb. Hillel is using a popularkabbalisticmetaphorof 32 paths of wisdom that dates
back to Sefer Yezirah1:1, Zohar, "Terumah,"106; Pardes rimonim,sha'ar 12: 2. It was also known to
the kabbalistsof hug ha- iyun, see MarkVerman,TheBooks of Contemplation:MedievalJewish Mys-
tical Sources (Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress, 1992), 45 n. 43, 52, 71 n. 103, 75 n. 122,
152.
14. Apparentlya concluding talmudiccliche [ad kan divrei Hillel]. SH, f. 389a.
15. See, for example,SH, f. 17b, 18a,34b, 35a, 37b-38a, 47b, 85b, 89a, 96a, 112a- 113b, 156b,
204b-205b. The most amazingare the anthropomorphicamuletsthat establishthe links between kab-
balistic abbreviationsand members of the humanbody; see f. 215b and 217b. The amulets and dia-
grams that appearin SH as well as the linguistic strategiesof Hillel will be discussed elsewhere.
16. Forthe comprehensivelist of the Judaicamuletsthat includes the list of specific kabbalis-
219
Moshe Rosman, who saw SH (and encouragedme to write this essay) has
dubbedit "themost extensiveexpositionof ba'al shem techniquesand experiences
that I know of."17It is common knowledge that ba'al shem stands for "masterof
the Names of God," or, as Gershon Hundert suggested, "Manipulatorsof the
Name,"18 and signifies a Jewish magicianor healer,engaged in practicalKabbal-
ah and able to use his mystical knowledge and theurgicalpowers to producepro-
tecting amulets that neutralize evil and restore psychological and social order
among the healer'sclientele.19The term became particularlypopularafter Israel
ben Eliezer (ca. 1700-1760) adoptedthe name of Ba'al Shem Tov (the Besht), the
Master of a Good Name, and eventuallycame to be seen as the founderof mod-
em Hasidism.A numberof books illustratingpracticesof ba'alei shem were pub-
lished before and afterSH was written,yet SH exceeds all of them in terms of the
20
historical,social, cultural,andtheologicaldatait contains. Moreastonishingwas
tic abbreviations,see Eli Davis and David Frenkel, Ha-kameya' ha-'ivri (Jerusalem: Makhon le-
mada'ei ha-yahadut,1995).
17. Moshe Rosman, Founderof Hasidism:A Questfor Historical Bacal Shem Tov(Berkeley:
Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1996), 217-218 n. 19.
18. GershonDavid Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuaniain the EighteenthCentury:A Genealo-
gy of Modernity(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 2004), 142.
19. Forthe analysisof intellectualandtheological aspectsof ba'alei shem, see ImmanuelEtkes,
"Magiyahu-vaCaleishem be-yamav shel ha-besht,"in Bacal ha-shem: ha-besht-magiyah, mistikah,
hanhagah (Jerusalem:MerkazZalman Shazar,2000), 15-53; idem, "Mekomamshel ha-magiyahu-
va alei ha-shem ba-hevrahha-ashkenazitbe-mifneh ha-me'ot ha-yud-zayin-ha-yud-het," Zion 60
(1995): 69-104. Forthe analysis of the genre of the books ascribedto variousba'alei shem, see Hag-
it Matras,"Sifrei segulot u-refu'ot be-civrit:tekhanimu-mekorotal pi ha-sefarimha-rishonimasher
yazu la-'orbe-'eropahbe-reshitha-me'ahha-18" (Ph.D. diss., HebrewUniversityof Jerusalem,1997);
GedalyahNigal focused on the folkloric aspect of the writings by ba'alei shem in his Magic, Mysti-
cism, and Hasidism (Northvale,NJ and London:J. Aronson, 1994); Michal Oron analyzedthe sab-
batean context of one of the most prominent ba'alei shem in her "Dr. Samuel Falk and the
Eibeschuetz-EmdenControversy,"in Mysticism,Magic and Kabbalahin AshkenaziJudaism:Interna-
tional Symposiumheld in FrankfurtA.M. 1991, ed. Karl Grrzingerand Joseph Dan (Berlin and New
York:Walterde Gruyter,1995), 242-256. Oronalso publishedimportantdocumentson and of the Ba-
SalShem fromLondon.These include letters,descriptionof theirbooks, ethical wills, and diaries. See
Michal Oron,Mi- "bacalshed" le- "ba'alshem: "shmuelfalk, "ha-ba'alshem mi-london"(Jerusalem:
Mosad Bialik, 2002). Ze'ev Gries contextualizedpopularKabbalahbooks writtenby East European
ba'alei shem integratingthem into the genre of regimenvitae (conduct)literaturethatregulatesevery-
day behavioralpatterns,prescribesattitudesand remedies, and establishes links betweenthe tradition
and popularcustoms. Gries also connectedthe popularizationof practicalKabbalahwith the rise of in-
terest in hermeneuticstudies and medicine triggeredby the Florentinerenaissanceneoplatonicacade-
my. See Ze'ev Gries, Sifrutha-hanhagot:toldotehau-mekomahbe-hayei hasidei r.yisra el ba'al shem
tov (Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik, 1990). For the most convincing socioculturaltypology of the ba'alei
shem in the context of social anthropology,see Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 13-19. Forthe recent
standardsummaryof the ba'alei shem and the books they produced,see Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lith-
uania, 142-153. Cf.: EncyclopediaJudaica (Jerusalem: Encyclopedia Judaica, 1972), s.v. "Bacalei
shem"; JoshuaTrachtenberg,Jewish Magic and Superstition:A Study in Folk Religion (Cleveland-
Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1939).
20. Cf.: Razi'el ha-mal 'akh (Amsterdam,1701), Shem tov katan (Sulzbach, 1706), Sefer kar-
nayim 1709), MifWalot'elokim (Z6tkiew, 1710, 1724 and 1725), Toldot'adam (Z6lkiew,
(SZ6kiew,
1720), Keren'or (Z6lkiew, 1721), Zevahpesah (Z6tkiew,1722), Divrei hakhamim(Z6tkiew,1725). For
the pioneering analysis of the genre of practical Kabbalahbooks, see Hagit Matras,"Sifrei segulot
220
The Master of an Evil Name
thatHillel Ba'al Shem, unlike otherba'alei shem knownto date, coincided in time
and space with the Besht: they traveledthroughcontiguousareas(Hillel in Volhy-
nia and the Besht in Podol), and sometimes almostthe same areas(Rovno district
in Podol), and did so almost at the same time. Thus, the portrayalof Hillel Ba'al
Shem against the backdropof early-eighteenth-centuryEast Europeanitinerant
healers, the comparisonand the differentiationbetween the kabbalisticpractices
of Hillel Ba'al Shem and those of the Ba'al Shem Tov,and a discussion of the re-
lationsbetweenHillel andhis own clientele arein order.Methodologically,this pa-
per representsa slow readingof this eighteenth-centuryKabbalahmanuscriptfrom
the vantagepoint of the history of culturewith special emphasison the behavioral
patternsof a ba'al shem vis-a-vis a Jewish community.This paper echoes the re-
cent appeals to "reconsiderthe meaning of the ba'al shem traditionin the devel-
opmentof early Hasidism"21and to reassess such pivotal facets of the premodern
East Europeanculturalhistory as its popularkabbalisticsubculture.22
II. HILLEL'S
CURRICULUM
VITAE
SH, our only source on Hillel, is a complex document.In it, first and fore-
most, Hillel is tryingto demonstratehis expertisein practicalKabbalah.He spends
hundredsof pages discussing how to use holy names (shemot ha-kedushah)and
impurenames (shemot ha-tum'ah)in orderto stop epidemics (14a, 20a); treat a
sick child (23b); preventepilepsy, dizziness, craziness, headache, and night fear
(24a-b, 159b, 279b); treat fever, wounds, pollution, diarrhea,insomnia and bad
smell from the mouth (117a, 145b, 254a, 255b, 260a-b, 295a,); expel evil forces
from the house (31b, 296b-297b); protecta feeding (32a-b, 267a); cure a barren
woman(166a, 178a-b), regulatemenstruation(168b- 169a,262b-264b) andheart-
beating (274b-275a, 278a); preventevil forces from harminga newly born child
(270a);keep healthydietarylaws (107b); stop girls' hairfromgrowing(145b); pro-
tect an individual and his habitatfrom an evil eye (156b, 293b, 385b), thieves
(174a-b), fire (188b), bandits(293b), Lilith (329b); identify a thief throughtalk-
ing to a homunculusin a bottle (163a-164a); and other things indispensablein
u-refuotbe-civrit"(Ph.D.diss.,HebrewUniversity,Jerusalem,1997) andHavivaPedaya,"Le-hitpathuto
shel ha-degemha-hevrati-dati-kalkali ba-hasidut:ha-pidyon,ha-havurah,veha-caliyahle-regel,"in Dat
ve-kalkalah:yahasei gomlin, ed. MenahemBen-Sasson (Jerusalem:ZalmanShazar,1995), 311- 373.
Most recentdiscoveriescorroboratethe fact thatSH occupies a unique place among seventeenth-and
eighteenth-centuryEast Europeanwritings on practicalKabbalah.Thus, for instance, in 1996, Moshe
Rosenfeld from Jerusalem(the authorof a numberof book catalogueson early Hebrewprint)briefly
introduced me to an untitled manuscript apparentlywritten by the ba'al shem from Tomashpol
(Ukraine).The size of the manuscriptdid not exceed 80 pages. Its content to some extent resembled
the content of SH. However,unlike the often used SH, the clean white paperand the overall physical
conditionof that manuscript(especially edges and cornersof the pages), testified to its rareuse by the
owner or its readers.In addition,the amountof practicalKabbalahinformationincludedin the manu-
scriptof the ba'al shem fromTomashpolfalls short in comparisonwith SH.
21. KarlGrrzinger,"TsadikandBa'al Shem in EastEuropeanHasidism,"Polin 15 (2002): 162.
22. Moshe Rosman, "A Prolegomenonto the Study of Jewish CulturalHistory,"JSIJ (Jewish
Studies, an InternetJournal) [Bar-IlanUniversity] 1 (2002): 126. See http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/
1-2002/Rosman.pdf (accessed 11/7/04).
221
practicallife. Also, Hillel shows his profoundknowledgeof chiromancyandmeto-

poscopy (70b-73a, 200b-201a); exorcism (192b, 197a-198b); witchcraft(194a-
197b);originsof evil (302b-3 10a);levitation(312a); andhoroscopy(247b-251 a).
Provinghe is a pious and observantJew,Hillel demonstrateshis knowledgeof ma-
jor kabbalisticconcepts, which he consistentlytries to connect to variousJewish
practices such as daily prayer(168b), confessional prayer(169b), healing prayer
(347b-348a), bed-time prayer(369b-370a), philanthropy(150a), family purity
(174a-b), observing Shabbatlaws (305a), celebratingsecondaryholidays such as
Hanukah(247b-250a), giving oaths (314b) and Torahstudy (181a, 184b, 186a-
187b). Particularlysignificant is that in SH Hillel provides-though not abun-
dantly and not consistently-the details of his life, his career and its ups and
downs, his modusoperandi,his connectionsto the worldof rabbisand doctors,his
attitudesto colleagues, his feedback to the popularizationof Kabbalahand kab-
balistic bookprint,his personalmodus vivendi, and the attitudeof his contempo-
rariestowardhim. What follows is a tentativereconstructionof Hillel's life based
on data scatteredthroughoutthe manuscript.
Slavic wordsin his lexicon23as well as Yiddishpermeatedwith Slavicisms24
would suggest thatperhapsthe authorof SH was bornin Easternor CentralPoland.
Since he startedto be active as a practicalkabbalistand a healeraroundthe 1730s,
I assume he was either five to ten years older or youngerthan the Besht, born ca.
1700, or was of his age and was bornmost likely between 1690 and 1705. SH con-
tains no referenceto his birthplaceor to the name of his father.Given Hillel's at-
temptto tell his own life story and demonstratehis masteryof kabbalisticarts,his
reticencein regardto his origins is noteworthy.PerhapsHillel was tryingto, as Os-
car Wilde put it, "revealthe artand conceal the artist."Apparently,Hillel had good
reasons to do this.
Perhapsat the end of the 1720s and in the early 1730s, when he began his
careeras a professionalhealer,magician, and Kabbalist,Hillel called himself the
Ba'al Shem,the Masterof Name (I doubthe neededthe name,indicativeof his pro-
fession, before that time). Apparentlyhe came from a lower-middle-classPolish-
Jewish family unable to provide him with full-time rabbinic education. Unlike
the famous Jewish doctor and kabbalistTobiasha-Cohen(ca. 1652-1729)25 and
the scions of prominentPolish Jewish families,26Hillel did not study medicine at
23. He refersto Slavic, mostly to Ukrainianand Polish, to describeherbs(polnytablan,7a; ma-

jevy borsch, 9a; krapiva, 147a; gorchitsa, 182a), birds or reptiles (voroni, 22b; piavke, 147b; zozuli,
204a). He also uses lengthy Polish-Ukrainianincantationstranscribedin Hebrew letters, see 362a-
364b. See, for instance,the following incantationin Polish (I retainHebrew spelling): Zive boze, po-
mozni,pomohi ten ohon ohniski i otruski,od silaiu, od glovi, ochi i od beloho kosti, od chervonikrev
(Living God, [my Helper],help [to take out] that poisoning fire of fires, out of [his/her] strength,out
of [his/her] head, out of [his/her] eyes and white bones, 368a-369a).
24. See his Yiddishamuletsand "dialogues"with the dybbuks,166a-168b, 139b-241a, 349a-b.
25. See AbrahamLevinson, Tuvyahha-rofe've-sifro 'macasehtuvyah'(Berlin: Rimon, 1924).
26. See "LekarzeZydowscy w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej,"in Zydzi w Polsce odrodzonej:dzi-
atalnoki spoleczna,gospodarscza,odwiatowai kulturalna,ed. IgnaciusSchiperet al., 2 vols. (Warsaw:
"Zydziw Polsce odrodzonej,"1932-33), 2:289-303.
222
the University of Padua or in one of the German universities.Yet, avid for the
knowledge of medicine, he apprenticed with various professional doctors in
Poland.Among his teachersHillel refersonce to Dr. Simhah,27twice to the great
sage and doctorRabbiYadakovZilon [Zahalon],28and more than a dozen times to
Isaac Fortis,"the great Rabbiand a great sage in all the countriesof Poland."29
AbrahamIsaac Fortis (dubbed also Hazak), a professional doctor from an
Italianand Polish family of doctorsand rabbis,probablystudiedat the University
of Mantua.30He also spent some time learningKabbalahunderthe famousMoshe
Zakut(1620-1697).31 He returnedto Polandin the last decade of the seventeenth
century,settled first in Lw6w and later in Rzesz6w, and establishedhimself as a
court doctor to two of the five wealthiest Polish noble families, Lubomirskiand
Potocki. Between 1726 and 1730 he held a position of the highest prestige when
electedparnas at the Councilof the FourLands.32Hillel claimed he had learntun-
der Fortis,consulted his books and manuscripts,and copied Fortis'samulets and
remedies.33He learnedfromFortisrules of hygiene, bothpersonalandpublic,par-
ticularlyimportantin the context of the late 1730s epidemic of cholera in Podo-
27. SimhahMenahemben YohananBarukhde Yona(knownas Emanuelde Jona, d. 1702)-a

court doctor of the king Jan III Sobieski. Between 1664 and 1668, he studiedmedicine at the Univer-
sity of Padua,lived in Z61kiewand Lw6w, and helped to solve communaldisputes.He was accused of
allegedly poisoning Jan III, but was found not guilty. His name, as well as remedies and amulets as-
cribed to him, are mentioned in a numberof practicalKabbalahbooks, including Ma'aseh tuvyah,
Toldot'adam,Mif'alot 'elokimand Zevahpesah. See, for example, Mif alot 'elokim, simanim 9, 51,
52, 169, 297, 337, 346, 410, and 416. On Dr. Simhah,see Salomon Buber,Kiryahnisgavah (Cracow,
1903), 76; Schiper, Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej,298-299; Natan Mikhael Gelber, "Toldotyehudei
zolkiv,"in Seferzolkiv Natan MikhaelGelberand IsraelBen-Shem (Jeru-
[Zlkiew]: kiryahnisgavah,
salem; enziklopediyahshel galuyot, 1969), 43-45.
28. Most probablyDr. Ya'akovZahalon, a Jewish physician and rabbi from Rome, graduate
from the University of Rome, and the authorof an importantseventeenth-centurypopular Hebrew
"handbookfor medical treatment"'Ozarha-hayim(Venice, 1683). On Zahalon,see David Ruderman,
Science, Medicine,and Jewish Culturein EarlyModernEurope.Spiegel Lecturesin EuropeanJewish
History (TelAviv:Tel Aviv University,1987), 9, 15, and the bibliographyhe assembledon p. 28 n. 20;
idem, "Medicineand Scientific Thought:The Worldof Tobias Cohen,"in TheJews of Early Modern
Venice,ed. Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimoreand London:Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2001), 194-98; idem, Jewish Thoughtand Scientific Discovery in Early ModernEurope(New
Haven and London:Yale UniversityPress, 1995), 232-235 and bibliographyon p. 232 n. 10. Signifi-
cantly,"Dr.YaCakov Zahalon],is also mentionedin Zevahpesah [3b]. Forthe referencesto Zevahpe-
sah I used the only extantcopy of this book at the rarebook Judaicadivision of New YorkPublicLibrary.
I am gratefulto Dr. LeonardGold for his assistance.
29. SH, f. 12b, 13b, 25a, 46a, 183b.Hillel says, for example:segulah mi-rofemumhehha-nikra
ha-ravr.yizhakfortis, 46a; od kibaltimin rofe hazak, 183b.
30. Moshe Rosman, TheLord'Jews:Magnate-Jewishrelationsin the Polish-LithuanianCom-
monwealthduring the Eighteenth Century(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press for Harvard
UkrainianResearch Institute, 1990), 148 and bibliographyhe assembled in n. 20; Schiper, Zydzi w
Polsce Odrodzonej,299-300.
31. See EncyclopediaJudaica, s.v. "I[srael]Ha[lpern]."
32. Ibid.
33. Hillel was not uniquein the reverentattitudeto Fortis.Forotherreferencesto Fortis'sreme-
dies and amulets, see Mif ~alot'elokim,siman 379; Toldot'adam,siman 101.
223
lia.34Medicalreferencesin SH, which exceed medicalreferencesin books by oth-

er ba'alei shem, substantiateHillel's claim that he was an expert healer.35
Hillel seems to be familiarnot only with kabbalistictexts and manuscripts
but also with the pietistic rites of the kabbalists,perhapseven with Italiankabbal-
ists.36While describingtikkunleyl shabbat,a midnightpietistic liturgycanonized
by Lurianickabbalists,he mentions it as part of "the customs of my friends in
Venice and Prague"and urgesothersto follow it.37However,unlikethe case of his
medical contacts,he mentionsno names of his friends-in-Kabbalah. This is yet an-
othermysteriouspatternof Hillel's writings. It appearsas if he wantedto conceal
theirnames.The 1720s were the years of a fierce battleagainstcrypto-sabbateans
from Altona to Pragueand Z61kiew.38As a numberof scholarshave demonstrat-
ed, sometimesit was not feasibleto drawthe line separatingregularkabbalistsfrom
crypto-sabbateans.39 Was Hillel hinting at his proximityto the sublime mystical
34. Recommendationson public hygiene appearin SH on f. 13a-15b, 20a-22b. See the story
aboutthe 1654 (in fact, 1656-see Ruderman,Jewish Thoughtand ScientificDiscovery,232) epidemic
in Rome which Hillel ascribedto Fortis,SH, f. 12b. Some primaryknowledgeof medical Latin,which
Hillel demonstrates,may also have come from Fortis.
35. Forexample, when Hillel discusses differentways of preparingamuletsor herbalremedies
to treatmelancholy(marahshehorah)he says thathe learnedthis is from "professionaldoctors in the
countryof Poland,"6a-b; when he explains what should be done to a sick person,he recommendsen-
ema with milk and sugarand makes a double referenceto Doctor Simhahand DoctorZilon [Zahalon],
23b; he claims he learnedfrom Doctor Fortishow to protecthumanbody fromevil spirits,25a; he says
that Doctor Zalnik (?) taught him what measuresto take in orderto completely recover after having
drunka poison (sam mavet), 108a.
36. In the second half of the seventeenthcentury,Italybecame a paramountEuropeancenterof
Kabbalahlearning.It suffices to mention Moshe Zakutand his circle. For an analysis of ItalianKab-
balah, see Moshe Idel, "MajorCurrentsin Italian Kabbalahbetween 1560-1660," Italia Judaica II
(1986): 243-262; RobertBonfil, Rabbisand Jewish Communitiesin Renaissance Italy (Oxford Uni-
versity Press for the LittmanLibrary,1990), 280-298; idem., "Changein the CulturalPatternsof a
Jewish Society in Crisis;ItalianJewryat the close of the sixteenthcentury,"JewishHistory2-3 (1988):
11-30; Moshe Halamish,"cOdle-toldot ha-pulmusal ha-kabalahbe-Italiyahbe-reshitha-me'ahha-
17,"Peterburgskiievreiskii universitet,9 vol. 3 (1986): 101-106.
37. SH, f. 187a.The questionof whetherHillel was in directcontactwith Italian(Venician)kab-
balists must be left open due to the thin evidence.
38. ElishevaCarlebach,ThePursuitofHeresy: RabbiMoshe Hagiz and the SabbatianContro-
versies (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1990), 172-185; Gelber,"Toldotyehudei zolkiv,"96-
104; Geshom Scholem.SabbataiSevi: TheMysticalMessiah,1626-1676 (Princeton:PrincetonUniver-
sity Press, 1973), 78-85; Moshe Arie Perlmuter,Ha-ravyehonatan eybeschuezve-yahasole-shabta'ut
(Jerusalem:Schocken PublishingHouse, 1947), 26-29, 42-49; YehudaLiebes, "Ketavimhadashim
be-kabalahshabta'itmi-hugo shel r. yehonataneybeschuez,"in JerusalemStudies in Jewish Thought,
ed. Yosef Dan (Jerusalem:HebrewUniversityof Jerusalem,1986), 141-349. Fora broadercontext of
the crypto-Sabbateanism,see MortimerJ. Cohen, Jacob Emden:a man of controversy(Philadelphia:
Dropsie College, 1937) and JacobSchacter,"Historyand Memoryof Self: the Autobiographyof Rab-
bi Jacob Emden,"in Jewish Historyand Jewish Memory:Essays in Honor ofYosefHayimYerushalmi,
ed. ElishevaCarlebachet al. (Waltham,MA: BrandeisUniversityPress, 1998),428-452. A useful sum-
mary is to be found in Michal Galas, "Sabbateanismin the Seventeenth-CenturyPolish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth:A Review of Sources,"in TheSabbatianMovementand Its Aftermath:Messianism,
Sabbatianismand Frankism,ed. RachelElior(Jerusalem:The Instituteof Jewish Studies,HebrewUni-
versity of Jerusalem,2001), 2:51-63.
39. Carlebach,Pursuitof Heresy, 11, 171-172.
224
knowledgewhile simultaneouslyhiding his personalrelationswith those who bal-

anced on the brinkof heresy? Be this as it may, before Hillel became a practicing
ba'al shem, he traveledthroughBohemia, Romania,and Bukovina.He claims to
have visited Tiraspol,40Vissa,41and Rozhnu.42He recollects his sporadicmeet-
ings with an anonymouskabbalistfrom Rozhnu and claims he studiedthe manu-
scriptsof a certainEfraim,a renownedpreacher(maggidmesharim)andprominent
kabbalistfromVissa (Bessarabia).43
Hillel was lucky to landunderthe wings of his tutor, Hirshfrom Meze-
rich (MiqdzyrzecPodliaski).44RabbiZevi Hirsch (d. 1724), the head of the rab-
Z.evi
binicalcourtin Mezerich,could boastan impressivepedigreeandlearning.He was
the son of R. Alexanderand the grandsonof Zevi Hirsch,the head of the rabbinic
court in the same locality, who is mentionedin seventeenth-centuryresponseand
who himself is the authorof the volume of responsaTorathayim(Lublin,1708 and
1724); R. Zevi Hirsch was also the son-in-law of Rabbi Mordekhay,the head of
the rabbiniccourt in Brisk (Brest of Lithuania)and the fatherof Mordekhayand
Avishal,who eventuallybecame rabbisof Lissa andFrankfurt,respectively.45Hil-
lel assertsthathe spenta certainperiodof time underZevi Hirschcopyinghis man-
uscripts, talking to him, and learning from him the secrets of amulets and holy
names.46Hillel's assertionis revealingfrom two perspectives.First,even if he did
not mention how long he stayed in Mezerich,the mere fact that he studiedunder
such an authorityas Zevi Hirsch-in additionto Fortis-testifies to his thorough
40. Southeastfrom Jassy (Bessarabia),nowadaysin Moldova, 188b.
41. Jassy District (Bessarabia),now in Moldova, 189a.
42. Bukovina,now in Ukraine, 189a.
43. Perhapsthe travelsof Hillel BacalShem were partof a largerphenomenonof Jewish wan-
dererssalientamong East EuropeanJews in the late-seventeenth-century and first half of the eighteenth
century. Ze'ev Gries brings important references to the recordsof the council of Jews in Lithuaniathat
specified types of beggars and vagabondswho were a burdenfor the Jewish communities in eastern
Poland(Pinkas medinatlita, p. 33 sect. 130, p. 38 sect. 164, p. 53 sect. 250; p. 76 sect. 378; p. 133 sect.
559; p. 144 sect. 596). Depicting itinerantJews, Gries includes in his list regularbeggarsas well as sab-
bateanand hasidic preachersand "prophets,"regularvagabondteachers,fundraisersfor EretsYisrael,
preachersof penitence (rebukers,mokhihim),and exorcists. See his review essay of Marc Saperstein,
Jewish Preaching 1200-1800, An Anthology(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1989), in TheJour-
nal ofJewish Thoughtand Philosophy4 no. 1 (1994): 113-122, esp. 117-119.
44. Hillel identifies him as ha-rav ha-gadol he-hasid ha-mefursamu-mekubalkavod moreynu
ve-rabeinuzevi hirsh ben ha-rayvha-gadol moreynuha-rayvavram hu avrahamav bet din be kehillah
kedoshah mezirich be-medinatpodlasye ha-samukhbrisk de-lita ve-kehillah kedoshah tiktin ve-hu
hatanmi-ravha-gadol de-briskkavod moreynuha-rayvmordekhay.Hillel claims thatRabbiZevi Hirsch
was the highest authorityin both revealedand esoteric law in the whole Podlasiearea.In addition,Hil-
lel refersto him as often as to Fortis.See, for example, SH, f 63b, 107a, 174a, 358a-b. Hillel is accu-
rate even in the way he refers to R. Zevi Hirsch'sfather,R. Abraham,the authorof Torathayim:the
latter signed his endorsementof 'Olat yizhak (Frankfurta/Main, 1692) with the following formula:
avram hu avraham.See Meir Edelboym, Di yidn-shtot Mezrich (Buenos-Aires: Mezricher-lanslayt-
faraynin Argentina,1957), 295.
45. For the discussion of R. Zevi Hirsch(Junior,Hillel's mentor)pedigree, see Edelboym,Di
yidn-shtotArgentina,294-297.
46. Hillel repeatedlycites his learningunderRabbiZevi Hirsh:"AndI stayedwith him and in
my thirstI drankthe wordsof the greatRabbiuntil I understoodlittle by little the smallerface [of God]
(mi-z'eyr"anpin)of his sacredwritings and copied them."SH, f. 118a.
225
preparationfor his career.Second, Hillel's claim that he had copied amulets and
remedies from Zevi Hirsch implies that practicalKabbalahhad alreadybecome
part and parcel of general Jewish culture-even prominentrabbiswere engaged
in it, to say nothing of itineranthealers, well-established doctors, and ba'alei
shem.47
Thus, with medicaland kabbalisticexperiencesgained underFortisandZevi
Hirsch, in the 1730s Hillel took to the road. FromMezerich he moved to Podolia
andVolynia,and,at the end of the 1730s, to Lithuania.48It was in Galicia andVol-
hynia thathe startedhis careerof a ba'al shem. In 1731 he performedan exorcism
in the town of Shinove(Pol.: Sieniawa,nearPrzemys'l).49Between 1731 and 1733
he was active as ba'al shem in Olik (Olyka), and in 1733 he came to Ostrah(Os-
tr6g) and laterto Tutchin.50 During his trip to the north,Hillel came to Shklov.51
In 1739 he reachedKeidan.52Apparently,at that time he was marriedand had at
least two daughters.53Between 1739 and 1741 he moved westward,headingprob-
ably to Posen (Poznani),where he startedwriting his manuscript,which, he be-
lieved, would change his life for the better.54
III. HILLEL
BAcALSHEMANDTHEJEWISHCOMMUNITY
The beginning of Hillel's careerwas promising. He visited importantJew-
ish communitiesin Volyniaand Podoliaandwas commissionedas bacalshem. His
success in Ostrah,the third place he visited in his itinerary,was pivotal. In the
1730s, Ostrahwas an importantprivatePolishtown. It boasteda huge Polishpalace
and fortress,one of the busiest annual fairs in Poland,a beautiful,big sixteenth-
century,fortress-shapedsynagogue, more than 20 smallersynagogues and prayer
houses, and illustriousrabbis, some of them descendantsof the disciples of Ma-
haral(RabbiYehudahL6we ben Bezalel of Prague, 1525-1609).55 Hillel came to
47. Thus SH provides additionalsupportto the argumentthatby the 1720s Kabbalahcaptured

minds of East EuropeanJews, see Etkes, Bacal ha-shem, chap. 1; Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,
chap. 6; Rosman, Founderof Hasidism, chap. 1. On the spreadof practicalKabbalahin East Europe
see Ze'ev Gries's"He-catakatve-hadpasatsifrei kabbalahke-makorle-limudah,"Mahanayim6 (1994):
204-211.
48. SH, f. 35b, 125a-127a.
49. Galicia/Red Ruthenia,now in EasternPoland.
50. All three localities were in the same Rovno districtof Podolia and some of them were re-
peatedlymentionedin the stories about Bacal Shem Tov collected in Shivheiha-besht. See, for exam-
ple, stories nos. 26, 59 and 67 for Ostrah(Ostrog)and 204 for Olyka.
51. SH, f. 209b.
52. SH, f. 35b; Pol.: Kiejdany,near Kovno, Lithuania.
53. See Hillel's complaintsof his bad luck in the family context, SH, f. 74b.
54. This assumptionis based on Hillel's attemptsto please GermanJews (yehudei Ashkenaz)
at the expense of Polish Jews (yehudeiPolin). Hillel refersto the formeras to his potentialreadersand,
he hopes, his futureemployers:"AsI have observedin differentcommunitiesin Poland,Podol, andVol-
hyn, they [the Jews] prayin theirhouses of learning(batei midrash)in such a loose way,thatonly some
of them will go to Paradise.It is because of that [loose prayer]thatthe Redemptionis not coming. How-
ever, I praise the [Jews in the] countriesof Ashkenaz, let them see the Redemption!"SH, f 80a.
55. YitzhakAlperowitz and Hayyim Finkel, eds., Sefer ostrah, volin: mazevetzikaronle-kehi-
lah kedoshah(TelAviv: 'Irgunyozei ostrahbe-yisra'el, 1987), 37-38, 58-59.
226
the town of Ostrahand stayed at the home of the rabbiof the kloyz,who was the
son of the chief rabbiof the town. EitherHillel could not prove his pedigree and
learningand was not allowed into the kloyz, an elitist prayerhouse of East Euro-
pean kabbalists,or the kloyzdid not fit Hillel's immediateinterests.56At any rate,
Hillel spent two or three days in a special room of the local bet midrash.Indeed,
he learnedthattherewas an incidentin the community-a womanhad an evil spir-
it (dybbuk)who refused to leave her body-and he waited until the elders of the
city commissionedhim to performthe exorcism.Apparently,therewas some con-
sternationamong the elders, who were eitherreluctantto rely on the powers of an
itinerantba'al shem or mistrustedHillel personally,or both.This is how Hillel de-
scribes the episode:
Oneeveningtheevil spirit[ruah]sentforthehonorable man,theformerbea-

dle [shamash]of the Rabbi,a greathasidandthe KabbalistNaftaliKohen
Zedek,of blessedmemory.57 himthathe shouldimmedi-
Thespiritinstructed
atelyfindRebHillelBaCal Shem,whohadjustcometo theircommunity. "He
[RebHillelBaCal Shem]willputanendto mydayswiththehelpof holynames
in thesynagogue.Hemightbe ableto finda kindof remedyforme."Andthat
man[thebeadle]didnotwantto listento thespiritandstartedto talkin pub-
lic. Later,thedemontoldthebeadlefromthebodyof thewoman:"Ifyoudo
notgo to theBaCalShem,youwillbe sorry,forit will definitelybe toolate."58
From this episode one may learn, first, that Hillel was not a famous bacal shem.
Second,he did his best to provehe was well known-if not among local Jews, than
at least among the otherworldlyinhabitants.Hillel used the dybbuk,a representa-
tive of the evil powers,to establishhis reputation.Third,local dwellerstreatedHil-
lel harshly despite his desire to help them.59They mistrustedHillel and in all
likelihood mocked him in public-hence the reluctanceof the beadle to resortto
Hillel's help.
The case Hillel encounteredin Ostrahwas not an easy one.60The confes-
56. In connectionto the individualmystics activebefore the Ba'al ShemTov,Hundertmentions

that "[i]n some towns, there were groups of Hasidim who prayed separatelyin their own kloyzen
("prayerrooms"),or study halls, and were thoughtto benefit the communitythat supportedthem by
their special ties to Heaven."See Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,120 and referenceshe brings in
n. 5. The importanceof the kloyz (and not bet midrash)as the center of study of East Europeankab-
balists before the Besht has been in the focus of JosephWeiss's fundamentalessay, "A Circle of Pneu-
matics in Pre-Hasidism,"in Studies in East EuropeanJewish Mysticismand Hasidism (London and
Portland:The LittmanLibraryof Jewish Civilization, 1997), 27-42.
57. To some extent the details providedin the text corroboratethe veracity of the whole story.
The late Naftali Cohen Zedek, mentioned by Hillel Ba al Shem, was most likely Rabbi Naftali ben
Yizhak Kaz, the head of the rabbinicalcourt and the chief rabbiof the province.After Ostrahhe held
the position of a chief rabbiin Posen and Frankfurtam Main. He passed away in Turkeywhile travel-
ing to the Landof Israel. See Sefer ostrah, 38.
58. SH, 126a.
59. Hillel thus describesthe treatmenthe receivedin Ostrah:"Theybroughtme [by force] from
the ritualbath before the morningprayer,""they opened their mouths againstme.. ." SH, f. 126a-b.
60. My analysis of the socio-psychological reality of exorcism is based on the methodology
227
sion obtained from the woman/dybbukunderthe threatof excommunicationre-

vealed that a certainJew took a non-Jewishconcubine and had childrenwith her.
For unknownreasons he was later involved in a murdercase. Jews tried to arrest
and prosecutehim but he convertedto Greek Orthodoxy(be-'emunatyavan) and
circumventedpunishment.Finally,he died a terribledeath. Since he was possibly
not buriedproperly(a posthumouspunishmentfor a criminaland an apostate),af-
ter severalyears he apparentlybecame an evil spirit(ruah). He settled in a tree in
Ostrah,not far from the town's big synagogue, waiting for a victim.61Once on
Shabbat,when a pregnantwoman was sitting underthe tree inhabitedby the spir-
it, the latterenteredher body throughherrighteye, thusbecoming a dybbuk.62She
lost sight in thateye. The same night the dybbuktorturedthe woman'shusbandun-
til he died. Soon the womangave birthto a babygirl. Althoughthe girl was healthy,
the dybbukspentsome seven yearswithinthe woman'sbody,growing strongerand
causing her bitter sufferingsuntil she became completely blind. At this point the
communitydecided to search for a remedy.
Furtherdetails of the story make us think that Hillel uses "evil spirit"(he
avoids the word "dybbuk")as a substitutefor the issues of promiscuityand het-
erodoxy.A certainwoman from Ostrahhad intimaterelationswith a convertout-
side her wedlock. Her lover killed her Jewish husband but did not harm the
daughter.Blindnesswas eithermetaphorical(she was the only one who did not un-
derstandthe resultsof her sickness) or real, inflicted by the harshtreatmentof the
Jewish woman by the convert. Perhapsthe implicationsof heterodoxymade Hil-
lel subsequentlytransferthe exorcismto outsidethe centerof the town.63The prox-
elaboratedby MarionGibson in "Witchcrafttrials-how to read them"and "Deconstructinggeneric

stories,"in Reading Witchcraft:Stories of EarlyEuropeanWitches(Londonand New York:Routledge,
1999), 50-109. It is also supportedby ChristineWorobec'sstatementthat certaintypes of possession
"representa socially understoodillness as opposed to a medical disease,"see ChristineD. Worobec,
Possessed: Women,Witches,and Demons in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: NorthernIllinois University
Press, 2001), 17. My approachfinds supportalso in YoramBilu's statement:"The validationof the
moral ascendancyof religious leadersthroughthe dybbukidiom contributedto social control ... The
exorcisticritualconstituteda conservativemechanismthatfacilitatedthe perpetuationof the traditional
status hierarchyin the community."See YoramBilu, "The Taming of the Deviants and Beyond: An
Analysis of DybbukPossession and Excorcismin Judaism,"in SpiritPosession in Judaism:Cases and
Contextfrom the MiddleAges to the Present, ed. MattGoldish (Detroit:WayneStateUniversityPress,
2003), 64.
61. The motif of an evil spiritor a spiritof a deceased person sitting on a tree and addressing
the vagabondsappearsalreadyin Sefer hasidim. See JehudaWistinetzkiand Jacob Freimann,ed., Se-
fer hasidim(Frankfurta/M: WarhmannVerlag, 1924), 37 (siman 35); this book is based on ParmaMS.
Cf. Reuven Margalioted., Sefer hasidim (Jerusalem:Mosad ha-Ray Kook, 1957), 176-178 (siman
170); this is based on Bologna MS.
62. According to the evidence meticulouslycollected by Nigal, evil spirits and dibbukimpre-
fer to enter homes either throughdoors not protectedby mezuzotor throughany part of the body of a
sick person, in particularpregnantwomen. Fora comprehensivelist of the "preferredentrances"of the
dibbukim,see GedalyaNigal, Sipurei 'dibbuk'be-sifrutyisrael (Jerusalem:Reuven Mas, 1983), 26-
28.
63. On a very similarcase involving a Jewish woman and her husband,Jan Serafinowicz,who
converted to Catholicism after being attended to by a ba'al shem, see Meir Balaban, Le-toldot ha-
tenu'ahha-frankit(Tel Aviv: Devir, 1934), 57-58. On Serafinowicz, see Shimon Dubnow,History of
228
imity of the "enemiesof Israel"and of the "impureplace"-oblique referencesto

the nearbychurch-prevented Hillel fromfully applyinghis powers.64In addition,
the local priests perhapswere awareof the incidentand tried to resolve it by con-
verting the woman.65Very likely the exorcism led to confessions offensive to
Christianity,and Hillel decided to transferthe operationelsewhere to avoid pub-
licity. On the otherhand,exorcism led to confessions on the partof the womanthat
were offensive to the Jewish communityat large. Nobody liked the fact that Hil-
lel made the OstrahJews wash their dirty laundryin public.66
Hillel portraysthe exorcism in great detail. If SH presents it accurately,at
least in regardto Hillel's modusoperandi,one featureof Hillel's practicesbecomes
particularlysalient. It was the dybbukthat instructedHillel aboutthe methods of
exorcism, its time and place, the preparationit required,and its possible out-
come.67The dybbukallegedly told Hillel to bring seven Torahscrolls and seven
pristineboys ("who have not sinned").He advised Hillel to take the boys, before
the procedure,to the ritualbath and to the morningprayer.He purportedlyindi-
cated that Hillel should go to the town of Tutchin,not far from Ostrah(samukh
le-kik ostrah),andfinish the ceremonythere.Finally,the dybbukencouragedHillel:
"Andyou, Rabbi, should not be scaredand do not run away from me."68In terms
of endorsementof his activities, Hillel briefly mentions the amulets of R. Zevi
HirschbenAvraham,whichhe used forthe exorcism,yet, when it cameto the proce-
dureitself, his only spiritualinstructor-his personalmaggid-was the dybbuk.69
the Jews in Russia and Poland (Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1916-1920), 1:173; Israel
Halpern,ed., Pinkas va'ad 'arb'a 'arazot(Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik, 1948) p. 265 par. 549; Hundert,
Jews in Poland-Lithuania,75 and 141; Rosman,Lords'Jews, 206-207.
64. Hillel resortedto the dybbuk' assistanceto explain the reason for his own weakness:"You
arethe Rabbiwho has been acting for alreadysix days.Youhavepronouncedoaths againstme andhave
tried to exorcise me using holy names. However,althoughyou did not manage to do anything(shum
pe'ulah) againstme, you have somewhatweakenedthe wicked forces which surroundmy soul, and you
have harmedmy members,sinews, and bones. However,this is not the rightplace thatallows applying
the holy names, because the strongholdof evil stands next to-distinguish!-the holy synagogue. If
you like to accomplishyour work, you should bettertry a differentplace"SH, f. 125a.
65. The woman/dybbukwarnedHillel aboutthe possible impactof local priests:"Thesearethe
priestswho give theirbad advice thatthey derivefromthe powersof theirtradition.Theiradvice comes
from theirmouths [in the form of] fire and flames, and theirwordsare not true.They will surrenderto
you, if God wants it" SH, 125b. Like ba'alei shem, both Easternand WesternChristianChurchesre-
sorted to exorcism as to an effective ecclesiastical ritual aimed at obtaining confession. See Stuart
Clark, Thinkingwith Demons: The Idea of Witchcraftin Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1997), 428-434; Worobec,Possessed, 23-25, 45-48.
66. Hillel discoveredoutrageousand by no means flatteringfacts about the community:"And
he [the evil spirit]revealedpubliclyhorribleand nasty things which had happenedin thattown among
the Jews.And the Jews understoodthatthe birdfromheavenraisedits voice, the time hadcome, and the
end of all ends. All the secretsbecame knowndue to the powers of heavenlyand earthlyoaths.All the
secrets impossibleto convey here thathappenedin thattown were finally disclosed"SH, f. 127a.
67. In addition,Hillel a priori relinquishedany responsibilityfor the operationandburdensthe
dybbukwith it: "Theonly thing which I do not know is whetherI will leave her body without her soul
or with it,"confesses the dybbuk.SH, f. 127a.
68. SH, f. 125b.
69. On the dichotomydybbuk-maggid,see the groundbreakingarticlebyYoramBilu, "Dybbuk
229
Due to the "instructions"of the dybbuk,who wantedthe ba'al shem to banishhim,

Hillel was a success, and socio-psychologicalorderwas restored:
I pronounced onegreatoathandone greatpetitionin thepresenceof tenap-

propriate peopleandtheTorahscrolls.Thursday,Elul,5493[1733],thespirit
leftthebodyof thatwomanthroughthelittletoeof herleftleg fromunderher
littlenailso thatsomebloodcameoutof hertoe.70Afterthatshebegansee-
inga littlebitandshestartedgoingto thesynagogue,to thecemetery,andto
all otherplacesas shefoundfit. However,shecouldnotsee atallthroughthe
onlyeyeby whichthespirithadenteredherbody.71
The Ostrahcase suggests a clear-cutpatternof relationsbetween the bacal

shem, the communal(kehillah) authority,the ordinaryJews of the town, and the
spirit.The ba'al shem performedexorcism in the atmosphereof public contempt.
Although mistreatedby the inhabitantsof the town, Hillel was still respectedby
the kahal. He dependedcompletelyon the decision of the local authority.He start-
ed to operateonly when he obtainedthe official consent of the kahal elders.72The
difference in attitudesto Hillel Ba'al Shem manifeststhe interestsof the commu-
nal leaderswho employedthe ba'al shem as an instrumentto strengthentheirpow-
er. While the kahalused Hillel to instill fear of promiscuityand restoresocial and
psychological orderin the community,Hillel used the dybbukto instructhis audi-
ence and instill some awe toward,if not belief in, the ba'al shem's magic. As we
will see, this pragmaticusage of the dybbukfor self-promotionwas not atypical
for Hillel's modusoperandi.
Paradoxically,the only creaturein SH that acknowledgedthe wisdom and
high statusof Hillel Ba'al Shem was the evil spirit,Hillel's alter ego.73The Ostrah
dybbuknot only "helped"Hillel to understandthe situationin the communitybut
and Maggid:TwoCulturalPatternsof Altered Consciousnessin Judaism,"AJSReview21 no. 2 (1996):

341-366.
70. In this case Hillel Bacal Shem closely follows the advise of Haim Vital who in his Shacar
ruah ha-kadesh in the name of Isaac Luriastronglyrecommendedthat practicalkabbalistsmake the
evil spirit leave humanbody througha toe so that it does not harmthe body. Eventually,the little toe
on the left foot became a "classical"place for the exit of an evil spirit. Fora comprehensivelist of the
"preferredexits" of the dibbukim,see Nigal, Sipurei 'dibbuk'be-sifrutyisrael, 54-60.
71. SH, f. 127a.
72. "Andthat man [beadle] went to the parnas ha-hodesh and relatedto him the words of the
spirit.And theparnas ha-hodesh sent the beadle for me and asked me on behalf of the whole commu-
nity to do some good for that woman,"SH, f. 126b. Generally,the Jewish communityof Ostrah(Os-
trog) is mentionedseveraltimes in Shivheiha-besht.Forinstance,in story no. 26, a certaindoctorfrom
this town is referredto as a staunchopponentof the Besht who mocks his magic powers. Similarly,in
SH the holy communityof Ostrahdoes not seem very hospitableto Hillel Ba'al Shem.They also mock
him. They openly mistrusthim while he is workingout ways to banish the dybbuk.They startto hate
him even more so when the communitylearnsa lot of nasty and revealingthings aboutitself duringthe
exorcism. The general commotion caused by Hillel Ba'al Shem in the communityis also quite obvi-
ous. Cf. Bilu, "Tamingof the Deviants,"55-59.
73. SH, f. 125a.
230
also taughtthe Jews how to behaveand serve God.74Hillel'sassumptionis clear:if

the communitydid not trustHillel BacalShem,let themlistento a dybbuk.Inthe Os-
trahepisode only the dybbuk,the spiritof a deadJewishconvert,addressedHillel as
"ha-rav"It is inappropriate here to discuss the reliabilityof the evidence of early-
eighteenth-centurydemons,yet SH clearlyindicatesthattherewas nobodyelse who
respected Hillel: after the dybbuk"revelations"and successful exorcism, Hillel
seems to have been left alone. Had therebeen some benign arrangementbetween
him and the local kahal, Hillel, who looked for a stableposition in a community,
would have mentionedit. His reticenceimplies that,again,he was doomedto lone-
liness, solitude,and wandering.Indeed,to make evil powershis only advocatewas
Hillel's clever ploy in the face of his situation.But the magicianwho was at home
with dybbuksandevil powerswas balancingon the brinkof the permitted.Hillel did
not realizehe was causinghis own failure-which was aroundthe corner.
IV BAcAL SHEM AMONG HIS COLLEAGUES

Three factors caused Hillel's downfall: first, competition in the marketof
East EuropeanitinerantKabbalists;second, the rise of publicationsof practical
Kabbalahbooks; and third,the crisis of the profession of ba'alei shem. His per-
sonal failures,which causedhis distressand depression,were simply the resultsof
these overarchingreasons.75
Hillel suffered mostly because of his colleagues, pseudo-ba'alei shem, al-
leged impostors,troublemakers,and unscrupulouscompetitors,who exacerbated
the constraintsin the marketof practicalKabbalah.Hillel depictedthem as "rob-
bers" and "false hasidim" (hasidim shakranim)who sacrilegiously introduced
themselves as experiencedkabbaliststo the communalleadership.76Hillel com-
plained thatthey neverused Kabbalahfor its own sake (li-shemah);whateverthey
did, they did only for money.They obtainedfalsified endorsementsfrom insignif-
icant rabbisand producedbogus miracles that had nothing to do with the honest
opera sacra of a genuine ba'al shem.77They caused skepticism among Jews to-
wards amulets and holy names and subsequentlytowardsall those healers who
earnedtheirliving honestly.78As a result,when a realba'al shem arrivedin a com-
munity and provided valid endorsementsfrom renownedrabbis, nobody would
trust him.79Therefore, from Hillel's vantage point, it was absolutely pivotal to
74. "Theonly thing I would tell you-through my stories and the deeds of my wicked hands-
is thatpeople should learn from me and throughme how to serve the blessed Name,"SH, f. 125b.
75. Hillel complains:"I shouldnot say morein the time of my distressanddistressof my daugh-
ters, yet I failed and got up and not let my foes rejoice over me [Ps. 30]. I failed several times in sev-
eral nasty places involved with evil forces ." See SH, f. 74b.
...
76. SH, f. 319b.
77. ForHillel's repeatedcomplaintsof pseudo-ba'alei-shem,see SH, f. 95a, 172b, 276b-277a,
321b.
78. SH, f. 299b-300a.
79. Kahanaprovidesa numberof cases provingthatat the beginningof the eighteenthcentury
the itinerantba'alei shem or practicalkabbalistswere often identified with and treatedas crypto-sab-
bateans. See David Kahana, Toldotha-mekubalim,ha-shabta'imve-ha-hasidim (Odessa: Moriyah,
1914), 18- 19. Kahanaseems to follow Ya akov Emden'ssharpcriticismof ba'alei shem, most of whom
231
distinguishbetween a real bacal shem and a charlatan.Hillel suggested that the

community should investigate, if not interrogate,any ba'al shem to verify his
knowledge of Kabbalahbooks, his understandingof holy names, his haskamot
(whetherthey were writtenby ordinaryor well-knownrabbis),and finally,his per-
sonal behavior(how he prays,fasts, performsritualablutions,etc.).80
Hillel was deeplyconcernedthatcharlatanshadunderminedthe trustof com-
mon folk in the magic of the ba'al shem. Skepticismand disbelief of the ordinary
Jews towardsthe kabbalists,accordingto Hillel'sobliquereferences,had sabbatean
implications.Hillel illustratedthe spiritualdamagecaused by itinerantsabbateans
through a peculiar incident that happenedin the county of Pokutain Bukovina
Provincein the town of Tismenits(Tysmienica),some 70 miles west of Chernovitz:
A wickedmanwhowasa scribeandrenownedKabbalist cameintotown.He

stayed there forseveralweeks until he enteredthe houseof thegreathasidand
Kabbalist YosefHols,of blessedmemory,whopassedawayleavingbehinda
kosherandsacredTorahscroll.Theabovemanwentto [RabbiHols's]widow
to [inspect]thescrollandfoundit perfect.Laterhe forgeda cut(hakikah)[in
thescroll]anddemonstrated it in public.Thenhedemonstrated themistakeof
the[late]Rabbito themostillustrious peoplein thetown.The nextnightRab-
bi [Hols]appeared[to someone]in a dreamandrevealedeverythingthatthis
scribehadcommitted, includingthetime,thebook,thechapter,andthecol-
umnin whichthescribehadmadehis forgery,prohibiting himto disclosethis
information to the scribe.Soon afterwards the scribesteppedon a slippery
path.He wasbanishedandwentto anothercountry,to LittlePoland.81
In this peculiarepisode, a scribe andkabbalistwhose reputationwas in good

standingabusedthe credibilityof the community.He insertedcertainmisspellings
into a Torahscroll with the aim of denigratingthe formerspiritualauthority.The
forgery was not a simple misspelling (hisaron or yeter); otherwise it would have
been easy to correct.The scribedemonstratedthe mistakein public because it was
impossibleto correctit accordingto Judaicscriballaws (hilkhotSTAM).82Forrea-
sons of self-censorship,Hillel preferredto make oblique allusions withoutactual-
ly spelling out the "mistake."But in the context of early-eighteenth-centuryEast
Emden, by no means unbiased,identified as sabbateans.See, for example, the treatmentof Eliyahu

Ulianov, Shmuel Essingen, and Moshe Pragerin Ya'akovEmdenSefer hit'abkut28; idem. Toratha-
kin'aot 118-119. However,Scholem convincinglyproves the sabbateanorigin of these practicalheal-
ers, see GershomScholem, Mehkarimu-mekorotle-toldotha-shabta'ut,ed. YehudaLiebes (Jerusalem:
ZalmanShazar,1994), 110-111. However,assessing the spreadof pietisticdoctrinesandmysticalideas
in eighteenth-centuryPoland,Hundertnotes that some of the pietists "wereundoubtedlyalso adher-
ents of Shabbateanism,but others were not."He also arguesthat the borderseparatingold-style (pre-
Beshtian) pietists and crypto-sabbateanswas blurred.See Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,121-
122, 152.
80. SH, f. 173a.
81. SH, f. 94b.
82. See KuntresMishnat sofrim on Mishnah Berurah, 36 and Mishnah Berurah on Shulhan
;Arukh'OrakhHayim 32:20. On the scribal laws related to mistakes in the Torahscroll, see Yizhak
ShteinerandYizhakGoldshtein,Dinei sefer torahshe-nimzahbo taut (Jerusalem:OT, 1984).
232
Europeancrypto-Sabbateanisman uncorrectable"mistake"implied perhapsone

and the same notorioustrick:The followers of SabbataiTsevi, scribes in the first
place, were known to insert the name of the pseudo-Messiahinsteadof the tetra-
grammatoninto sifrei STAM-phylacteries, mezuzas, and Torahscrolls.
One may want to compareHillel's descriptionwith the following testimony
of Rabbi Moshe Hagiz, Hillel's contemporary,known as a persecutorof crypto-
sabbateanspar excellence. The text is taken from his Gebiat 'edut, translatedby
Elisheva Carlebach:
InPolandonewitnesstestifiedto a different of thesacred:R.

sortof profanation
Nathan,headof thestudyhall,hada Torahscrollfromwhichthenameof God
wasomitted.Instead,he inscribed thenameof Sabbatai Zebi.Therewereap-
proximatelyfiftysoulswhoknew of this,R. Hayyim of Zholkiew amongthem,
andtheydidthesamewithphylacteries. Whentheyinvestigated them,he tear-
fullyconfessed;whenit wasall foundto be true,theyburnedthescrollandthe
Thecommunal
phylacteries. scribehadcontaminated manypeoplewiththese
and
phylacteries, thecommunal leaders exposedhim and whippedhim... 83
ApparentlyMoshe Hagiz and Hillel Ba'al Shem depict identical behavioralpat-

terns, which Hagiz tracedto crypto-sabbateansand Hillel to false bacaleishem. It
would be temptingto reinterpretHillel's referencesto the predominanceof char-
latansamong Jewish East Europeanhealersin the context of the crypto-sabbatean
schism.84This might be particularlyimportantin view of the parallelHillel traced
between pseudo-magiciansand the dybbuks.As if sharing common knowledge,
sometimes the contemporaryJewish community did perceive crypto-sabbateans
as possessed by dybbuks.85In this context, the rapidexplosion of the population
of itinerantba'alei shem was perhapsa responsenot only to the growing number
of those possessed by dybbuksand needing exorcism, but also to the expansionof
crypto-Sabbateanisminto Poland and the necessity to identify, neutralize,or ex-
communicatethe harbingersof heresy.86
83. Carlebach,Pursuit of Heresy, 184-5; Zvi Mark,"Dybbukand Devekut in the Shivhe ha-
Besht:Towarda Phenomenologyof Madnessin EarlyHasidism,"in SpiritPosession in Judaism: Cas-
es and Contextfromthe MiddleAges to the Present, ed. MattGoldish (Detroit:WayneStateUniversity
Press, 2003), 274-280.
84. Cf. Scholem'sportrayalof SabbataiRafaelfromMistra(Misithra)the first to combineprac-
tical Kabbalahwith sabbateanpropaganda.Scholem, SabbataiSevi, 783-789.
85. Bilu, "DybbukandMaggid,"352, Scholem,SabbataiSevi, 606; cf. literaryreflectionof this
parallelin Isaac Bashevis Singer,Satan in Goray,Trans.Jacob Sloan (New York:Avon Books, 1955),
chap. 13. Forthe analysis of sabbateanunderpinningsin Singer'snovel, see Bezalel Naor,Post Sabba-
tian Sabbatianism:Study of an UndergroundMessianic Movement(Spring Valley,NY: Orot, 1999),
98-103; for more literaryvariationson this topic, see RobertAlter,After the Tradition(New York:E.
P. Dutton, 1969), 61-75.
86. In the sixteenthandseventeenthcenturies,ProtestantsandCatholicsalso identifiedheretics
as demons or possessed; see Clark, Thinkingwith Demons, 387-88, 534-37, and esp. 385-88. One
may see obliqueevidence of this parallelin the reversetakingplace in WesternEuropein the eighteenth
century,when, due to growing religious tolerance,the numberof witch-huntingcases radicallydimin-
ished. See MarijkeGijswijt-Hofstra,Brian Levack, and Roy Porter,Witchcraftand Magic in Europe:
233
Hillel was not unawareof the righteoushealers among his colleagues. He

describesthem with one of his favoritewords,zanua' (modest), which in SH indi-
cates the highest level of spiritual purity and personal righteousness."7Only
zanuaC,a modest person, is able to produce a truly effective amulet (kameyac
mumheh).88Among the real wonder-workersHillel mentions a numberof righ-
teous magicians89such as Eli[yahu] Bacal Shem,90Joel Bacal Shem,91Naftali
Kaz,92RabbiYekovsky[possibly Jenowski] BaCalShem,93Perez Bacal Shem,94
The Eighteenthand Nineteenth Centuries(London:Athlone Press, 1997), 42. On the other hand, in
eighteenth-centuryRussia, due to the Nikon schism and persecutionsof the Old Believers (perceived
as witches), witch-huntingcases were on the rise, especially between 1690 and 1739. See, for exam-
ple, the fundamentalresearchby AleksandrLavrov,Koldovstvoi religiia v Rossii, 1700-1740 (Mos-
cow: Drevlekhranilishche,2000), 347-354.
87. In Judaictraditionthe usage of the notionzanua' is inseparablefrom the secretknowledge.
The twelve-letterName of God, for example, was transmittedby the sages to zenudimshe-bi-kehunah,
that is, the "discrete(modest) among the priests."Also, the secret forty-two-letterName of God, ac-
cording to R. Yehudaha-Nasi, was transmittedonly to a "discrete(modest) one:" ein mosrim oto ela
le-mi she zanua'. See B. Kiddushin71a.
88. SH, f. 153a. Razi'el ha-mal'akhmakesthe same claim and uses the same word,zanuad.See
Sefer Razi'el ha-mal'akh,8a and 33a (Medzhybozh, 1819).
89. Firstfour ba'alei shem-SH, f. 277a; second two-SH, f. 155a.
90. EliyahubarAaronYehudaMehalem(b . 1550), the headof the rabbiniccourtin Chelm, stud-
ied in Lublinat the yeshivah of R. Shlomoh Luria.See Etkes, Ba'al ha-shem, 18 and 33. In SH Hillel
reproducesin greaterdetail one of the famous stories about EliyahuBacal Shem that appearedalso in
Toldot'adam, siman 86. Cf. SH, f. 44b.
91. Joel ben Uri Heilperin(Hilpern)fromZamogc,the famousba'al shem and grandsonof Joel
bar IzhakAyzik Heilperin,Bacal Shem from Zamoic (ca. 1690-ca. 1755), was one of the most well-
known practicalkabbalistsof his time. He endorsedand penned a numberof famous books on practi-
cal Kabbalah,amongthemZevahpesah (1722), Mif ~alot'elokim(1710), and Toldot'adam(1720). See
a detaileddiscussion of him in Moshe Hillel, Ba'alei shem (Jerusalem:MakhonBney Issakhar,1993),
54-64, 90-179; Etkes, Bacal ha-shem,41-50; Matras,"Sifrei segulot,"141-143; and Hundert,Jews
in Poland-Lithuania,150-152. On the importanceof practicalKabbalahbooks in the developmentof
early Hasidism, see HavivaPedaya,"Ha-degemha-hevrati-dati-kalkali be-hasidut,"in Zadikve-cedah,
ed. David Assaf (Jerusalem:MerkazZalmanShazar,2001), 434-397, esp. 364-366.
92. RabbiNaftalibenYizhakha-Kohen(Kaz) fromPosen (Pozna, 1649-1719), one of the lead-
ing authoritiesin practicalKabbalah,was known for his wonderfulamuletsand successful exorcisms.
He endorsedmanybooks on practicalKabbalah,includingMif 'alot 'elokim(sometimes even ascribed
to him-see, for example, Lembergedition, 1872). He personallyknew the famous bacalshem Bin-
yamin Beinish of Krotoszynand endorsedhis Amtahatbinyamin(Wilhelmsdorf, 1716). See the dis-
cussion in Matras,"Sifrei segulot,"n. 11 on pp. 2-3 of the supplementbetween pages 141-142. On
Katz see GedalyahNigal, " Al rav naftali kaz mi-pozna,"Sinai 92 (1983): 91-94; Ariel Bar-Levav,
"Ha-mavetbe-'olamo shel ha-mekubalnaftali ha-kohenkaz" (Ph.D., Hebrew University,Jerusalem,
1990); YehudaLiebes, "A Profile of R. Naphtali Katz FromFrankfurtand His AttitudeTowardsSab-
bateanism,"in Gr6zingerand Dan, Mysticism,Magic and Kabbalahin AshkenaziJudaism, 208-222
and Rachel Elior, "R. NathanAdler and the FrankfurtPietists:Pietist Groupsin East and CentralEu-
rope duringthe EighteenthCentury,"in Jiidische Kulturin Frankfurtam Main von den Anfdingenbiz
zur Gegenwart,ed. Karl-ErichGr6zinger(Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz,1997), 135-177.
93. Most likely Yacakovben Moshe Kaz fromYanov(Pol.: Jan6w,therefore,Yanovski),the au-
thorof Minhatyaakov solet (Wilhelmsdorf,1731), the book on practicalKabbalah,amuletsand reme-
dies. See Etkes,Ba'al ha-shem,43, 46 n. 83. Yacakovb. Moshe'sbook was endorsedby Joel Bacal Shem
from Zamod, see Moshe Hillel, Ba'alei shem, 164.
94. I was not able to identify him.
234
and Heshel Ba'al Shem.95The conductof these ba'alei shem seems to correspond
to Hillel's high standardsof personalpurityand asceticism establishedin SH. Hil-
lel did not hesitate to copy from their books and reproducetheir amulets.To use
his own parlance,these wonder-workersand experts in practicalKabbalahwere
true hasidim-in contrast with the false hasidim, charlatans,and fake ba'alei
shem. However,even these righteousbaCaleishem troubledHillel. Theirimmacu-
late conductnotwithstanding,Hillel felt deeply hurtby the fact thatthey began to
publicize secret mystical knowledge and put theirbooks on practicalKabbalahto
press. There is nothing else in SH thattroubleshim as much as the publicationof
books of ba'alei shem.96
A number of prominent eighteenth-centuryrabbis, among them Yonatan
EybeschuetzandYa'akovEmden,did not welcome the disseminationof books on
practicalKabbalahand opposed the whole idea of their publication.97It does not
seem strangethat Hillel Ba'al Shem was also unhappy,even deeply depressed,be-
cause of theirpublication.Hillel's own reasons,however,were differentfromthose
ofYaCakovEmden. First,being published,esoteric secrets lost their secrecy; any-
one was able to copy an amulet from a newly publishedkabbalisticbook and use
it at his own discretion.Second,publishedbooks nullified the importanceof Hil-
lel's knowledge of the secret techniques he used to write and apply the amulets.
Third,Hillel cites an authoritativewarningagainstpublishingbooks on Kabbalah:
Mystical books should not be published,and if published,should not be used for
the sacredwork of a ba'al shem.98Hence, Hillel's indignation:
In ourgeneration,manybookswithholynamesandamulets,all of themse-
cret,werepublished.Do not use them-not in this worldnor in the world
to come, for they helpthe wicked.Someonepurchasesa book for himself
95. It is tempting to identify Heshel Bacal Shem from SH with Heschel Zoref, a crypto-sab-
batean,whom Gershom Scholem identified with RabbiAdam, the mystical teacherof the Besht. See
In Praise of the BacalShem TowvTheEarliest Collection of Legends about the Founderof Hasidism,
trans.and ed. Dan Ben-Amos and JeromeMintz (Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1970), 15-
18, 31-32; the discussion of RabbiAdam as Heschel Zoref in GershomScholem, "Ha-naviha-shab-
tayi r.heshel zoref-r. 'adambacalshem,"in his Mehkereishabtaut,ed. YehudaLiebes (Jerusalem:Am
Coved,1991), 579-599; for criticismof Scholem'sidentificationsee Moshe Hillel, Ba'alei shem, 305-
316. Rosmanrejects Scholem's identificationand stronglysupportsthe viewpoint of Chone Shmeruk,
who identified RabbiAdam as the legendarylate-sixteenth-centuryfigure from Prague,rejectingthus
any connectionbetween him and Heshel Zoref. See Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 144-145. Forbet-
ter understandingof Hillel Ba'al Shem it is importantthat despite his sabbateanreputation,Heschel
Zoref was toleratedby such kabbalistsas Zevi Hirsch Kaidanover,see Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithu-
ania, 125.
96. Fora list of books on practicalKabbalahprintedin Z61kiew,see YeshayahuVinograd,'Ozar
ha-sefer ha-civri.2 vols. (Jerusalem:ha-makhonle-bibliografiamemuhshevet,1993), 2:306-308.
97. Moshe Idel, Hasidism:BetweenEcstasy and Magic (Albany:State Universityof New York
Press, 1995), 34, 36.
98. Hillel constantlyreiterateshis criticism:"I have found in severalbooks of great Kabbalists
of previousgenerationswho warnedagainst the usage of mystical books,"SH, f. 172a-b. And again,
"Ina couple of smallbooks publishedin Zholkvathey issued severalamulets(segulot) andlots of names
(shemot) yet everythingwas printedwithout any sense (bli ta am); one should not rely on them,"SH,
f. 188a.
235
[such as] Toldot,99Zevah pesah,'00 and Po'el gevurot'0' printedin Zholkva

[Z6lkiew].Thesebooksneverrevealsecretsbut only confusepeople.One
shouldrevealsecretsonlyto themodest(zanua').102
Accordingto Hillel, the unscrupulousnessof certainba'alei shem is the most im-

portant reason against the publication of books on practical Kabbalah.Printed
books foundtheirway easily into the handsof impostorswho did not behavethem-
selves in accordwith the pietistic requirements,thus obtainingan easy opportuni-
ty to cheat.103That is why, claims Hillel, the publicationof practicalKabbalah
books has corruptedhis generation.104In addition,Hillel stresses the intellectual
problem:The recipientsof the newly publishedKabbalahbooks do not understand
the intrinsicmechanisms of the amulets and do not know how to produce new
amuletson the basis of the publishedones. Indeed,implies Hillel Ba'al Shem, the
printedKabbalahkills while the oral revives. Further,in orderto understandhow
to use a handwrittenor publishedamulet,whatits connectionwith the Torahis, and
in what cases it might be effective, one needs Hillel's oral explanationor clarifica-
tion. Ultimately,Hillel is tryingex postfacto to win a lost battle:He fights against
publicationof practical Kabbalahbooks and democratizationof the kabbalistic
knowledge since real knowledge for him is oral, elitist, and manuscript-based.'05
99. Toldot'adam(Z6?kiew,1720).
100. Z61kiew,1722.
101. There was no such book published in Z61kiewor elsewhere. Most likely, Hillel refers to
Mif'alot 'elokim(i6lkiew, 1710 and 1724), but confuses the title.
102. SH, f. 172a.
103. books on practicalKabbalahwere printedin pocket-size format.Zevahpesah in-
SZ6kiew
dicates this characteristicon its title page. The publicationof small-size books allowed Z61kiew,first,
to producea cheapproductand reachout to a wider Jewishaudience,and,second, to put to press more
books thanthe maximum700 annualkuntrasim(in this case, book copies), permittedto Z6lkiewprint-
ing press by the Council of FourLandsas a result of the fierce competitionbetween Lublin,Z61kiew,
and Cracowprintingpresses at the very end of the seventeenthcentury.Forthe decisions of the Coun-
cil, see Shlomo Buber,Kiryahnisgavah:hi ha-cirZolkiv(Cracow:Bi-defuso shelY. Fisher,1903), 104-
105. For a brief history of the Z61kiewprintingpress, see Meir Balaban,"Batei defus yehudiim be-
zolkiv,"in Gelber and Ben-Shem, Sefer zolkiv, 215-224; Haim Dov Friedberg,Toldotha-defus be-
polanyah (Tel Aviv: Barukh Fridberg,1950), 62-68; Israel Halpern, Yehudimve-yahadutbe-mizrah
eropa: mehkarimbe-toldotehem(Jerusalem:Magness, 1968), 83-84.
104. "In our generationeveryone buys a book Toldot'adam for himself. The book, which is a
waste of ink andpaper,everyonebuys very cheap and becomes ba'al shemot.Yet,those who buy it, do
not know anythingaboutthis world and about the world to come. They even do not behave according
to the good behaviordescribedin that small book Toldot'adam."SH, f. 155a-b.
105. Mention should be made of the similaritybetween Hillel's, JonathanEybeschuetz's,and
Jacob Emden'scriticismof the publicizingof the Kabbalahbooks, see Idel, Hasidism, 35-36. On the
dichotomy"booksvs. manuscripts"in the context of a demonopolizationof the elitist knowledge and
democratizationprocess in East EuropeanJewish culture, see ElchananReiner,"TheAshkenaziel1ite
at the Beginningof the ModernEra:Manuscriptversus PrintedBook,"Polin 10 (1997): 85-94; Moshe
Rosman,"Le-toldotavshel makorhistori,"Zion 58 (1993): 175-214. Forthe more generaldiscussion
of "manuscriptvs. printedbook dichotomy,"see Ze'ev Gries, Ha-Sefer ke-sokhentarbut:ba-shanim
460-660 (1700-1900) (TelAviv:ha-kibbutsha-meuhad,2002), 12-13 and bibliographyhe assembles
in notes 5 and 6.
236
Not only do books deny his manuscript;they rejectthe indispensabilityof Hillel's

personalinvolvementimplied in SH.'06
The impactof the false and genuine ba'alei shem on Hillel's careerwas that
rank-and-fileJews became skepticalaboutthe magicalpowersof all healers.Com-
mon disbelief in the ba'al shem contradictedthe very core of the healing process,
which, accordingto Hillel, requiredstrongbelief in the magical powersof the ba-
Calshem. Even a professionallymade amuletwould not operateif one did not be-
lieve in it, argues Hillel.107 Hillel provides dreadful stories that illuminate the
fatality of such disbelief. In one case, which took place in Keidan, Lithuania,in
1739, a womanrefusedto follow the advice of her relativesto get ridof the amulet.
She kept it and managedto save herself from the evil Lilith.'08Her husbandtook
his amuletoff, but Hillel does not sharewith his readerwhathappenednext. In an-
other case, which took place in Wilkowysk, Grodno Province, the dybbukhad
been banishedfrom a body of a woman,yet, because she had takenher protecting
amuletfrom her neck and allowed skepticalrelativesto open it, the spiritreturned
and destroyedall the efforts of the ba'al shem.109It is very likely that one or both
of these episodes depict the failures of Hillel. The chronologicaljuxtapositionof
Hillel's failureswith the beginningof his workon the SHmanuscript(around1739)
makes one surmisethatHillel decided to restorehis reputationdemonstratingthat
he is a knowledgeable,well-connected, reputed,and pious ba'al shem. His so-
cioeconomic position was precarious.Hillel consideredwriting a book as his last
chance.
Hillel makes it clearthaton severaloccasions his performanceas ba'al shem
was a complete failure.011As the resultof his failurehe was eitherbanishedfrom
a numberof localities or put undertemporaryherem.It is evident, however,that
he could not continuepracticingas ba'al shem."' He had lost his reputation.Hil-
lel's attemptto assimilate with scribes, preachers,slaughterers-"secondary in-
telligentsia"-and to establishhimself as a healer and kabbalist,that is to say, an
106. "People bought [printedbooks on practicalKabbalah- YPS] so that they came into the
hands of riff raff who don't know or understandany book or wisdom; only whateveris in these little
books. They don't know how things occur, and they don't even performa properpracticeas it is pre-
scribed. Obviously,they don't know the origins or functions of the names, for they do not have the
slightest knowledge even of the exoteric partof the holy Torah."SH, f. 119b.
107. SH, f. 277a.
108. Perhapsthe origin of this amulet is to be found among the popularmedievaltales of Ben
Sira that connect the destructivefunctions of Lilith to the circumstancesof the creation of the first
woman and thatrequirefrom a healer responsiblefor writingthe amuletspecial spiritualand physical
qualities.See EliYassif,Sipureiben sira be-yemeiha-beynayim(Jerusalem:MagnesPress, 1985), 231-
234.
109. SH, f. 34b, 54b-55a. This episode happenedafter the 1725 incidentwhen an amulet on a
womanwas discoveredcontainingsabbateansymbols purportedlywrittenby R. Eybeschuetz.The sim-
ilarityof these episodes suggests thatthe Jewish communitymistrustedthe productionof baCaleishem
on the groundsof their alleged involvementin heresy. See Perlmuter,Ha-ravyehonatan eybeschuez,
37-42; Scholem, Mehkereyshabta'ut,228-230, 707-733.
110. SH, f. 74b.
111. "Theonly thing I am seeking is a nice place to which I could come and regainmy profes-
sion."See SH, f. 74b.
237
"official"ba'al shem in a particularJewish locality ended up in fiasco.112Perhaps

Hillel expected that his manuscript,SH, would prove that he was a great healer,
thathe was awareof new developmentsin practicalKabbalahand deservedbetter
treatment.Hence, he conceived SH as an encyclopedia of practicalKabbalahin
generaland as his expandedresum6in particular." Due to this twofold purpose,
SH combined the vademecumof a practicalkabbalistand a personalconfession.
V. HILLEL'S VADEMECUM
Following the tradition of Sefer ha-zohar and Razi'el ha-mal'akh,Hillel

claims thatSH is a holy book.114He identifies two reasonsfor this. First,SH com-
prises a wealth of holy names, quotations from sacred kabbalistic sources, and
amulets-in fact, SH itself may be regardedas a talisman,the holiness and effec-
tiveness of which is undeniable.Second,Hillel arguesthat essentiallySH is much
older than any printedbook on practicalKabbalah.He claims that all the printed
books had been merely copied from SH, which remainedunknown until Hillel
Ba'al Shem obtainedthe privilege to disclose it. However,Hillel did not have a
maggid-a mystical teacher;a double, like Yosef Karo'smaggid mesharim"115
to secretly convey to him the contents of the book. Insteadof cleaving to esoteric
celestial wisdom through the maggid, Hillel reaches out to it through pseu-
doepigrapicmediators--secret kabbalisticbooks and teachings.116
Twolegends cover the origins of SH. Accordingto the first, Ashmodai,king
of demons, revealedsecret knowledgeto King Solomon, who recordedit, titled it
SH, and hid it in the WesternWall of the Temple."7 It was uncoveredin the times
112. It was Yosef Weiss who put forwardand elaboratedthe concept of "secondaryintelli-
gentsia"(he called it ha-nodedet,vagabond;me-madregahshniyah, second-rank,and ha-bilti-rashmit,
non-official) that comprisedwanderingethical teachers,preachers,healers, etc. and that socially ce-
mented the rising hasidic movement. See his "Reshit zemihatahshel ha-derekhha-hasidit,"Zion 16
(1951): 49-56. Forthe critiqueof Weiss, see Haim Lieberman,Ohel rahe"I(New York:H. Lieberman,
1980), 3-5.
113. Hillel perceives his writing of SH as a pious act and his perceptionresemblesthe attitude
to writing among hasidei ashkenaz. See Colette Siratet al., La conception du livre chez les pietistes
ashkenazesau moyenage (Genbve:Droz, 1996), 144.
114. "Seferha-kadoshha-zeh,"SH, f 194a, 314a, and throughout.Cf. "ba-seferha-kadoshha-
zeh," "mi-hokhmatha-sefer ha-kadoshha-zeh,"reiteratedten times at the beginning of Sefer razi'el
(Amsterdam,1701), f. 3a-4b. On traditionof a sacredbook in the EuropeanJewish pietistic tradition,
see Sirat,La conceptiondu livre, 37-63.
115. See R. J. Zwi Werblowsky,Joseph Karo:Lawyerand Mystic (London:OxfordUniversity
Press, 1962).
116. In additionto pseudoepigraphicsources, SH containsreferencesto such well-knownkab-
balisticsourcesas Seferyeszirah(34b, 318a);SodotofNachmanides( 15b,32a-b); Seferha-zohar( 171a,
187a-Pekudei; 302a, 302b, 303b, 305b, 306b-Bereshit); Tikkuneizohar (84a); Lurianic Kabbalah
(14a, 16b, 23b, 30a, 70ff); Natan Neta Hannover'sLurianicsiddurSha arei zion (73b, 186a-187b);
Sefer ha-pardes(20a);'Emekha-melekh(20a); Ma'aseh'elokim(35b); Sefer razi'el [ha-mal'akh](62b,
117a); Toldot'adam(74b, 105b, 155a-b); Korbanshabat (327a); Zevahpesah (both 172a).
117. SH, f. 117b-119b. Apparentlythe literaryroots of this legend date back to the encounter
between King Solomon and Ashmodai, King of Demons, whom Solomon captured,incarcerated,and
made reveal the secrets of shamir, a wondrousworm instrumentalin cutting the stones indispensable
for the buildingof the Temple,depicted in B. Gittin.However,the idea of a secret book is absentfrom
238
of the Sanhedrinand transferredthroughgenerationsuntil it came into the hands

of Hillel. Accordingto the second legend,Hillel himself discovered"theold book
SH" and drew heavily from it.11isYet, Hillel's legend is not consistent:In a num-
ber of places, for example, Hillel notes SH and the writings of his mentorTsevi
Hirschas two differenttexts, whereaselsewherehe claims thatSH was eitherwrit-
ten by Zevi Hirschor belonged to him."19By the same token Hillel also attributes
SHto his friendRabbiEfraimfromVissa.120EvidentlyHillel does not have a clear-
cut version of his own versus the esoteric tradition.Intellectuallyhe is too shy. In
a similar situation,the Besht also maintainsthat he was in possession of unique
manuscripts-in his case, of an enigmaticRabbiAdam Ba'al Shem. However,the
Besht takes the decisive step towardsspiritualappropriationof his mystical man-
uscript. He claims that besides him and the Patriarchsperhapsnobody else ever
knew the contentsof the manuscript:"Theywere in the handsof Abrahamthe Pa-
triarch,may he rest in piece, and in the hands of Joshua,the son of Nun, but I do
not know who are the others."'21Hillel Ba'al Shem would not dare make such a
bold statement.Direct connection to the secret celestial library(Liebes) is some-
thing he cannotafford.The gravityof his magic groundedhim.'22
SH depicts a world split into two parts. Living beings inhabitits first part;
spiritual powers inhabit the second. Each part is divided into two subsequent
realms.This world,ha-'olam ha-zeh, has a borderseparatingJews from gentiles.
The other world is split into the realm of holy names and angels, shemot ha-
kedushah,and evil names and powers,shemotha-tum'ah.Each of these four parts
has a pronouncedhierarchyof values and is integralper se. That is why SH starts
with the extensive explanationof this parallelism:
Andhereare32 rulesthatmatch32 pathsof wisdomas frontandback.As

theyoperate,thankGod,in theupper[spheres]-we will be ableto operatein
thelowerones.As therearetenevil sephirotmatchingtenholysephirot,there
areholynamesandtherearefoulnames,therearecelestialangelsandthere
areangelsof theearth(mal'akheyde-'ara).123
this source. See B. Gittin68a-b. It appearsonly in Sefer which lists fourbooks thatSolomon
ha-zohar,
received from Ashmodai, namely: the book containingmagical material,the book of the wisdom of
Solomon, the book on physiognomy,and the book on the knowledge of precious stones. See Sefer ha-
zohar 3:194b, 3:193b, 2:70a, 1:225b.Formore detail, see Louis Ginzberg,TheLegendsof the Jews, 6
vols. (Philadelphia:The Jewish PublicationSociety of America, 1968), 6:301-302 n. 93.
118. SH, f. 90a.
119. Forexample, he says "ThusI heardfrom the greatrabbiand he showedto me in his book
Sefer ha-heshekand I copied severalpages."SH, f. 173b.
120. Forexample, Hillel recollects seeing an amulet in the book "Seferha-heshek[written]by
the great rabbi,renownedhasid and kabbalistEfraim,maggid mesharimfrom Vissa."
121. Shivhei ha-besht, no. 187. See Ben-Amos and Mintz, In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov,
196-97.
122. It is interestingto compareHillel's manipulationswith the holy names and the interpreta-
tion of magic/mysticalin Yosef Karo:"Thedifferencebetween legitimateand illegitimateuse of Holy
Names is thereforenot of pure (spiritual)versus selfish (magical) intentions..,. but between formulae
of ascent and formulaeof descent."See Werblowsky,Joseph Karo, 73.
123. SH, f. Ib.
239
The same reflectioncharacterizesbothrealms:Tenheavenlyemanationsarerepeat-

ed in ten impureemanations,whereasthe angelsof heavensarenegativelyparalleled
by the angels of earth.All elementsoppose each otherand mirroreach other.Holy
sefirahketer(the Crown)is paralleledby an abominablesefirahkaret(literally"cut
off by God");good angelKatriel(literally"theCrownedLord")is overshadowedby
a corruptangel Kartiel(the DestroyedLord).124However,the dividingbordersbe-
tween them are not impenetrable.A Jew can become an apostate;a demon can ap-
pearto the Jews disguisedas a scribeor even as a ba'al shem;good angels become
evil as a resultof a mere change of the orderof lettersin theirnames. SH is full of
antithesesand,to use the parlanceof RomanJacobson,negativeparallelism.125
The permeabilityof the antitheticalrealms representsa constant threatto
simple folk. As in the case of Macbeth'switches, it is difficult, if at all possible, to
distinguishbetweenfairandfoul in Hillel's shamanicbeliefs. The threatof an erup-
tion of evil powersinto the mattersof this world makes life dangerousand people
suspicious. Hence, the importanceof the ba'al shem. He functions as a mediator
between the four realms. He controls them semiotically throughtheir signs and
names.He knowshow to differentiatebetweenthemandhow to transformthe pow-
ers of one into the powersof another.Finally,the ba'al shem reestablishesthe bal-
ance between them. Who, if not the bacalshem, is able to identify evil powers in
the guise of a kabbalistor a scribe?And who can exorcise these powers,if not the
ba'al shem? In the languageof social anthropology,SH introducesthe ba'al shem
as a shamanwith a pronouncedmediatoryfunctionto restorecosmic, theological,
societal, and psychological order.126Thus, the ultimategoal of SH, informingits
style and genre, is to clarify to a reader-whether communalauthorityor wealthy
protector-the indispensabilityof the ba'al shem.Tojustify his mission, Hillel de-
picts the complexity and dangerof the spiritualworlds.
According to Hillel, sitra' 'ahra' (the evil power) and its wicked heirs, the
demons, areubiquitous.127The numberof amuletsprescribedin SH testifies to the
astonishingability of sitra' 'ahrato adaptto any environment.128 To keep it under
124. SH, f. 298a. In the traditionalkabbalistictexts, Katriel(Akhtariel)is partof the celestial

dichotomyKatriel/Metatron,and not of the ManicheandichotomyKatriel/Kartiel.See the discussion
in ArthurGreen,Keter:the Crownof God in EarlyJewish Mysticism(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
Press, 1997), 62-65.
125. See RomanJacobson,Selected Works(The Hague:Mouton, 1979), 5:311-312.
126. Rosmanwas the first to insightfullyplace ba'alei shem in the contextof shamanism,which
he explainedin the terms of MirceaEliade'ssocial anthropologyand which has become standardsince
his 1996 book on the historicalBesht. See Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 13-15, 17-19.
127. Demons follow the commandmentto multiply much betterthan do humanbeings (83b).
They are not afraidof and cannotbe stoppedby sifrei STAM(94b). Neither the great rabbinicauthor-
ity such as the head of a rabbinicalcourt and roshyeshivah, nor the learningfervorof the lomdimcan
stop them (107a). They prefernewly built houses (293b). A special prayeris requiredto preventtheir
appearance(46b-47a). If the prayerdoes not help, special secret names have to be pronouncedto ban-
ish the evil (341b). Sometimes damnationis requiredto put evil undercontrol (344b).
128. Hillel prescribesprotectiveamuletsthatshouldbe placedon the frontdoor(since a mezuza
would not help, 188a,297b), abovethe threshold(103b), andovereach of the doorsof the house (297a),
and still additionalamuletsare requiredagainstfire (188b, 317a), thieves (156b, 173b), evil eye (41b),
demons (291a), evildoers (194b-195a), and dybbuks(198b, 132b-135a).
240
control,Hillel extensively employs the names of abomination(shemotha-tum'ah)

thatcoverin SH a separatechapter;he even establishesan immediatedialoguewith
evil powers.129Hillel not only designs amuletsagainstthe powersof kelipah(here:
evil), but also makes kelipahinstrumentalin achieving practicalpurposes.SH in-
cludes amuletsthatallow observingevil powersin corpore(316a). It offersamulets
that disable people (195b), induce sleep (196a), interruptrest (212b, 293b), bring
evil powersinto a house (196b), preventsuccessful copulationbetween a husband
and a wife (197b), and revive the dead in a dream(310a). It also offers effective
imprecationsagainst enemies. SH offers one of these curses among its amend-
ments to the Eighteen Benedictionsprayer,including it, quite surprisingly,in the
petition of health and recovery(refa'eni):
Maythenameof PlonibenPlonibecursedaccording to thewordsof theHoly

One, blessedbe he, due to the permission fight Christians.130Godof
to the
Yisrael,maythesonsof thismanbecomeorphansandhis wife a widowand
mayallthediseasesandpunishments recordedinthisTorahbefallhim.Forhe
is thetrustworthyandmercifulKing....'31
ThereforeSH is not only a kabbalisticbook but also a witchcraftprimer.It is ob-

sessed with kelipot, forces of evil, and it seems not to be interestedin nezozot,di-
vine sparks.Hillel is readyto use his magic to protectan individualor individuals
from evil, but he is not readyto uplift an individualor individualsresortingto his
mystical worldview.To paraphraseMoshe Idel, SH oscillates between mysticism
and magic, but gravitatestowardsmagic.132Hence SH sharplycontrastswith the
bulk of CentralEuropeanbooks of practicalKabbalahand resembles East Euro-
pean ones such as Zevah pesah, Toldot'adamor Mifadalot'elokim.Yet its unpar-
alleled necromanticnuances, absent in Zevah pesah or Mifacalot'elokim,firmly
place the book in the context of eighteenth-centuryPolish and Russiankoldovstvo
(witchcraft).The significant amountof Slavic wordsand entirepassages of Slav-
129. Hillel appliesthe "namesof abomination"extensively (9a, 33b, 58b-59a, 60b-62a, 11la,
354a, 380b-381b). He interactswith the dybbuks(125a-127b, 135b-138b, 235a, 238a, 239b). In his
interactionswith evil powers, Hillel was not particularlyinnovative:evil names appearedin the kab-
balistic literaturelong before the spreadof LurianicKabbalah.Writtenca. 1488 and 1504 in Moroc-
co, Sefer ha-meshivcontaineddescriptionsof evil names (shemotha-tumah),demonologicreferences,
as well as descriptionof methodsto neutralizeevil power.See GershomScholem, "Le-ma'aser yosef
della reina,"Meassefziyon 5 (1933): 126-127; idem., "Le-ma'asehr' yosefdella reina,"in Studies in
Jewish Religious and IntellectualHistory,PresentedtoAlexanderAltmannon the Occasion of His Sev-
entiethBirthday,ed. Siegfried Stein, RaphaelLoewe (University:Universityof AlabamaPress; Lon-
don: Instituteof Jewish Studies, 1979), 101-109.
130. Tentative translationof two consecutive abbreviations:RF'EL [rashutpituah 'emz'ey
lahimah]YHN"H [Yeshuaha-Notsri(ha-mekulal?)].
131. SH, f. 68a.
132. Idel discusses differencesandsimilaritybetweenmysticalandmagic elementsin Hasidism
and arguesthatmystical-magicmodel is prevalentin the entirecorpusof the hasidic literature.See Idel,
Hasidism, 82-112. ForHillel, however,magical and mystical are two poles of the dichotomythatcan-
not be synthesized: Mysticism is a privilege of a kabbalist,whereas magic is for the popular con-
sumption.
241
ic incantationsand imprecationsin SH, to be discussed elsewhere, testify to the

fundamental commonality between the practices and worldview of a Slavic
znakhar' (herbalhealer)and a Jewish ba'al shem.133
ID
VI. HILLEL'S
Who was Hillel Bacal Shem? Obviously,he was not a charlatanwho cyni-
cally exploitedandpreyedon the most paganprejudicesof simple folk, like ba'alei
shem depictedby JoshuaTrachtenberg.134 Suffice to mentionthat the ba'al shem
and large segmentsof the communitysharedthe same values and beliefs. Nor was
Hillel a halakhic authority,a rabbinicscholar, or a rabbi, as those ba aley shem
portrayedby ImmanuelEtkes.135 Rather,Hillel's worldviewand his tragic fate re-
semble those itinerantbacalei shem, vagabond shamans, members of the com-
munal "secondaryintelligentsia"and practicalkabbalists,thirsty for some social
leadershipand a permanentposition in the community,as describedby Gedalyah
Nigal,136Michal Oron,'37 and Moshe Rosman.138Hillel could do nothing but
dream of the status of Rabbi JonathanEybeschuetzor Joel Heilperin-junior.The
former practiced the art of ba'al shem and occupied the lucrativeposition of a
town rabbiin Prague,and the latterwas a community-sponsoredpracticalkabbal-
ist in Zamos~. Hillel could not claim, like the charismaticand very authoritative
Naftali Kaz from Pozna, that he personally had met the Angel of Death; he
did not have the necessary positive charismato counterbalancethis encounter.
Rather,Hillel must be comparedto BinyaminBeinish from Krotoszyn:both Hil-
lel and BinyaminBeinish complainedof the vicissitudes of an itinerantlife; they
both were self-taught kabbalistswho knew Lurianicsources and the Zohar,but
both failed to establishthemselves in the community.Indeed,strikingstylistic and
133. This commonalityis manifestedin the significance for both the Slavic znakhar'and the
Jewish ba'al shem alike of the phenomenaof "popularreligion,"that is, magical manuscriptscombin-
ing prayersandhealingremedies(Rus.: "Travnik " and "Trebnik"), blackmagic, andthe unityof prayer
and incantation.See Lavrov,Koldovstvoi religiia v Rossii, 75 ff., 92-93, 127. I use here the Slavic no-
tion znakharonly to give an additionalEast Europeanflavorto Moshe Rosman'sshrewddefinition of
the ba'al shem as shaman. See Rosman,Founderof Hasidism, 13-19.
134. Trachtenberg,Jewish Magic and Superstition,79, 144, 196, 200.
135. ImmanuelEtkes, "Mekomamshel ha-magiyahu-va'alei ha-shembe-hevrahha-ashkenaz-
it be-mifneh ha-me'otha-yud-zayin-ha-yud-het," Zion LX (1995): 87-89.
136. Nigal, Magic, Mysticism,and Hasidism, 10-12. Nigal highlightsthe dualisticfunctionof
a ba'al shem: "twopersonalitiesare capableof dwelling within the same person:the personalityof the
Rav-Philosopher-Leader(and even posek) and the personalityof a wonder-workingba'al-shem.Ap-
parently,no one in that period thoughtthat these two personalitieswere in any way contradictory;to
the contrary,all believed that they could exist harmoniouslywithin the same person,"ibid., 20-21.
137. In her article on RabbiSamuel Falkknown as BacalShem from London,Oronaccurately
highlights the ba'al shem's constant strive for social leadershipand his desire to use his magic prac-
tices with the aim of establishing himself socially. See Michal Oron, "Dr. Samuel Falk and the
Eibeschuetz-EmdenControversy,"242-245. Also see Oron, Mi- "ba'alshed " le- "ba'alshem."
138. Rosmandefines the commondenominatorofbaalei shem as their"abilityto employ mag-
ical techniquesfor manipulatingthe nameor namesof God to achievepracticaleffects in everydaylife"
and of their practiceof "whatwas termed practicalkabbalah."Rosman demonstratesthe presence of
ba'alei shem at various levels of society. See Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 13-15, 17-19.
242
thematicparallelsexist betweenBinyaminBeinish'sSefershem tov katanand Hil-

lel's Sefer ha-heshekthatdeserve separatediscussion. On the otherhand,although
he was not a town rabbi, Hillel resembles Hirsh Franklfrom Shwabach(1662-
1740). Like Frankl,Hillel sufferedfrompersecutionsandwas deprivedof the right
to operateas ba'al shem. Frankl'sbook did not survive persecution,yet from its
German renderingit is obvious that both Hillel and Frankl shared Manichean
worldviews,were at home with evil powers,and were inclined to black magic and
witchcraft.139Ultimately,Hillel resemblesIsraelben Eliezer,the Besht, beforethe
latter settled down ca. 1740 in Miqdzyboz as a kahal-supportedmystic and ma-
gician.140Hillel and Israel Besht both were itineranthealers and practicalkab-
balists, neitherwas a rabbinicfigure, andboth were looking for a tenuredposition.
We will speculatelaterwhetherthe differencesbetweenthem stemmedonly from
the fact thatone (the Besht) was more successful in the communalmarketthanthe
other (Hillel).
Like most of the East Europeankabbalists,referredto in SH as hasidim,Hil-
lel Ba'al Shem was a classical pre-Beshtianhasid. He belonged to the generation
of late- seventeenth and early-eighteenth-centurymystics, who, as Gershom
Scholem indicates, combined learningKabbalahand practicingasceticism. Nei-
ther the Kuty kabbalisticcircle nor the kloiz of Brody were mentionedin SH, yet
Hillel's rigorousbehavioralrequirementsseem to correspondfully with the pat-
terns of personalconductadoptedby hasidimin Kuty,Brody,and othergroups of
EastEuropeanpietists.141 Moreover,SHmay be used as a sourcefor the pre-Besht-
ian Hasidism that provides detailed descriptions of hasidic mystical practices
(hanhagot).142Hillel reiteratesthat ritual purity (tevilah, tefilah ve-taharah) is
indispensablefor a kabbalistengaged in holy work. Hillel meticulouslydescribes
when it is forbiddenor allowed to write amulets. He introduceshis peculiarcal-
endarof "clean"and "unclean"days for those who are"modest."He designs a spe-
cial calendarfor oaths and damnations.He stresses that a person cannotbe a true
healer, ba'al shem, unless he is a true kabbalist,ba'al sod.143
According to Hillel's rites, a healer should pray with profound kavanah,
alone, not necessarily with a quorum.144 A week of abstinence and daily ritual
139. GedalyahNigal, Ba'al-shem le-ma'asar'olam: Goralo ha-tragi shel ha-rav hirshfrankl

(Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1993), 11-16. Mention should be made of the dramaticdif-
ference between Hillel's Manicheanusage of the evil powers and the idea of the transcendedevil in
LurianicKabbalah.See IsaiahTishby,Toratha-racve-ha-kelipahbe-kabalatha-'ari (Jerusalem:Mifal
ha-shikhpul,1962).
140. Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 63-82, 159-170.
141. See YaakovHisday,"Eved ha-shem-be-doram shel avot ha-hasidut,"Zion 47 (1982):
253-292; Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,119-142; JosephWeiss, "Pneumaticsin Pre-Hasidism,"
27-42; Rivka Shatz Uffenheimer,Hasidism as Mysticism:QuietisticElementsin EighteenthCentury
Hasidic Thought(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press; Jerusalem:The Magnes Press, 1993), 111-
143; AbrahamJ. Heshcel, TheCircle of the Baal Shem Tov:Studies in Hasidism, ed. Samuel Dressner
(Chicago and London:Universityof Chicago Press, 1985), esp. 4-14, 45-56, 113-151.
142. For an in-depthdiscussion of the books on hasidic behavioralpatterns,see Gries, Sifrut
ha-hanhagot.
143. SH, f. 2a, 105b, 153a, 154a, 314b.
144. SH, f. 62b. Cf. the personalconduct of the Besht who was reportedto pray in the loneli-
243
ablutionsare requiredfor particularamulets.Writingthe amuletrequirespietistic

conduct and a tranquilenvironment.The kabbalistshould preparean amulet in a
clean room. He must be alone in this room. He should write an amulet on a fine
parchment.There shouldbe nobody else in the house: no rituallyuncleanwomen,
no charlatanssuspectedof makingforgeries,and,amazingly,no repentantsinners,
ba'alei teshuvah.145Indeed,deliberateself-restraintfrom physical pleasures, the
applicationof kavvanotand fastingbeforeandafterthe performancemakeHillel's
conduct particularlyclose to the membersof the pneumaticcircles, predecessors
of the BeshtianHasidism.'46However,in vain would one look in SH for such no-
tions of the Beshtian Hasidism as devekut.147Nor does SH requireconcentration
on the letters of the amulets.148 Nor does one find in SH-except in traditional
formulaicstatements-an indicationof its author'sstrong concern with commu-
nal redemption.Divine sparkshave no place in the darkrealms of SH-perhaps
this is one of the reasons that in SH there are no traces of a joyous spiritualityso
characteristicof BeshtianHasidism.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
Hillel was both a typical and an atypical ba'al shem. He was deeply im-
mersed in a Manicheanuniverseinhabitedby powerfuldemons, evil spirits,dyb-
buks, and devils.'49 In his mind, these powers were ubiquitous, as in the
Weltanschauungof the famous kabbalist Shimshon of Ostropolie (d. 1648), to
whom Hillel refers,and in his nephewYaCakov ben Pesah'sZevah (26lkiew,
pesah.
ness of the Carpathianwoods. See Shivhei ha-besht, stories nos. 8 and 9; Ben-Amos and Mintz, In
Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov,18-23.
145. SH, f. 154a, 226b-227a, 331b. Hillel interpretsliterallythe famous statement"inthe place
of the ba'alei teshuvah the righteouszaddikimare not able to stand."His interpretationfollows R.
Yohananand not R. Avahu,see Berakhot34b and Rashi ad loc. Interestinglyenough, as in a numberof
othercases, here, too, Hillel seems to be arguingagainstcrypto-sabbateanreadingof classical sources,
in this case, of the gemara. See, for instance, the sabbateaninterpretationof Berakhot34b that em-
phasizes the superiorityof a ba'al teshuvahover zaddikgamur,in Naor,Post SabbatianSabbatianism,
22-25. However,in othercases Hillel inclines towardsabbateanideas. Thus, for instance,he resortsto
a sabbateaninterpretationof the planet Saturn,which for the sixteenth-centurykabbalistsymbolized
six profanedays of the week and not Shabbatbut for ShabbetaiTsevi and his followers came to sym-
bolize Shabbatand JubileeYear.See Elliot K. Ginsburg,TheShabbatin the Classical Kabbalah(State
University of New YorkPress, 1989), 198 and 240-241; Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics (Yale:Yale
University,1998), 192-196; Scholem, SabbataiSevi, 430. At this point I thinkthe questionof Hillel's
inconsistentcrypto-Sabbateanismhas to be left open.
146. The Besht was also stringentaboutrules of writingamulets.Cf. Shivheiha-besht,no. 187;
Ben-Amos and Mintz,In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov,196-197.
147. On the importanceof devekutin Hasidism, see GershomScholem, "Devekutas Commu-
nion with God,"in TheMessianicIdea in Judaism(New York:SchockenBooks, 1971), 186-191, 206-
211.
148. On the importanceof contemplativeandecstaticpracticesin Hasidism,see Idel,Hasidism,
45 and 75.
149. It will be fruitfulto compare(and differentiate)the worldviewof Hillel and that of Abra-
hamYagel(1552-ca. 1623), an Italian-Jewishdoctor,magician,andkabbalistwho resortedto the work
of Aristotle to prove the physical reality of demons. See David B. Ruderman,Kabbalah,Magic, and
Science (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1988), 43-58.
244
1722), which Hillel often quotes.'50Hillel's familiaritywith and closeness to this

world informsthe second meaningof his title thatI propose:the Masterof an Evil
Name. Hillel starts with making a dybbukhis only respectableinterlocutorand
ends by makingevil powerspredominantin his thinking.Hillel says, for instance,
thatany operation(pe'ulah)thatresemblesa burntoffering(ketoret)shouldbe for-
bidden because burntofferings nurturedemons; any imitationof the burntoffer-
ing will benefit evil powers.'5' To be on the safe side, one should not disturbevil,
Hillel seems to argue. But should evil appear,Hillel's knowledge of how to con-
trol its advancewould be crucial.
Again, the contrastwith the Besht is illuminating.Havingbeen rebukedfor
smokinghis pipe, the Besht is reportedto haverepliedthatwhile smokinghe thinks
about the incense (ketoret)in the Temple.Througha kavanahmechanismhe spir-
itualizesa suspicioushabit,imagininghimself serving God in the Templeand thus
achieving a higher status of devekut(cleaving to God).152 Besht came to be per-
ceived as a pietist who mysticallytransformsevil, elevating humansouls trapped
in it. 53In contrast,Hillel eitherengages with evil or keeps it at bay,but always is
bound by evil names or an Evil Name, with which he magisteriallyoperatesand,
perhaps,whose victim he becomes.154
150. On Shimshon and his worldview,see YehudaLiebes, "Halom u-mezi'ut: le-demuto shel
ha-kadoshha-mekubalr. shimshonmi-ostropolye,"Tarbiz52 (1982): 83-109. See SH, f. 42b.
151. SH, f. 229a. A particularpredispositionof demons to the smell of incense is mentionedin
variousJewish sources. For instance, in a Yiddish text on Yosef de la Reyna writtenin Amsterdamby
crypto-SabbatianLeib ben Ozer Rosenkrantz(d. 1727), the incense is depictedas a powerfulremedy
thathelps demonsto acquireadditionalpower,breakthe chainsthatbindthem,andliberatethemselves.
See Zalman Rubashov(Shazar), "Ma'asehr. yosef de la reyna be-masoretha-shabtait,"in Eder ha-
yekar:divreisifrutu-mehkarmukdashimle-shmuelaba gorodetsky,ed. EmanuelBin-Gorion(TelAviv:
Devir, 1947), 110-114. An episode in Sefer ha-zohar, ParashatTerumahdepicts burntofferings, the
smell of which helps demons to cause nocturnalpollutionto men. Althoughthe Zoharicmotif does not
emphasize the direct impact of the incense on demons, it is functionallyclose to the incense/demon
motif since it demonstratesthe ability of evil angels to nurturethemselves from the smell of the offer-
ings (korbanot).See Zohar 2:130a.
152. Forthe Beshtianconcept of the spiritualmeaningand theurgicalpowerof burntofferings,
see the discussion in Rosman,FounderofHasidism, I11. Sabbatiansconsideredsmoking tobacco one
of the ways to neutralizeevil powers.This behavioralpatternwas later inheritedby the Hasidim,who
consideredsmoking the way to substituteincense offerings in the Temple.Mitnagdim,authorsof anti-
hasidic writings such as Zamirarizim and Sheverposhim, were quick to depict and mock this hasidic
custom. For a comprehensivelist of sources on tobacco smoking among sabbatiansand hasidim, see
Gries, Sifrutha-hanhagot,205 n. 109. Louis Jacobs, however,considers smoking tobacco "peripher-
al" for the hasidim, see his "Tobaccoand the Hasidim,"Polin 11 (1998): 25-30.
153. See, e.g., the story about the Besht uplifting the soul of a man turnedinto a frog for dis-
obeying Jewish legal practicesand trappedby Satan,see Ben-Amos and Mintz, In Praise of the Bacal
ShemTov,par. 12, p. 24-26; also see a story aboutthe Besht neutralizingevil and upliftingthe soul of
a divorcedand "loose" woman ready to convertout of Judaism,ibid., 245-247 par.238. It is signifi-
cant thatthe Besht made an attempt(thoughunsuccessful)to make a tikkun(correction)and uplift the
sparkof ShabbetaiTsevi, see ibid., par.66, p. 86-87.
154. As far as the furtherdevelopmentof Hillel's healing methods and the usage of the "holy
and impurenames"(shemotha-kedushahandshemot ha-tum'ah),the eighteenth-centuryhasidic liter-
aturemoved far away from "magic"to "mysticism,"insisting on the predominanceof spiritualrather
245
Hillel's life story and his book furnisha numberof tricky questions. If one
takes into considerationthe crypto-sabbateanovertonesof the notion "modest"in
eighteenth-centuryEast Europe, one might ask whether Hillel was only a pre-
BeshtianHasid,zanuac,or also a repentantcrypto-sabbatean.155 Hillel mentionsa
numberof times thathe is "repenting."His repentance,teshuvah,could have been
the confession not only of a ba'al shem who has had some spectacularfailuresbut
also of a crypto-sabbateantrying to come to grips with the Jewish community.156
Indeed, for the purpose of exorcising dybbuks,that is to say, schismatics, there
was nobody betterthan a formercrypto-sabbatean:he knew the disease and was
able to take care of it. Fromthis vantagepoint it wouldbe temptingto reassess the
early-eighteenth-centurydybbuksas schismatics and to reconsiderexorcisms in
the Polish-Jewishcommunityin the context of the communalstruggle againstthe
crypto-sabbateanheresy and its ramifications.Forexample, before he left for the
Landof Israel,R. Naftali Kaz from Posen, namedin SH amongprominentba'alei
shem, was reportedto have met the Angel of Death in the disguise of a beggar.157
But it is well-known that the "Angel of Death,"Mal'akh ha-mavet, was the eu-
phemism for the notorioussabbateanHayyim Malakhused in all the bans of ex-
communicationspronounced,repeated,and enforced in Centraland East Europe
againsthim and his followers.158 Was R. Naftali Kaz using the languagethat was
transparentfor his contemporariesbutobscureonly for us? WhenZ61kiew,this un-
crowned capital of the crypto-sabbateans,startedan unparalleledpublicationof
books by ba'alei shem, was thatan attemptto combatthe heresy or to disseminate
it? At any rate, these speculationsare particularlypivotal in view of the dramatic
than naturaltypes of medicine. Forexample, analyzingthe Degel mahanehefraimby Moshe Ephraim

of Sudylk6w,the grandsonof the Besht, Alan Brill observes that"Incontrastto bacaleishem literature,
the Degel does not discuss demons or naturalcures. Instead,the spiritualstatusof the zaddik is based
on his connectionto the inner light of the Torahand his sense of the Divine vitality within objects that
cures and gives powerover nature."See Brill's"The SpiritualWorldof the Masterof Awe: Divine, Vi-
tality, Theosis, and Healing in Degel MahanehEphraim,"Jewish Studies Quarterly8 (2001): 27-65;
the quotationis on p. 31.
155. While I leave this questionopen, I need to mentionthat one does not find in SH traces of
a propheticfervor,which, accordingto the recent research,was pivotal for the sabbateans.See Matt
Goldish, TheSabbateanProphets(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 2004).
156. This is not to rule out the possibility of placing Hillel's teshuvahin the context of pietistic
practicesthat were establishedby hasidei ashkenazand subsequentlyinformedmuch of pre-Beshtian
hasidic rites. Cf. Yosef Dan, HasidutAshkenaz(TelAviv: Misradha-bitahon,1992), 72-76. On the de-
cisive impact of hasidei ashkenazon the formationof the religious values of the early Polish-Jewish
communities,see IsraelTa-Shma,"Onthe Historyof the Jews in Twelfth-ThirteenthCenturyPoland,"
Polin 10 (1997): 287-317.
157. Nigal, "RavNaftali Kaz,"92.
158. On Haim Malakh, see Gershom Scholem, "Berukhiyahrosh ha-shabtaimbe saloniki,"
Zion 6 (1941):119-147, esp. 123-24; idem., "Iggeretme'et rabiHayimMalakh,"Zion 11 (1946): 168-
174; idem., "Le movementsabbataisteen Pologne,"Revieude I'histoiredes religions 143 (153): 209-
220; idem., "Malakh,Hayim,"Ha-entsiklopedyahha-ivrit(JerusalemandTelAviv: Hevrahle-hotsa'at
entsiklopedyot,1963), 23:524-525; EncyclopediaJudaica, s.v. "Malakh,Hayimben Solomon";Ger-
shom Scholem, Mehkarimu-mekorotle-toldot ha-shabtautve-gilguleyah(Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik,
1974), 100-109. Also, see Jan Dokt6r,Sladami Mesjasza-Apostaty.Zydowskieruchymesjanhskiew
XVIIi XVIIIwieku(Wroclaw:Leopoldinum,1998), 70-71, 113-114.
246
demographicincreaseof ba'alei shem in East Europeat the turnof the eighteenth

century-and their abrupt decrease at the end of the eighteenth century. One
should not forget that it was an abundance,and not scarcity,of various types of
ba'alei shem that irritatedthe authorof Sefer ha-heshekand made his ordealsbit-
ter.
Hillel could have been irritatedand even intimidatedbecause he constantly
felt the pressurefromanothertype of his competitors,the so-calledfeldshers(orig-
inally,formerbarbershiredby the armyto attendto the woundedsoldiers andpro-
vide primarymedical assistance,who at a later stage became paramedics).These
semiprofessionaldoctors "withbelow universitylevel education"rapidlygrew in
numbersin the late-seventeenthand early-eighteenthcenturies.Perhapssome of
them turnedto privatepracticein Easternand CentralPolandas soon as they left
Jan Sobieski's army,which boasted quite a numberof Jewishfeldshers. Others
could have migratedwestwardfrom Russia and left-bankUkraine,where, in the
1710s, Peterthe Greatestablishedat least fifty militarygarrisonhospitals staffed
withfeldshers as well as special institutionsfor trainingthem. Finally,some doc-
tors could come from Germanlands where Jews, startingfrom 1721, were grant-
ed the right to study medicine at universities. 59 Hillel was one of the last
early-modernitinerantkabbalistsinvolved,to use Moshe Idel's parlance,in mag-
ic and mysticism; as such he was challenged from the one side by the rapidpro-
fessionalizationof the field of popularKabbalahand from the otherby the rising
professionalizationof popularmedicine. Feldshers and doctors, and, late in the
eighteenthcentury,new Beshtian Hasidim were slowly but steadily pushing old-
fashionedhealers such as Hillel out of the East Europeanmarketplaceby making
them altogetherredundant.
Anotherreasonthatcaused so manygrievancesto Hillel was perhapsthe fact
that Hillel was not a learnedTalmudicscholar (talmid hakham).Hillel does not
seem to have received a consistent rabbinic(yeshivah) education.He could hard-
ly compete with rabbis and scholars who, in addition to their main occupation,
practicedas exorcists and healers.160Fromthis viewpoint, Hillel's failureoblique-
ly explains the success of the Besht, who was no talmid hakhameither.Yet the
Besht, despite the attemptsof the editorsof Shivheiha-Beshtto emphasizehis di-
vinely inspiredknowledge and diminishhis reputationas a rabbinicscholar,man-
aged to set and accomplisha task the tracesof which we do not find in SH. In his
letterthe Besht wrote to GershonKutover,his brother-in-law,the Besht attempted
synthesizingmidrashicreferences,Kabbalah,popularJudaicbeliefs, theurgy,and
magic in the frameworkof a mystically shapedpropheticvision. We are not able
to look at the prose writtenby the Besht or at the letters composed by Hillel, but
159. See EdwardKossoy and AbrahamOhry, The Feldshers: Medical, Sociological and His-
toricalAspects of Practitionersof Medicine with Below UniversityLevel Education(Jerusalem:Mag-
ness Press, 1992), 68-71, 135-36, 144-45; JohnM. Efron,Medicineand the GermanJews: a History
(New Haven, CT:Yale UniversityPress, 2001), 60-61.
160. In his review of Rosman'sbook on the Baal Shem Tov,Gries mentionedthatthe statusof
talmidhakhamwas pivotal for a practicingba'al shem eager to sell his amulets and healing remedies
to his clientele. See his "Demutoha-historitshel-ha-besht:bein sakinha-minatehimshel ha-historiyon
le-makheloshel hokerha-sifrut,"Kabbalah5 (2000): 423.
247
in comparisonwith the somewhatclumsy and sometimes not very articulateHil-

lel, one may want to observe thatfrom a literaryperspectivethe Besht is more tal-
ented: he does look like a talmid hakhamwho is proficient in classical Hebrew
sources and who masteredthe style of a rabbinicepistle.
Finally,in the vein of a purespeculation,let us considerdifferencesbetween
Hillel Ba'al Shem and the Ba'al Shem Tov.Unlike Hillel, Israelben Eliezer "was
a ba'al shem parexcellence, offering the promiseof collective securityfor the en-
tire House of Israel and not just magical defense for individualsor his own com-
munity."161 Perhapsdue to this strongcommitmentto the mystical,communal,and
salvific-which we do not find in SH-Israel ben Eliezer became a charismatic
personality,a sedentaryba'al shem supportedby the community,and eventually,
in the hasidic memory,the founderof the movement.This appraisalof the Besht
has been furthersubstantiatedby the careerof Hillel, who apparentlynever tried
to transformmagic, failed to establishhimself in a Jewishcommunity,andfell into
oblivion.
YohananPetrovsky-Shtern,
NorthwesternUniversity
Evanston,Illinois
161. Rosman,Founderof Hasidism, 181. Rosman is right arguingthat "[t]his was apparently
one of the featuresof his activity that singled him out as a ba'al shem par excellence."Also see idem,
"InnovativeTradition:Jewish Culturein the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth,"in Culturesof the
Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale (New York:Schocken Books, 2002), 551.
248

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The Master of an Evil Name: Hillel Ba'al Shem and His "Sefer a-heshek"

Author(s): Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

THE MASTER OFAN EVIL NAME:

I am gratefulto ArthurGreen and JonathanSarna,who have readpreviousdraftsof this paper

early for most of S. Ansky's nineteenth-centuryfolkloric materials.4The manu-

4. SemionAnsky (ShloymeZanvlRapoport,1863-1920), a Russian-JewishandYiddishwriter,

parisonbetween an unknownmanuscriptand an unseen book will hardlybe help-

10. Forthe mid-eighteenth-centurycalligraphy,see the facsimile reproductionfrom the manu-

practicallife. Also, Hillel shows his profoundknowledgeof chiromancyandmeto-

23. He refersto Slavic, mostly to Ukrainianand Polish, to describeherbs(polnytablan,7a; ma-

27. SimhahMenahemben YohananBarukhde Yona(knownas Emanuelde Jona, d. 1702)-a

lia.34Medicalreferencesin SH, which exceed medicalreferencesin books by oth-

knowledgewhile simultaneouslyhiding his personalrelationswith those who bal-

47. Thus SH provides additionalsupportto the argumentthatby the 1720s Kabbalahcaptured

Oneeveningtheevil spirit[ruah]sentforthehonorable man,theformerbea-

56. In connectionto the individualmystics activebefore the Ba'al ShemTov,Hundertmentions

sion obtained from the woman/dybbukunderthe threatof excommunicationre-

elaboratedby MarionGibson in "Witchcrafttrials-how to read them"and "Deconstructinggeneric

imity of the "enemiesof Israel"and of the "impureplace"-oblique referencesto

Due to the "instructions"of the dybbuk,who wantedthe ba'al shem to banishhim,

I pronounced onegreatoathandone greatpetitionin thepresenceof tenap-

The Ostrahcase suggests a clear-cutpatternof relationsbetween the bacal

and Maggid:TwoCulturalPatternsof Altered Consciousnessin Judaism,"AJSReview21 no. 2 (1996):

also taughtthe Jews how to behaveand serve God.74Hillel'sassumptionis clear:if

IV BAcAL SHEM AMONG HIS COLLEAGUES

distinguishbetween a real bacal shem and a charlatan.Hillel suggested that the

A wickedmanwhowasa scribeandrenownedKabbalist cameintotown.He

In this peculiarepisode, a scribe andkabbalistwhose reputationwas in good

Emden, by no means unbiased,identified as sabbateans.See, for example, the treatmentof Eliyahu

Europeancrypto-Sabbateanisman uncorrectable"mistake"implied perhapsone

InPolandonewitnesstestifiedto a different of thesacred:R.

ApparentlyMoshe Hagiz and Hillel Ba'al Shem depict identical behavioralpat-

Hillel was not unawareof the righteoushealers among his colleagues. He

[such as] Toldot,99Zevah pesah,'00 and Po'el gevurot'0' printedin Zholkva

Accordingto Hillel, the unscrupulousnessof certainba'alei shem is the most im-

Not only do books deny his manuscript;they rejectthe indispensabilityof Hillel's

"official"ba'al shem in a particularJewish locality ended up in fiasco.112Perhaps

Following the tradition of Sefer ha-zohar and Razi'el ha-mal'akh,Hillel

of the Sanhedrinand transferredthroughgenerationsuntil it came into the hands

Andhereare32 rulesthatmatch32 pathsof wisdomas frontandback.As

The same reflectioncharacterizesbothrealms:Tenheavenlyemanationsarerepeat-

124. SH, f. 298a. In the traditionalkabbalistictexts, Katriel(Akhtariel)is partof the celestial

control,Hillel extensively employs the names of abomination(shemotha-tum'ah)

Maythenameof PlonibenPlonibecursedaccording to thewordsof theHoly

ThereforeSH is not only a kabbalisticbook but also a witchcraftprimer.It is ob-

ic incantationsand imprecationsin SH, to be discussed elsewhere, testify to the

thematicparallelsexist betweenBinyaminBeinish'sSefershem tov katanand Hil-

139. GedalyahNigal, Ba'al-shem le-ma'asar'olam: Goralo ha-tragi shel ha-rav hirshfrankl

ablutionsare requiredfor particularamulets.Writingthe amuletrequirespietistic

1722), which Hillel often quotes.'50Hillel's familiaritywith and closeness to this

than naturaltypes of medicine. Forexample, analyzingthe Degel mahanehefraimby Moshe Ephraim

demographicincreaseof ba'alei shem in East Europeat the turnof the eighteenth

in comparisonwith the somewhatclumsy and sometimes not very articulateHil-

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