Shabbat Gathering: All about golems.

Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

How do you feel about monsters?

Did you know Jews have a folkloric monster that rivals our modern creations? In our little newsletter we’ve touched on evil spirits and how to ward them off, but this is a Jewish monster that’s meant to protect us. This is a monster that Jews create and then try to manage, mostly unsuccessfully, mostly to our regret just like Frankenstein’s monster.

The golem has been told in many different forms and formats. In 1920, a German film was made, Der Golem, and in 1997 there was an episode of the X-Files titled Kaddish that centered a golem. The folklore of the golem reportedly goes back to the Tanack where the word golem is used in Psalms.

Recipe.

The word golem refers to something incomplete, like an embryo. A golem is created out of clay. The word emet (truth) is inscribed on the forehead or hand of the clay figure and then kabbalistic rituals from the Sefer Yetzirah (more on the Sefer Yetzirah in a different newsletter) are performed. The golem wakes up and then proceeds on a path of destruction and death to those who threaten the Jewish community. Then things get out of hand and the vengeance turns into its own persecution that doesn’t reflect well on the Jewish community and inflects so much destruction and death that the threat to the Jewish community increases instead of decreases. But what to do?

The secret to the golem’s animation is the word emet on the forehead. If the first letter is erased the word becomes death. Kabbalistic rituals from the Sefer Yetzirah are performed again, backwards this time. and the golem turns back into lumps of clay.

Perhaps the origin of the golem story is in the Talmud. There, there is a story of a group of rabbis on a long journey. Their food runs out and they grow very hungry. They grow so hungry they create a calf out of clay, animate it, and then eat it.

The myth.

Over time, the myth evolved and in Prague, in the 1500s, the legend codified into a story about Rabbi Judah Loew creating what turns out to be the archetypal story of a humanoid monster that defended Jews from rampaging anti-Semites. The legend includes the belief that the golem lies in the attic of the main synagogue in Prague ready to be reanimated when / if necessary. Since Rabbi Loew’s time to this day, the attic has been locked and no one is allowed there. Like so many good myths, there’s an element of truth in it.

In this wretched world we live in, I hope we never need a golem to protect us and I hope we’ve learned that unleashing a terrible power comes at a terrible cost.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.