This class will be an experience in learning about Jewish magic and the folk traditions embodied by sacred text and amulets, incantations and other protective devices we have used over the last 4,000-5,000 years to insure good health, safety, prosperity, success and other positive outcomes.

What constitutes magic? Why has it been denied or officially denounced as being part of our tradition? Are we appealing to a divine unseen energy when we do “magic” as we do when we pray? What role does faith play in the design and enactment of magical acts?

Through a rich array of images, iconography and symbol, attendees will learn about sought-after ritual objects that have been crafted since ancient times by rabbis, priestesses, magicians, scribes, healers, “sorceresses", jewelers and laywomen. We will have a glimpse into ancient and modern amulets, spells, recipe-books, charms, talismans and bowls that have been and continue to be carved, molded, embroidered, painted and crafted in Mesopotamia, in the eastern Mediterranean region known in ancient times as The Levant, especially Syria, Lebanon and Israel, in the broader area known today as the Middle East, and in Turkey, North Africa and the United States.

D'vorah J. Grenn, Ph.D., Founding Director, The Lilith Institute (1997), is an educator, writer and spiritual mentor. Co-Director and later Chair of the former Women's Spirituality MA Program at Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now Sofia University), Palo Alto, she was founding priestess/kohenet of Mishkan Shekhinah (2007), a movable sanctuary honoring the Sacred Feminine in all traditions. Adjunct Faculty at Napa Valley College, she co-created the Spiritual Guidance Network and created the CBS Women’s Wisdom Circles in 2018. Her Talking To Goddess anthology includes sacred writings of 72 women from 25 religious and spiritual traditions. Dr. Grenn's dissertation, “For She Is A Tree of Life: Shared Roots Connecting Women to Deity” studied Jewish women's identities, beliefs and ritual practices among South African Lemba and U.S. women.

Other writings include her book Lilith's Fire: Reclaiming our Sacred Lifeforce (2000);

“How Women Construct And Are Formed By Spirit: She Who Is Everywhere In Women’s Voices, Kol Isha, Maipfi A Vhafumakadzi” in She Is Everywhere, Volume I, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, ed., 2005; “Lilith’s Fire: Examining Original Sources of Power, Re-defining Sacred Texts as Transformative Theological Practice” in Feminist Theology journal, 2007; "The Kohanot: Keepers of the Flame" in Stepping into Ourselves (Key and Cant, 2014), and entries on the Jewish priestess and Lilith for the Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions (Susan de-Gaia, ed., 2018).

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