Save " Caffeine + Creatures: Golems - Oct 10 2024"
Caffeine + Creatures: Golems - Oct 10 2024
From the Jewish Virtual Library:
The most well-known story of the golem is connected to Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague (1513-1609). It was said that he created a golem out of clay to protect the Jewish community from Blood Libel and to help out doing physical labor, since golems are extraordinarily strong. Another version says it was close to Easter, in the spring of 1580 and a Jew-hating priest was trying to incite the Christians against the Jews. So, the golem protected the community during the Easter season. Both versions recall the golem running amok and threatening innocent lives, so Rabbi Loew removed the Divine Name, rendering the golem lifeless. A separate account has the golem going mad and running away.
According to one story, to make a golem come alive, one would shape it out of soil, and then walk or dance around it saying combination of letters from the alphabet and the secret name of G-d. To “kill” the golem, its creators would walk in the opposite direction saying and making the order of the words backwards.
Other sources say once the golem had been physically made one needed to write the letters aleph, mem, tav, which is emet and means “truth,” on the golem’s forehead and the golem would come alive. Erase the aleph and you are left with mem and tav, which is met, meaning “death.”
Another way to bring a golem to life was to write G-d’s name on parchment and stick it on the golem’s arm or in his mouth. One would remove it to stop the golem.
רַבִּי תַּנְחוּמָא בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי בְּנָיָה וְרַבִּי בֶּרֶכְיָה בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר אָמַר, בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן גֹּלֶם בְּרָאוֹ, וְהָיָה מוּטָל מִסּוֹף הָעוֹלָם וְעַד סוֹפוֹ, הֲדָא הוא דִכְתִיב (תהלים קלט, טז): גָּלְמִי רָאוּ עֵינֶיךָ וגו'.
Rabbi Tanḥuma in the name of Rabbi Benaya and Rabbi Berekhya in the name of Rabbi Elazar said: When the Holy One blessed be He created Adam the first man, He created him as a golem and he was situated from one end of the world to the other. That is what is written: “Your eyes saw my golem...” [i.e. "my soulless, mindless clay form] (Psalms 139:16).
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