© koninklijke brill nv, leiden,  | doi:./- Aries – Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism  () – ARIES brill.com/arie “Practical Kabbalah” and the Jewish Tradition of Magic Yuval Harari Ben Gurion University of the Negev yharari@bgu.ac.il Abstract This article deals with the Jewish tradition of magic and its relationship with Kabbalah. It begins by clarifying internal and external views of magic in Judaism, the place of “Kabbalah” and “kabbalists” in the traditional Jewish discourse of ritual power, and the role of “practical Kabbalah” in Israel’s market of New Age spiritual therapies. The focus is on the mutual relationships between the conceptual and performative foundations of Jewish magic practice and Kabbalah, as well as on Kabbalah’s actual influence on the Jewish tradition of magic. Keywords Jewish magic – holy names – Kabbalah – practical Kabbalah – Kabbalah of names 1 Jewish Magic—the Emic/Etic Perspectives Sorcery is forbidden in the Torah and again in the Mishnah and the Talmud. Deuteronomy enumerates the sorcerer (mekhashef ) and his skills among the “abhorrent practices of those nations” (Deut. 18:5–9) that the Israelites should 1 Names of libraries are abbreviated as follows: Budapest, MTA—Magyar Tudományos Aka- démia (Hungarian Academy of Sciences); Cambridge, CUL—Cambridge University Library; Geneva, BG—Bibliothèque de Genève; Jerusalem, INL—Israel National Library; London, BL—British Library; Moscow, RS L—Russian State Library; New York, JTS L—Jewish Theolog- ical Seminary Library; Oxford, BL—Bodleian Library; Paris, BnF—Bibliothèque nationale de France.