Golem (Long)

[davemarc]

I've been meaning to post this information about Golems.  Here it is:  the
section "The Golem" from *Jewish Magic and Superstition:  A Study in Folk
Religion* by Joshua Trachtenberg (New York:  Atheneum, 1979; originally
1939).  I have no idea how reliable any of this information is.  The first
two paragraphs are an introduction.

R.=Rabbi
b.=ben

d.=davemarc

***

The greatest feat to which the magician aspired was that of creation. 
Discussing this subject in the pages of the Talmud, R. Papa observed that
the creative power of magic covered only gross and massive objects and
creatures, such as the camel, but not fine and delicate things, and R.
Eliezer maintained that the demons, to whom the magician owes this power,
can create nothing smaller than a barley-corn.  This was the standard
limitation imposed on sorcerers by medieval writers, though, as the
*Gemara* explained:  "The demons cannot actually create even large beings,
but merely assemble already created but unused primeval matter."  Thus the
ultimate act of genesis was reserved for God Alone.  It was nowhere
suggested that human life could be created by ordinary magical means.

But the Talmud recognized also a second method of creation, which required
the application of the "Laws of Creation," probably an oral collection of
mystical traditions relating to the original creation of the universe.  The
kind of magic comprised in these "Laws of Creation" was the only one that
was "permitted *ab initio*."  By means of it, "if the righteous so desired
they could create a universe.  Raba created a man and sent him to R. Zeira,
who conversed with him but he could not answer; so he exclaimed, 'You are
created by magic, return to your dust!'  Rabbis Chanina and Oshaya used to
sit every Friday and occupy themselves with the *Book* [read:  *Laws*] *of
Creation* and create a three-year-old calf which they ate."  For a
description of this method we must rely on the tradition preserved by the
commentators; Rashi wrote, "They used to combine the letters of the Name by
which the universe was created; this is not to be considered forbidden
magic, for the works of God were brought into being through His holy Name."
 The Talmudic *Laws of Creation* (unrelated to the later mystical *Book of
Creation*) appear, then, to have been an exposition of the familiar
name-magic, the foremost constituent of medieval Jewish practice, but in
consonance with the difficulty and the prodigiousness of its object, a very
exalted and esoteric department.  Medieval Jews, like their Christian
contemporaries, were avid of the power to create human life, and believed
implicitly in man's ability to do so.  William of Auvergne (thirteenth
century) wrote, "Men have tried to produce, and thought that they succeeded
in producing human life in other ways than by the usual generative
process," but the methods purused by non-Jews were less subtle than the one
proposed by the Talmud.  For example, a fourteenth-century Christian writer
cited the Arab Rasis (tenth century) on generating a human being by putting
an unnamed substance in a vase filled with horse manure, for three days.

The thirteenth-century German *Hasidim* (Pietists and Mystics) were
especially intrigued by this problem.  From them comes the use of the word
*golem* (literally, shapeless or lifeless matter) to designate a homunculus
created by the magical invocation of names, and the entire cycle of *golem*
legends may be traced back to their interest.  The earliest individual
about whom such a fable was woven appears to have been R. Samuel, father of
Judah the Pious, who was said to have constructed such a homunculus which
accompanied him on his travels and served him, but which could not speak. 
Joseph Delmedigo informs us, in 1625, that "many legends of this sort are
current, particularly in Germany," and we may well believe him.  Among the
better-known of these legends is the one connected with the name of Elijah
of Chelm (middle sixteenth century) which developed during the seventeenth
century.  He was reputed to have created a *golem* from clay by means of
the *Sefer Yezirah*, inscribing the name of God upon its forehead and thus
giving it life, but withholding the power of speech.  When the creature
attained giant size and strength, the Rabbi, appalled by its destructive
potentialities, tore the life-giving name from its forehead and it crumbled
into dust.  These legends of the *golem* were transferred, not before the
eighteenth century, to R. Judah Loew b. Bezalel, without any historical
basis.  The remains of the Frankenstein monster which he is supposed to
have brought into being are said still to be among the debris in the attic
of Prague's *Altneuschule*.

At least one mystic, the greatest of them all in Germany, Eleazar of Worms,
had the daring to record the formula, which occurs again later in several
versions.  The formidable nature of the project is apparent from the merest
glance at the twenty-three folio columns which the very involved
combinations of letters occupy.  The image was to be made of "virgin soil,
from a mountainous place where no man has ever dug before," and the
incantation, which comprised "the alphabets of the 221 gates," must be
recited over every single organ individually.  A further detail, often
noted, was the incision upon the forehead of the name of God, or of the
word *emet* ("truth").  The destruction of this creature was effected by
removing that name, by erasing the initial letter of *emet*, leaving *met*
("dead"), or by reversing the creative combinations, for as R. Jacob b.
Shalom, who came to Barcelona from Germany in 1325, remarked, the law of
destruction is nothing more than a reversal of the law of creation.

Yet, while not doubting its possibility, medieval Jews were in general
skeptical of their own ability to imbue dead matter with life, and modestly
confessed that manipulation of names of such a high order was beyond them. 
A thirteenth-century writer scornfully castigated those who proposed to
duplicate the feat of Chanina and Oshaya with the taunt that "they
themselves are dumb calves."  In 1615 Zalman Zevi of Aufenhausen published
his reply (*Juedischer Theriak*) to the animadversions of the apostate
Samuel Friedrich Brenz (in his book *Schlangenbalg*) against the Jews on
this score.  Zalman Zevi wrote wittily, "The renegade said that there are
those among the Jews who take a lump of clay, fashion it into the figure of
a man, and whisper incantations and spells, whereupon the figure lives and
moves.  In the reply which I wrote for the Christians I made the turncoat
look ridiculous, for I said there that he himself must be fashioned from
just such kneaded lumps of clay and loam, without any sense or
intelligence, and that his father must have been just such a wonder worker,
for as he writes, we call such an image a *chomer golem* [an unshaped, raw
mass of material], which may be rendered 'a monstrous ass' [a really good
pun], which I say is a perfect description of him.  I myself have never
seen such a performance, but some of the Talmudic sages possessed the power
to do this, by means of the *Book of Creation*....We German Jews have lost
this mystical tradition, but in Palestine there are still to be found some
men who can perform great wonders through the *Kabbalah*.  Our fools
[another pun on the word *golem*] are not created out of clay, but come
from their mothers' wombs."  His heavy sarcasm, though prompted by
apologetic motives, expressed the general Jewish attitude on the
subject--it can be done, but not longer by us.