The Golem
In Jewish tradition, everything that is in a state of incompletion, everything not fully formed, as a needle without the eye, is designated as “golem”. In the Middle Ages arose the belief in the possibility of infusing life into a clay or wooden figure of a human being, which figure was termed “golem” by writers of the eighteenth century. The golem grew in size, and could carry any message or obey mechanically any order of its master.
A Golem, according to medieval legend, was an artificial clay man created by a sorcerer, intended for the execution of all black works, but, first of all, to prevent insidious plans of the enemy through their unraveling and destruction. The Golem is a material form bearing the semblance 0f man, but devoid of intelligence and reason. He is a lump of earth or lime impregnated with the breath of life. Mere man is his creator, his master. He can do little aside from what he is told. He lives but to follow his master’s bidding.
There is no doubt that the Golem is an essentially Jewish conception. At the same time there have sprung up a number of non-Jewish departures from the original. Somewhat akin to the Golem are such creations as the Monster in Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein, the Homunculus in Goethe‘s Faust, and The Scarecrow of Percy Mackaye. Numerous plays and novels have been written around the legend of the Golem, but almost without exception the Jewishness of the theme is lost sight of, and the subject is treated as a legend adaptable to the author's requirements.
Rarely is the essential Jewishness of the Golem shown. Elijah of Chelm, in the middle of the sixteenth century, was the first person credited with having made a golem with a Shem, for which reason he was known as a “Ba‘al Shem." It is said to have grown to be a monster (resembling that of Frankenstein), which the rabbi feared might destroy the world.
The initial appearance of the Golem is identified with Rabbi Yehuda Lowe, who flourished as Chief Rabbi in Prague during the latter half of the sixteenth century. He was a wonderworker, the Miracle Man of his time. Rabbi Lowe was in the habit of giving the Golem certain instructions every afternoon for the following day. On Friday afternoons these instructions were slight, the following day being the Sabbath, a day of rest. For that day the Golem was generally instructed to make certain rounds as a guard or sentinel. But it happened one Friday afternoon that the good Rabbi forgot to give his usual instructions. In consequence, the Golem was left with nothing to do. This state of inactivity was more than the poor creature could endure. So in a spirit of rage and restlessness, he ran amuck, dashing through the crowded streets of Prague and menacing the lives of its inhabitants.
The last golem is attributed to R. David Jail'e, rabbi in Dorhiczyn, in the government of Grodno, Russia (about 1800). This golem, unlike that of R. Low. was not supposed to rest on Sahbath. Indeed, it appears that it was created only for the purpose of replacing the Sabbath goy in heating the ovens of Jews on winter Sabbaths. All orders to make fires were given to the golem on Friday, which he executed promptly but mechanically the next day. In one case a slight error in an order to the golem caused a conflagration that destroyed the whole town.
The Golem may be interpreted as the symbol of the help of God. Always when the very life of the Jews is threatened, there comes the Golem to save them from annihilation. The strictly orthodox Jew believed more or less in the Golem as a reality. To him it isn't merely a legend or a twice-told tale. He loved to believe in it and he generally did believe in it. Not so with the reformed Jew and the non-Jew. They take it as something purely mythical or legendary. In this age of skepticism and disillusion, the faith that moves mountains is hardly manifest.
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