Golem
Golem
Golem
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An illustration of a golem. In Jewish folklore, a golem ( /olm/ GOH-lm; Hebrew: )is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing.[1] The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th century chief rabbi of Prague.
Contents
[hide]
1 History
1.1 Etymology 1.2 Earliest stories 1.3 The Golem of Chelm 1.4 The classic narrative: The Golem of Prague 1.5 Sources of the Prague narrative 1.6 The Golem of Vilna 1.7 Hubris theme 1.8 20th and 21st centuries
1.8.1 Games
[edit] History
[edit] Etymology
The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word ,meaning "my unshaped form".[2] The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", Pirkei Avos 5:9 in the Hebrew text (English translations vary). In modern Hebrew golem is used to mean "dumb" or "helpless". Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a brainless lunk or entity who serves man under controlled conditions but is hostile to him and others.[citation needed] "Golem" passed into Yiddish as goylem to mean someone who is clumsy or slow.[citation needed]
Eliyahu Baal Shem of blessed memory. When the Gaon saw that the Golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that the Golem would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded on his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust. Nonetheless, while he was engaged in extracting the Holy Name from him, the Golem injured him, scarring him on the face."[6] 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."[1][7]
Synagogue of Prague with the rungs of the ladder to the attic on the wall. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th century chief rabbi of Prague, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto from antisemitic
attacks[8] and pogroms. 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. To protect the Jewish community, the rabbi constructed the Golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava river, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations. As this golem grew, it became increasingly violent, killing gentiles and spreading fear. 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 turning on its creator or attacking other Jews.[8] The Emperor begged Rabbi Loew to destroy the Golem, promising to stop the persecution of the Jews. To deactivate the Golem, the rabbi rubbed out the first letter of the word "emet" (truth or reality) from the creature's forehead leaving the Hebrew word "met", meaning dead. 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. According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic. Some versions of the tale state that the Golem was stolen from the genizah and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's ikov district, where the great ikovsk tower now stands. A recent legend tells of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic during World War II and trying to stab the Golem, but he died instead.[9] When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found.[10] A film crew who visited and filmed the attic in 1984 found no evidence either.[10] The attic is not open to the general public.[11] Some strictly orthodox Jews believe that the Maharal did actually create a golem. Menachem Mendel Schneerson (the last Rebbe of Lubavitch) wrote that his father-in-law, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, told him that he saw the remains of the Golem in the attic of Alt-Neu Shul. Rabbi Chaim Noach Levin also wrote in his notes on Megillas Yuchsin that he heard directly from Rabbi Yosef Shaul Halevi, the head of the Rabbinical court of Lemberg, that when he wanted to go see the remains of the Golem, the sexton of the Alt-Neu Shul said that Rabbi Yechezkel Landau had advised against going up to the attic after he himself had gone up.[12] The evidence for this belief has been analyzed from an orthodox Jewish perspective by Shnayer Z. Leiman.[10][13]
1837: Berthold Auerbach, Spinoza 1841: Gustav Philippson, Der Golam, eine Legende 1841: Franz Klutschak, Der Golam des Rabbi Lw 1842: Adam Tendlau Der Golem des Hoch-Rabbi-Lw 1847: Leopold Weisel, Der Golem[14]
Cathy Gelbin finds an earlier source in Philippson's The Golem and the Adulteress, published in the Jewish magazine Shulamit in 1834, which describes how the Maharal sent a golem to find the reason for an epidemic among the Jews of Prague,[3][15] although doubts have been expressed as to whether this date is correct.[16] The earliest known source for the story thus far is the 1834 book Der Jdische Gil Blas by Josef Seligman Kohn.[17] [18] The story was repeated in Galerie der Sippurim (1847), an influential collection of Jewish tales published by Wolf Pascheles of Prague. All these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. It has been suggested that they emerged as part of a Jewish folklore movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement[3][5] and that they may have been based on Jewish oral tradition.[5] There is a Hebrew source in Megillat Yuchasin (1864).[citation needed] 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. It has been said[citation needed] that Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1859-1935)[19] originated the idea that the narrative dates from the time of the Maharal. Rosenberg published Niflaos Maharal: Ha Golem Al Prague (Wonders of the Maharal: The Golem of Prague) (Warsaw, 1909) which purported to be an eyewitness account by the Maharal's son-in-law, who had helped to create the Golem. Rosenberg claimed that the book was based upon a manuscript that he found in the main library in Metz. Wonders of the Maharal "is generally recognized in academic circles to be a literary hoax".[1][13][20] Gershom Sholem observed that the manuscript
"contains not ancient legends but modern fiction".[21] 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 gives David Gans, a disciple of the Maharal, as a source for the story, citing his historical work Zemach David, published in 1592.[22][23] 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."[24] But it has been said of this passage, "Even when [the Maharal is] eulogized, whether in David Gans Zemach David or on his epitaph , not a word is said about the creation of a golem. No Hebrew work published in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (even in Prague) is aware that the Maharal created a golem."[10][14] Furthermore, the Maharal himself did not refer to the Golem in his writings.[10] Rabbi Yedidiah Tiah Weil (17211805), a Prague resident, who described the creation of golems, including those created by Rabbi Avigdor Kara of Prague, did not mention the Maharal, and Rabbi Meir Perels' biography of the Maharal published in 1745 does not mention a golem.[3][10]
Statue of Prague Golem created for the film Csaruv pekar Pekaruv csar
reintegrated to the original person or not. There are references to the Jewish legend such as the name of the character Yosil Maharal. Marge Piercy's novel He, She and It tells the story of a cyborg, Yod, who is deliberately contrasted with the Golem of Prague. The DC comic Swamp Thing #153, 'Twilight of the Gods' by Mark Millar and Chris Weston is set in an alternate history where Germany won World War II and the US President attempts to evoke a golem in order to destroy the world. The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII" features Bart discovering the Golem of Prague in Krusty's storeroom. The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges famously wrote a poem named "The Golem". The X-Files episode "Kaddish" features a golem-like creature. China Miville's novel Iron Council centers around a golemist named Judah Low, a direct reference to Judah Loew ben Bezalel. [edit] Games Golems often appear in the various editions of Dungeons and Dragons, where they may be constructed of nearly any material from wood to spider silk. The large influence of Dungeons and Dragons on video games and other tabletop role-playing games[31] has led to the inclusion of golems in many other tabletop and video games.
[edit] References
1. ^ a b c d e f g h Idel, Moshe (1990). golem: Jewish magical and mystical traditions on the artificial
anthropoid. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-0160-X. page 296
2. ^ J. Simpson, E. Weiner (eds), ed (1989). "golem". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition ed.). Oxford:
45a; and , ed. Kahana, Warsaw, 1896, p. 4. See also ," , ' "and the references cited in ," Jerusalem, 1998, vol. 1, p. 421 and in the periodical , " number 351 (1988), p. 51. Cited by Leiman, S.Z., "Did a Disciple of the Maharal Create a Golem?"
7. ^ The tradition is also recorded in / - : ", " 8. ^ a b c d Bilefsky, Dan (May 11, 2009). "Hard Times Give New Life to Pragues Golem". New York
Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/europe/11Golem.html?hp=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2009-05-11. "According to Czech legend, the Golem was fashioned from clay and brought to life by a rabbi to protect Pragues 16th-century ghetto from persecution, and is said to be called forth in times of crisis. True to form, he is once again experiencing a revival and, in this commercial age, has spawned a one-monster industry."
9. ^ Lee-Parritz, Oren. "The Golem Lives On". jewishpost.com. http://www.jewishpost.com/news/The-
German verse by Gustav Philippson in Allg. Zeit. des Jud. 1841, No. 44 (abridged in Sulamith, viii. 254; translated into Hebrew in Kokebe Yia, No. 28, p. 75, Vienna, 1862)"
16. ^ The real new earliest known source in print for the Golem of Prague?. Onthemainline.blogspot.com
of America
21. ^ Sholem, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Schocken, 1961 22. ^ HUNGARIAN STUDIES 2. No. 2. Nemzetkzi Magyar Filolgiai Trsasg. Akadmiai Kiad
09-23.
26. ^ [1] See also discussion in Hans Ludwig Held, Das Gespenst des Golem, eine Studie aus d.
hebrischen Mystik mit einem Exkurs ber das Wesen des Doppelgngers, Mnchen 1927
27. ^ Sefer Detail: . " "Hebrewbooks.org. Retrieved on 2011-09-23. 28. ^ [WorldCat.org] (1942-01-31). Retrieved on 2011-09-23 29. ^ Karel Capek. "R.U.R.- Rossums Universal Robots". http://www.karelcapek.net/rur.htm. translation
By Voyen Koreis
30. ^ "The Bridge Between Truth/Death and Power/Knowledge: Ted Chiang's Seventy-two Letters".
strangehorizons.com. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20010416/ted_chiang.shtml.
31. ^ PC Gamer; How Dungeons & Dragons shaped the modern videogame
Environmental Ethos for the Twenty-First Century". Structurist 43/44: 4861. Published also as Paper CTS-04-06 by the Center for Theoretical Study, Prague.
Bilski, Emily B. (1988). Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art. New York: The Jewish Museum. ISBN 8-7334-0493-0. Bloch, Chayim; tr, Schneiderman, H. (1972). The Golem: Mystical Tales of the Ghetto of Prague (English translation from German. First published in 'Oestereschischen Wochenschrift' 1917). New York: Steinerbooks. ISBN 0-8334-1726. Chihaia, Matei (2011). Der Golem-Effekt. Orientierung und phantastische Immersion im Zeitalter des Kinos. Bielefeld: transcript. ISBN 978-3-8376-1714-6. Faucheux, Michel (2008). Norbert Wiener, le golem et la cyberntique. Paris: Editions du Sandre. Dennis, Geoffrey (2007). The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism. Woodbury (MN): Llewellyn Worldwide. ISBN 0-7387-0905-0. Winkler, Gershon (1980). The Golem of Prague: A New Adaptation of the Documented Stories of the Golem of Prague. New York: Judaica Press. ISBN 0-9108-1825-8. Goldsmith, Arnold L. (1981). The Golem Remembered 19091980: Variations of a Jewish Legend. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-16832-8. Idel, Mosche (1990). Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-0160-X. Rosenberg, Yudl; tr. Leviant, Curt (2008). The Golem and the Wondrous deeds of the Maharal of Prague (first English translation of original in Hebrew, Pietrkow, Poland, 1909). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12204-6. Tomek, V.V. (1932). Prask idovsk povsti a legendy. Prague: Konel. Translated (2008) as Jewish Stories of Prague, Jewish Prague in History and Legend. ISBN 1-4382-3005-2.
rabbiyehudahyudelrosenberg.com yutorah.org
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