A golem ( ; ) is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore that is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late-16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."Cooper, Marilyn. Jewish Word | Golem". Moment. 17 July 2017. 24 August 2017.
The Golem, in Jewish tradition, may be compared to the popular trope of the Frankenstein monster (19th century). Indeed, the Golem is even a precursor or inspiration of the Frankenstein monster in several phases of the folklore. Whereas Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein, was written in the 1810's, legends of the Golem go all the way back to 12th century in the tradition of Jewish KabbalahJoshua Trachtenberg. Jewish Magic & Superstition. 1939. p. 85--if not further, back to the Talmud.
In modern culture, the term denotes "any magically created human figure", with such beings appearing frequently in tabletop role-playing games and video games.
Etymology The word golem occurs once in the Bible, in Psalm 139, which uses the word (; 'my golem', 'my light form', 'raw material') to connote the unfinished human being before God's eyes. Pirkei Avot 5:9 uses the term to refer to someone who is unsophisticated: "[There are] seven things [characteristic] in a clod, and seven in a wise man" ().
In Modern Hebrew, is used to mean 'dumb', 'helpless', or 'pupa'. Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a stupid man or other entity that serves a man under controlled conditions, but is hostile to him in other circumstances. Golem passed into Yiddish as , meaning someone who is lethargic or in a stupor.
History Earliest stories The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam is initially created as a golem () when his dust is "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud by those close to divinity, but no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (), whom he then sends to Rav Zeira. Zeira speaks to the man, but he does not answer, whereupon Zeira says, "You were created by the sages; return to your dust".
During the Middle Ages, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah were studied as a means to create and animate a golem, although little in the writings of Jewish mysticism supports this belief. The earliest known written account of how to create a golem can be found in the Sode Raza, a commentary on Merkabah mysticism by Eleazar of Worms, who lived in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritual use of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet page 296 forming one of the names of God. This was written on a piece of paper and inserted into the mouth or forehead of the golem.
In some tales, including certain stories of the Chełm and Prague golems, a word such as 'truth' is inscribed on the golem, sometimes on its forehead. In this example, the golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א),Kerstein, Benjamin. Jewish Ideas Daily. 14 September 2010. 24 August 2017. thus changing the inscription from "truth" to "dead" (, , 'dead').
One source credits Solomon ibn Gabirol, who lived in the 11th century, with creating a golem,<ref>Bokser, Ben Zion (2006). </ref From the World of the Cabbalah. Kessinger. p. 57.</ref> possibly female, for household chores. A legend also existed claiming that Samuel of Speyer created a golem in the 12th century.
In 1625, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo wrote that "many legends of this sort are current, particularly in Germany."
Golem of Chełm
The oldest description of the creation of a golem by a historical figure is included in a tradition connected to the Baal Shem (folk healer) named Elijah of Chełm (1550–1583).Introduction to "The Golem Returns" . Retrieved 23 September 2011.
The Christian author Christoph Arnold in a letter written in 1674 reported the creation of a golem by Rabbi Eliyahu thusly:
A similar account was reported by an unnamed Polish Kabbalist, writing in about 1730–1750,
The Rabbi Jacob Emden elaborated on the story in his autobiography Megillas Sefer written in 1748:
According to the Polish Kabbalist, "the legend was known to several persons, thus allowing us to speculate that the legend had indeed circulated for some time before it was committed to writing and, consequently, we may assume that its origins are to be traced to the generation immediately following the death of R. Eliyahu, if not earlier."
Classic narrative: The Golem of Prague
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly "created a golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava River and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations to defend the Prague ghetto from antisemitic attacks and pogroms".Green, Kayla. "The Golem in the Attic". Moment. 1 February 2011. 25 August 2017. Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The Golem was called Josef and was known as Yossele. He was said to be able to make himself invisible and summon spirits from the dead. To animate the Golem, the Rabbi wrote the name of God on a slip of paper (called the shem); this was placed inside the Golem's head or mouth. Rabbi Loew deactivated the Golem on Friday evenings by removing the shem before the Sabbath (Saturday) began, so as to let it rest on Sabbath.
One Friday evening, Rabbi Loew forgot to remove the shem, and feared that the Golem would desecrate the Sabbath. A different story tells of a golem that fell in love, and when rejected, became the violent monster seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually going on a murderous rampage. The rabbi then managed to pull the shem from his mouth and immobilize him in front of the synagogue, whereupon the golem fell in pieces. The Golem's body was stored in the attic genizah of the Old New Synagogue, where it would be restored to life again if needed.
Rabbi Loew then forbade anyone except his successors from going into the attic. Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, a successor of Rabbi Loew, reportedly wanted to go up the steps to the attic when he was Chief Rabbi of Prague to verify the tradition. Rabbi Landau fasted and immersed himself in a mikveh, wrapped himself in phylacteries and a prayer-shawl and started ascending the steps. At the top of the steps, he hesitated and then came immediately back down, trembling and frightened. He then reiterated Rabbi Loew's original warning.
According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic. When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found. Some versions of the tale state that the Golem was stolen from the genizah and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's Žižkov district, where the Žižkov Television Tower now stands. A recent legend tells of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic, dying under suspicious circumstances thereafter. The attic is not open to the general public.Old New Synagogue located in Praha, Czech Republic|Atlas Obscura|Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations . Atlas Obscura. Retrieved on 23 September 2011.
Some Orthodox Jews believe that the Maharal did actually create a golem. The evidence for this belief has been analyzed from an Orthodox Jewish perspective by Shnayer Z. Leiman.Leiman, S. Z., The Golem of Prague in Recent Rabbinic Literature
Sources of the Prague narrative The general view of historians and critics is that the story of the Golem of Prague was a German literary invention of the early 19th century. According to John Neubauer, the first writers on the Prague Golem were: 1837: Berthold Auerbach, Spinoza 1841: , Der Golam, eine Legende 1841: Franz Klutschak, Der Golam des Rabbi Löw 1842: , Der Golem des Hoch-Rabbi-Löb 1847: , Der Golem A few slightly earlier examples are known, in 1834 and 1836.
All of these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. They are suggested to have emerged as part of a Jewish folklore movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement.
The origins of the story have been obscured by attempts to exaggerate its age and to pretend that it dates from the time of the Maharal. Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935)Kieval, Hillel J. "Golem Legend". The YIVO Encyclopedia. 24 August 2017. of Tarłów, before moving to Canada where he became one of its most prominent rabbis, is said to have originated the idea that the narrative dates from the time of the Maharal. Rosenberg published Nifl'os Maharal (Wonders of Maharal) (Piotrków, 1909), which purported to be an eyewitness account by the Maharal's son-in-law, who had helped to create the Golem. Rabbi Meir Mazuz commented that Rosenberg was a forger and stories of the Maharal creating a Golem stem from Rosenberg's fabrication.MiGedolei Yisrael (Hebrew: מגדולי ישראל) volume 1, p. ה (Hebrew pagination) footnote 1. Cf. Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs (2018), ch. 6, that that Rosenberg directly plagiarized Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Jew's Breastplate while naming its main character as Maharal.
Rosenberg claimed that the book was based upon a manuscript that he found in the main library in Metz. Wonders of Maharal "is generally recognized in academic circles to be a literary hoax".Leiman, S.Z., " The Adventure of the Maharal of Prague in London: R. Yudl Rosenberg and The Golem of Prague", Tradition, 36:1, 2002Sherwin, Byron L. (1985) The Golem Legend: Origins and Implications. New York: University Press of America Gershom Sholem observed that the manuscript "contains not ancient legends, but modern fiction".Sholem, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Schocken, 1961 Rosenberg's claim was further disseminated in Chayim Bloch's (1881–1973) The Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague, English edition 1925.
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 cites the historical work Zemach David by David Gans, a disciple of the Maharal, published in 1592.GOLEM . Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 23 September 2011.HUNGARIAN STUDIES 2. No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest . (PDF). Retrieved on 23 September 2011. In it, Gans writes of an audience between the Maharal and Rudolph II: "Our lord the emperor ... Rudolph ... sent for and called upon our master Rabbi Low ben Bezalel and received him with a welcome and merry expression, and spoke to him face to face, as one would to a friend. The nature and quality of their words are mysterious, sealed, and hidden."Gans, D., Zemach David, ed. M.Breuer, Jerusalem, 1983, p.145, cited Rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg and the Maharal's Golem