Spirituality & Religious StudiesGolem
This entity is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore that’s created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. In modern popular culture, the word has become generalized. Any crude automaton devised by a sorcerer can be called a “golem.”
In modern Hebrew, golem is used to mean: dumb, helpless, or pupa. It’s 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 goylem, meaning someone who’s lethargic or in a stupor.
The oldest stories of golems go to early Judaism. In the Talmud, Adam is initially created as a golem when his dust is “kneaded into a shapeless husk.” Like Adam, all golems are created from mud from those close to divinity. But no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak.
During the Middle East, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah were studied as a means to create & 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 Eleazer of Worms, who lived in the 12th & 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 forming 1 of the names of God. This was written on a piece of paper & inserted into the mouth of forehead of the golem.
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 Chelm (1550-1583).
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 & brought it to life through rituals & Hebrew incantations to defend the Prague ghetto from antisemitic attacks & “pogroms.”
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Rolf Kyburz
Daniel Bowdoin PhD DrTheol
