The Tale of the Sorcerer

Judah of Regensburg (attrib.)

Sefer hasidim (Book of the Pious), Ginsburg MS Mos. 82, fols. 78a-b.

Late 12th Century

Mishpatim [Judgments]: “Do not allow a sorceress to live (Exodus 22:17) is adjoined to If a man seduces (Exodus 22:15). For all such doings are done by sorcery. And whoever lies with a beast (Exodus 22:18) is adjoined to sorceress. All these are the ways of sorcerers, as we see in the case of Balaam, who was a sorcerer and slept with his jenny. […

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Judah of Regensburg included this story in the pietistic manual Book of the Pious (Sefer ḥasidim) as biblical exegesis, putting it in the form of a midrashic explanation of issues that arise in Exodus 22. In this chapter, the Bible discusses bestiality, sorcery, and extramarital sexual relations. Judah argues that all three sins stem ultimately from sorcery. He refers here to Balaam, an archetypal non-Jewish sorcerer first mentioned in Numbers 22. Judah and his followers frequently mentioned magic and other otherworldly phenomena in their writings.

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