The Babylonian Talmud on Healing Objects

One may go out with a locust egg, or with a fox’s tooth, or with the nail of one who has been hanged. [ . . . ]

[Aramaic] One may go out with a locust egg—because it works for an ear infection. And [one may go out] with a fox’s tooth—because it works regarding sleep. [A tooth] of a living [fox]—for one who sleeps much; [a tooth] of a dead [fox]—for one who does not sleep.

And [one may go out] with the nail of one who has been hanged—because it works for an inflammation.

For the sake of healing—these are the words of R. Meir.

Abaye and Rava both said: [Hebrew] Everything that comprises healing is not the “ways of the Amorite.”

Translated by Markham J. Geller and Lennart Lehmhaus.

Credits

b. Shabbat 67a, trans. Markham J. Geller and Lennart Lehmhaus, publication forthcoming. Copyright Markham J. Geller and Lennart Lehmhaus. Used with permission of the translators.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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