The Golems are animated beings constructed from inert materials that are typical of Jewish mythology and folklore. The golem is a being built from clay which was blown some life so you get to build one is considered by Jewish mythology an achievement reserved for only the most learned rabbis and rewarded by God (Adam was also created from clay, except that the golem is a little lower because it has no soul .) It is said that a golem is a function or an order to comply, although often quite literal when interpreting and this often leads to problems.
The best known story involving a golem takes place in Prague in the sixteenth century when the Jewish ghetto of Josefov was suffering many attacks. To defend, a rabbi created a golem from clay but the Moldova River grew and became violent causing destruction and horror all over Prague. The city authorities promised to cease hostilities toward Jews if removed to the golem, what the rabbi agreed.
What I call the attention of the golems is the similarity with other creatures of literature of the time or later, such as the homunculus in alchemical literature, or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein .. . and even if we start to wander, the androids of science fiction.
I leave you with a poem by Borges entitled, "The Golem."
If (as the Greek says in the Cratylus)
the name is the archetype of the thing
in the lyrics of 'pink' is the rose
and all Nile in the word 'Nile'.
And made of consonants and vowels,
there will be a terrible name, that the essence
encrypt of God and Omnipotence
store in letters and syllables sane .
Adam and the stars knew
in the Garden. The rust of sin
(say the Kabbalists) has deleted
and the lost generations.
The cunning and candor of the man
are endless. We know that there was a day
that God's people sought
name in the watches of the Jewish quarter.
not the way other than a vague shadow
vague hint in the story,
still green and alive the memory
Lion of Judah, who was rabbi of Prague.
Thirsty to know what God knows,
Judah Leon gave
permutations of letters and complex variations
and finally pronounced the name that is the Key ,
the Door, the Eco, the Guest and the Palace,
on a doll with clumsy hands
styled, to teach the arcane
of Literature, Time and Space.
The simulacrum raised
sleepy eyelids and saw shapes and colors
that knew not, lost in rumors and tested
fearful movements.
was gradually (like us)
trapped in this network
sound of Before, After, Yesterday, while, now
Right, Left, Yo, You, Them, Others.
(Kabbalist who served as numen
dubbed the vast creature Golem;
these truths by Scholem
in a learned rather than its volume.)
The rabbi was explaining the universe
"This is my foot, this yours, this rope."
and succeeded, after years, that the wicked
sweep well or poorly the synagogue.
Perhaps there was an error in the script
or joint of the Holy Name;
so despite high witchcraft,
did not learn the man's apprentice.
His eyes, less of a man than a dog
and fed dog less of something,
followed the rabbi through the dubious
parts gloom closure.
Something abnormal was rough on the Golem,
as it passes the rabbi's cat is
hiding. (That cat is not in Scholem
but over time, I guess.)
Raising his hands God subsidiaries
the pieties of his God copied
or stupid, smiling, cupped concave
in eastern salaams.
The rabbi looked at him with tenderness
and with some horror. 'How' (he said)
'could engender this pitiful child
and inaction left, which is the sanity? "
'Why I gave in to add to the infinite series
a symbol? Why vain
skein is wound in the eternal,
gave another cause, another and another affliction effect? \u200b\u200b"
In the hour of distress and vague light,
in his eyes stopped Golem.
Who will tell us the things we felt
God, looking at his rabbi in Prague?
