MDDM Ch. 50 Golem

[Dave Monroe]

"The area just beyond the next Ridge is believ'd to
harbor a giant Golem, or Jewish Automaton, taller than
the most ancient of the Trees.  As explain'd to Dixon,
'twas created by an Indian tribe widely suppos'd to be
one of the famous Lost Tribes of Israel, who had
somehow given up control of the Creature, sending it
headlong into the Forest, where it would learn of its
own gift of Mobile Invisibility." (M&D, Ch. 50, 485)


Golem

The Chief Rabbi of Prague, Yehuda Low Ben Bezalel,
lived from 1525 to 1609. During this period, the Jews
were persecuted repeatedly by Christians, who spread
terror through the ghetto. The attacks intensified
during Passover, when the Jews were often accused of
using the blood of Christian children to bake matza,
unleavened bread. This malicious slander inevitably
stirred up Christian mobs to attack the ghetto, and
the vastly outnumbered Jews were too weak to defend
themselves. It was a hopeless situation, until, as
legend has it, Rabbi Low received a plan of
deliverance in a dream. The instructions were simple:
create a being to frighten the Jew-haters away. 

Rabbi Low immediately went to work, summoning his wife
Edam and his oldest student to help him make the
Golem. The creature was to be composed of the four
elements: earth, water, fire and air. They prepared
themselves spiritually for this task for seven days.
And on the 20th day of the Hebrew month of Adar in the
Jewish year 5340, at the fourth hour after midnight,
they went to the bank of the Moldau River and made the
figure out of the clay soil. It was 10 feet tall and
had basic human features. 

The Rabbi told his wife to circle the prostrate figure
seven times and say a certain mystical phrase.
Suddenly the clay sculpture became red hot. Then, the
Rabbi ordered his student to circle the figure seven
times and say another mystical phrase. It cooled down
and became damp, and suddenly, an unbelievable thing
happened: fingernails started growing and hair covered
his body. Now it was the rabbi’s turn to circle the
creature seven times. The three of them then recited
Genesis 2:7: "And God breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life and man became a living soul." The
Golem opened his eyes immediately and stood up. 

"You must know that we have created you from clay and
that you are here for one purpose only, and that is to
save our people from evil," Rabbi Low told the Golem.
"I name you Joseph. You must only listen to my orders
and must do everything I ask you to do." The Golem
nodded to show he understood. He was able to hear and
see but could not talk.

The Golem, dressed in the clothes of the time, sat in
a corner of Rabbi Low’s room all day long. He did not
even help the Rabbi’s wife, a fact that irritated her.
With everything she had to do she could have used some
extra help, but alas, he was not created for that
purpose. He was only there to protect the Jews during
times of danger. For this, he was able to go through
fire and water or to wade through dangerous floods....

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/article/Default.asp?CatID=6&ArticleID=47

See ...

Idel, Moshe.  Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical
   Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid.
   Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.

http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=50342

Scholem, Gershom.  "The Idea of the Golem."
   On the Kaballah and Its Symbolism.  Trans.
   Ralph Manheim.  New York: Schocken, 1965.
   158-204

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0805210512

Sherwin, Byron L. The Golem Legend: Origins and
   Implications.  Lanham, MD: UP of America, 1985.
 
Wiener, Norbert.  God and Golem, Inc.: A Comment
   on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on
   Religion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1963.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=DE7D209E-9BA6-4F7D-A60A-E43CA4B5E455&ttype=2&tid=5293

http://www.angelfire.com/co/1x137/golem.html

Winkler, Gershon.  The Golem of Prague.
   Brooklyn, NY: Judaica Press, 1994.

http://www.judaicapress.com/golemof.asp

And see as well ...

Jorge Luis Borges, "The Golem"

http://esag.harvard.edu/falk/interests/poetry/elgolem.html

Michael Chabon, "The Recipe for Life"

http://www.michaelchabon.com/golem.html

Kay E. Vandergrift, "Background on the Golem Legends"

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/golem/backgroundgolem.html

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/golem/golemwebsites.html

Frank Cebulla, "Der Golem in Geschichte, Mythos und
Magie"

http://www.equinox-net.de/Golem/golt1.htm

http://www.equinox-net.de/Golem/golt2.htm

http://www.equinox-net.de/Golem/golt3.htm

Nicolas Simard, "Le mobile du Golem"

http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/mts123/nicolas.html

Jewsih Gothic: Frankenstein and the Golem

http://www.jewishgothic.com/golem.html

How to Make a Golem

http://www.jewishgothic.com/golemhow383x361.jpg


Lost Tribes of Israel

Indigenous Americans were a vexing problem for early
American interpreters of Revelation who believed them
to be ancient Canaanites, the lost tribes of Israel,
or minions of the Antichrist. Indeed, to the early
settlers, indigenous Americans were all of these and
more....

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/brimstone/tribes.html

Around 926 b.c., the kingdom of Israel split in two.
Up to that point, all twelve tribes of Israel (plus
the priestly tribe of Levi) had been united under the
monarchies of Saul, David, and Solomon. But when
Solomon’s son Rehoboam ascended to the throne, the ten
Northern tribes rebelled and seceded from the union.
This left only two tribes—Judah and Benjamin (plus
much of Levi)—under the control of the king in
Jerusalem. From that time on, the tribes were divided
into two nations, which came to be called the House of
Israel (the Northern ten tribes) and the House of
Judah (the Southern two tribes). 

This situation continued until around 723 B.C., when
the Assyrians conquered the Northern kingdom. To keep
conquered nations in subjection, it was Assyrian
policy to break them up by deporting their native
populations to other areas and resettling the land
with newcomers. When the House of Israel was
conquered, most people belonging to the ten Northern
tribes were deported and settled elsewhere in the
Assyrian kingdom, including places near Nineveh,
Haran, and on what is now the Iran-Iraq border. They
were replaced by settlers from locations in or near
Babylon and Syria. 

These settlers intermarried, together with the
remaining Israelites, and became the Samaritans
mentioned in the New Testament (a few hundred of whom
still survive today). The Israelites who had been
deported also intermarried with the peoples of the
places where they had been resettled. They eventually
lost their distinct identity, disappeared, and their
culture was lost to history. Some refer to them as
"the lost tribes of Israel." 

A movement called "British Israelism" claims to have
found the ten "lost tribes," however, and in some very
unlikely places....

http://www.catholic.com/library/Lost_Tribes_of_Israel.asp

And see as well ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/


Mobile Invisibility

Cf. ...

"... now the Duck is a Fugitive, flying where it
wishes,-- often indeed visiting the Academy of
Sciences, where they have learn'd that the greater its
speed, the less visible it grows, until at around a
Thousand Toises per Minute, it vanishes entirely,--
but one of many newly-acquir'd Powers, bringing added
Urgency to finding it as quickly as possible, before
this 'Morphosis carries it beyond our Control.'" (M&D,
Ch. 37, 373-4)

"... having learn'd in the meantime that vibrating
back and forth very quickly, whilst standing still,
would produce the same effect of Invisibility as
linear movement,--" (M&D, Ch. 37, p. 378)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0202&msg=65205&sort=date

"It sounds enough like the Frenchman's Duck to make
him cautious." (M&D, Ch. 50, p. 485)

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