Rabbi Akiva Eger had anti-plague amulets

The notion of protective amulets appears in the Mishna: A person is not allowed to carry in a public domain an amulet that has yet to have been proved effective (Shabbat 6:2). An amulet was certified once it had been employed effectively in three instances.Carrying the amulet involved hanging it around the neck for medicinal or palliative purposes.Despite the Mishna’s mention of amulets, the subsequent Talmudic discussions and the archaeological troves of amulets, over the generations such tools have been perceived as the province of Kabbalists. Jewish schools of thought that opted for nonmystical, rational approaches were likely to shy away from such charms. The spokesman for this position was the great codifier and rationalist thinker Maimonides (1138-1204), who wrote harshly against the use of amulets or belief in their efficacy in his Guide for the Perplexed.In contrast to such rationalist approaches, Jewish sectors with a penchant for mysticism – such as many Sephardi traditions and hassidic communities – have been more likely to embrace the notion of a mystical shield provided by amulets.It may therefore be surprising that one of the great Talmudic minds, Rabbi Akiva Eger (1761-1837), distributed amulets when the second cholera pandemic struck Posen in 1831.Eger had taken up the post of chief rabbi of Posen in 1815, and at the time Posen was in the Kingdom of Prussia. Today Poznan is in Poland.Eger had a grandson who would join the ranks of hassidism – Rabbi Leib’le Eger (d. 1888) – yet the chief rabbi of Posen had no connection to the flourishing hassidic movement of the 19th century. Akiva Eger dedicated himself to the steely world of Talmud study, becoming renowned as a sharp Jewish law jurist.Notwithstanding, an autograph letter first published in 2004 clearly indicates that he was comfortable with mystical lore and believed in the efficacy of amulets.The letter is dated 18 Heshvan [5]592 – that is, 25 October 1831 – and was addressed to Rabbi Natan Nuta Scheye (d. 1862), the rabbi of Schneidemühl (today Piła, Poland, 100 km. north of Poznan). From the contents of the letter, it is apparent that Scheye had posed a question about an amulet. Eger responded by referencing another work as the source for the amulet formula. He also noted that the source said nothing about necessary rites that the scribe must perform before writing the amulet. Furthermore, the scribe need not be a scholar. The efficacy of the amulet was determined by what was written out. Considering the exact formula of the amulet, there was no problem of a misuse of holy divine names or of adjuring God.Rabbi Akiva Eger, however, found an alternative amulet formula that he felt was preferable because it avoided juxtaposing the two Hebrew letters yud and heh – a form of the divine name – more than once. Eger did not mention the source of this alternative amulet formula, but he reproduced the amulet in his own handwriting!The amulet is made up of a five-by-five square, twenty-five spaces in all. Each space is filled with a Hebrew letter from the biblical verse “Then stood up Phinehas, and wrought judgment, and so the plague was stayed” (Psalms 106:30). The verse has twenty-five letters and the words are written vertically beginning on the right. In addition, the tetragrammaton is written in the first four spaces of the top row from right to left, while the first two spaces of the second row have the divine name yud and heh.To be sure, there is no mention in the letter of Eger distributing amulets, nor is this amulet linked specifically to the cholera pandemic that raged in region at that time. Nonetheless, the timing of the letter and the plague amulet indicate the context. Later reports, however, confirm that Eger did indeed give out anti-plague amulets.In a 1910 letter by one of Rabbi Akiva Eger’s descendants – Rabbi Akiva Sofer (1878-1959) – the writer transcribed an amulet that was preserved in what he described as his grandfather’s pamphlet of amulets. The amulet had been sent by Rabbi Akiva Eger’s son and successor in Posen – Rabbi Solomon Eger (1787-1852) – based on what Rabbi Akiva Eger had dispensed at the time of the cholera outbreak. The amulet was to be written on parchment of a kosher animal and to be tied to something that could be hung around the neck.Another descendant – Rabbi Akiva Eger’s great-grandson, Rabbi Salomon Schreiber (1853-1930) – served as the rabbi of Beregszász, Hungary (later Czechoslovakia; today Ukraine). He published works that included much biographical information about his ancestors. According to Rabbi Schreiber, during the 1831 cholera outbreak Rabbi Akiva Eger’s amulets were sought after by non-Jewish innkeepers and publicans in Posen as a means of encouraging customers to frequent their establishments during the plague. Schreiber noted that the proprietors ran advertisements in the newspapers mentioning these amulets as a marketing ploy.Thus this great Talmudic mind, chief rabbi of a major city, jurist of note, was also steeped in the world of Jewish mysticism, dispensing amulets to ward off a pandemic.The writer is on the faculty of Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and is a rabbi in Tzur Hadassah.