Golem

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For other uses, see Golem (disambiguation).
For instances of Golem in popular culture, see Golem in popular culture.

In Jewish folklore, a golem (גולם, sometimes, as in Yiddish, pronounced goilem) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew the word golem literally means 'cocoon', but can also mean "fool", "silly", or even "stupid". The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means "raw material".

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[edit] History

[edit] Origins of the word

The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm 139:16 uses the word "gal'mi", meaning "my unshaped form" (in Hebrew, words are derived by adding vowels to triconsonantal roots, here, g-l-m). The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person ("Ten characteristics are in a learned person, and ten in an uncultivated one", Pirkei Avoth 5:7). Similarly, golems are often used today in metaphor either as brainless lunks or as entities serving man under controlled conditions but hostile to him in others. Similarly, it is a Yiddish slang insult for someone who is clumsy or slow.

[edit] Earliest stories

The earliest stories of golems date to early Judaism. Adam is described in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b) as initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless hunk". Like Adam (whose name literally means "earth,") all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God. A very holy person was one who strove to approach God, and in that pursuit would gain some of God's wisdom and power. One of these powers was the creation of life. No matter how holy a person became, however, the being they created would be but a shadow of one created by God.

Early on, the notion developed that the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. In Sanhedrin 65b, it describes how Raba created a golem using the Sefer Yetzirah. He sent the golem to Rav Zeira. Rav Zeira spoke to the golem, but he did not answer. Said Rav Zeira, "I see that you were created by one of our colleagues; return to your dust." It is said that if a golem was made able to speak, that would give it a soul, and because a golem cannot be made perfectly, that ability would make it very dangerous.

[edit] Owning and activating golems

Having a golem servant was seen as the ultimate symbol of wisdom and holiness, and there are many tales of golems connected to prominent rabbis throughout the Middle Ages.

Other attributes of the golem were gradually added over time. In many tales the Golem is inscribed with magic or religious words that keep it animated. Writing one of the names of God on its forehead, a slip of paper attached to its forehead, or on a clay tablet under its tongue, or writing the word Emet (אמת, 'truth' in the Hebrew language) on its forehead are examples of such words. By erasing the first letter in Emet to form Meit (מת, 'dead' in Hebrew) the golem could be deactivated.

[edit] The classic narrative

The most famous golem narrative involves Rabbi Judah Loew the Maharal of Prague, a 16th century rabbi. He is reported to have created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto of Josefov from Anti-Semitic attacks. The story of the Golem first appeared in print in 1847 in a collection of Jewish tales entitled Galerie der Sippurim, published by Wolf Pascheles of Prague. About sixty years later, a fictional account was published by Yudl Rosenberg (1909). According to the legend, Golem could be made of clay from the banks of the Vltava river in Prague. Following the prescribed rituals, the Rabbi built the Golem and made him come to life by reciting special incantations in Hebrew. As Rabbi Loew's Golem grew bigger, he also became more violent and started killing people and spreading fear. Rabbi Loew was promised that the violence against the Jews would stop if the Golem was destroyed. The Rabbi agreed. To destroy the Golem, he rubbed out the first letter of the word "emeth" (truth) from the golem's forehead to make the Hebrew word "meth", meaning death. (According to legend, the Golem of Prague's remains are stored in a coffin in the attic of the Altneuschul in Prague, and it can be summoned again if needed.) The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent - if commanded to perform a task, they will take the instructions perfectly literally.

In some incarnations of the legend of the Maharal's golem, the golem has powers that can aid it in its tasks. These include invisibility, a heated touch, and the ability to use the Maharal's walking stick to summon spirits from the dead. This last power was often crucial, as the golem could summon dead witnesses, which the medieval Prague courts would allow to testify.

[edit] The hubris theme

In all Jewish kabbalistic descriptions of Golems, they are incapable of disobeying the one who created them, but in one version of the story, Rabbi Eliyahu of Chełm created a Golem that grew bigger and bigger until the rabbi was unable to kill it without trickery, whereupon it fell over its creator and crushed him. The hubris theme in this version is similar to that in the stories of the monster of Frankenstein and of the broomstick in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It remains a standard feature of golems in popular culture.

[edit] The golem in European culture

In the late nineteenth century the golem was adopted by mainstream European society. Most notably Gustav Meyrink's 1915 novel Der Golem based on the tales of the golem created by Judah Low ben Bezalel. This book inspired a classic set of expressionistic silent movies, Paul Wegener's Golem series, of which especially The Golem: How He Came Into the World (also released as The Golem, 1920, USA 1921) is famous. Another famous treatment from the same era is H. Leivick's 1921 Yiddish-language "dramatic poem in eight sections" The Golem. Also notable is Julien Duvivier's "Le Golem" (1936), a sequel to the Wegener film.

These tales saw a dramatic change, and some would argue a Christianization, of the golem. The golem became a creation of overambitious and overreaching mystics, who would inevitably be punished for their blasphemy, very similar to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the alchemical homunculus. In Norse mythology, Mökkurkálfi (or Mistcalfa) was a clay giant, built to help the troll Hrungnir in a battle with Thor.

In America, the opera 'The Golem' by Abraham Ellstein retells in 20th-century harmonic language the centuries-old tale of a creature fashioned from clay and brought to life by kabbalistic spells who ultimately threatens the very people he was intended to serve." (quote from Milken website) Selections are available on disc from the Milken Archive of American Jewish music. Another opera with the same title has been written by British composer John Casken.

Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote a retelling of the legend of the Golem in 1969. The famous Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, an admirer of Meyrink's novel, wrote a poem entitled El Golem in 1958.

Michael Chabon writes of the Golem of Prague in his Pulitzer prize winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Marge Piercy's 1991 novel He, She and It also deals with the Golem theme.

[edit] The Golem in the Czech Republic

The Golem is a popular figure in the Czech Republic. There are several restaurants and other businesses named after him. Strongman René Richter goes by the nickname "Golem," and a Czech monster truck outfit calls itself the "Golem Team."

It is said that the body of Rabbi Loew's golem lies in the attic where the genizah of the Old-New Synagogue in Prague is kept. A rabbi visited the attic in the late 20th century, and came down "white and shaking". A legend is told of a Nazi agent during World War II ascending the attic and trying to stab the golem, but perishing instead. The attic is not open to the general public.

[edit] In popular culture

Main article: Golem in popular culture

Probably as a result of the popularity of Meyrink's work, the golem concept has found its way into a wide variety of books, comic books, films, TV, and games. This use covers a wide range, from "golem" used as an umbrella term to refer to automata and simulacra made of anything from steel to flesh, via clay monsters called golems, to full adoptions of the golem mythos.


[edit] Further reading

  • Moshe Idel. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. State University of New York Press, 1990.
  • Gershon Winkler. The Golem of Prague: A New Adaptation of the Documented Stories of the Golem of Prague. Judaica Press, 1980.
  • Emily D. Bilski (Ed.) Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art. The Jewish Museum, 1988.
  • Arnold L. Goldsmith. The Golem Remembered 1909-1980: Variations of a Jewish Legend. Wayne State University Press, 1981.
  • Maureen T. Krause. "Introduction: Bereshit bara Elohim, A Survey of the Genesis and Evolution of the Golem." Journal of the Fantastic, 7.2/3, pages 113-36.
  • Jonathan Stroud. "The Golem's Eye." Corgi, 2004.
  • Marge Piercy. "Body of Glass." Penguin, 1993.
  • Jorge Luis Borges. The Golem. "Selected Poems." Penguin, 1999.

[edit] External links

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