Abstract
The article presents the commented edition of a medieval finished product for She’elat Ḥalom uncovered in the Cairo Genizah, which contains a literal quotation from a divinatory recipe preserved in Sefer ha-Razim (the Books of Mysteries ), a famous Jewish literary book of magic dating back to late antiquity. The pertinent citation of a section from Sefer ha-Razim in a document, whose codicological features show that it had actually been used in a magical ritual before being thrown in the storehouse of the medieval Ben Ezra synagogue, provides substantial evidence on the transmission of Jewish divinatory lore and on the relationship between literary books of magic and finished products. The article examines in detail the textual correspondence between Sefer ha-Razim and the Genizah finished product, highlighting the linguistic and ritualistic analogy between the medieval technique of She’elat Ḥalom and a specific divinatory recipe transmitted in Sefer Ha-Razim ( SHR I §§109–14).
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