June 22, 2009 • 13 mins
In Jewish folklore, golems are powerful creatures created from clay. According to legend, a golem was created to defend the Jewish population of Prague during the reign of Rudolph II. Learn more about golems in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor kend his Keener, joined by a fellow editor,
Katie Lambert. Hi, Katie. We are going to be doing
(00:21):
something a little bit different for stuff you missed in
History class today. We don't usually begin the history lesson
with a reference to the Talmud or the Bible, but
we have an interesting facet of religious history that may
have influenced a piece of history, and in Prague during
(00:41):
a time when Jewish ghettos were very much alive and
a part of the city's landscape, and unfortunate, I should say,
part of the city's landscape. I don't know if y'all
have ever heard of a goal um. The first time
I came across on was reading the novel The Amazing
Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. But it's basically a soulless,
thoughtless lump of clay in the shape of a man
(01:05):
that's been animated with some sort of life force. And
the most famous golem is the golem of Prague. And
let's go back to sixteenth century Prague in the Jewish ghetto,
when there was lots of anti Semitic feelings, and there
were allegations of blood libel, which basically means that people
(01:26):
were saying the Jews were using the blood of Christians
and specifically Christian children in some of their religious ceremonies,
such as Passover during the Sader meal. In the sixteenth century,
one of the most famous rabbis who lived in Prague
was Rabbi Love and today he's very much revered for
his scholarly contributions to the Jewish community. Was a very
(01:49):
prolific writer, wrote some twenty seven different books about Jewish philosophy,
Jewish mysticism, and helped propagate ideas about the id you
have Jewish exile and Zionism, and really instilled in the
Jewish people who were forced to live in the ghettos
a sense of hope and a sense of purpose despite
(02:10):
the fact that they were being shut out of society
and met with such opposition from the rest of Prague.
And in the fifteen hundreds, it wasn't just anti Jewish feeling.
There were violent attacks, there were programs on the Jewish
people and basically they were in need of a protector.
And the story goes that Rabbi Lev created a golem.
(02:30):
I believe with some members of his family he did.
And this is where history turns a little bit to
legend and folklore. So you'll have to pardon us on
this tangent into semi history, and then we'll get back
to the facts. So, acording to legend, Rabbi Lev and
his son in law and his best student set out
to create a golem which would be designed automaton that
(02:54):
it was to protect the Jewish people of Prague. And
the reason that Love chose son in law and the
student was because they embodied the different elements that were
necessary to make a golem. Love had the element of air,
the son in law fire, and the student water, and
those together with the clay used to make the body
(03:14):
of the golem, and pure virgin spring water would have
brought it to life. And I believe legend goes that
Rabbi levd used his knowledge of Kabbalah to make the
golem come alive by I think writing one of the
names of God on a piece of paper. Well, and
it seems that there's different ways from what I understand
(03:35):
of what I've read about the very intense mtical and
spiritual process behind creating a golem. It seems like there's
a couple of different ways when it could be created.
Like you mentioned um, putting sacred words on a piece
of paper and attaching it to the golems forehead would
have brought it to life. In one version of the
story I read, they circled the body of the golem
(03:56):
seven times and enchanted sacred words. And other sources say
that there's a special type of alphabet that's resided in
accordance with the sacred name of God, and there's an
activasation word that brings the golem to life. One of
the more common legends, I think is that the word
(04:17):
truth it wasn't inscribed on the golem's forehead, right, and
to be clear, at the legend attributed to the golem
of Prague. Of course, you get into a very great
area when you start talking about religious tenants, because some
people may hold those to be true and others may
not ascribe to that particular religion. But in the case
that the Golem of Prague, that's part of the legend
(04:39):
that the word truth was the activasition word used to
bring this golem to life, and after the golem came
to life, he set about, it's said about taking care
of the Jewish people. Um it was said that he
could be invisible and raise up spirits from the dead
to help protect the people and to clear their good name,
(05:02):
because there were many instances of the Jewish people being
scapegoaded by by members of the city who would bring
dead Christian children into the ghettos to make it look
like the blood libel was true that they were killing
these Christian children. But eventually the golem somehow went bad
and went on some sort of a rampage and started
(05:23):
actually menacing the Jewish people who was supposed to protect
as well as everyone else in Prague. And so rab
I Love of course, was forced to deactivate, for lack
of a better word, take the life force out of
the golm. And according to legend, he took the life
force from the goalm away and then put him in
the attic of the synagogue, the old New Synagogue in Prague,
(05:45):
which still stands today. Here we are crossing again from
the realm of legend back into history. So follow me
if you will, back in history now. Great, So the
old New Synagogue still stands today, and no one's allowed
into the attic. We don't know what's there, but people
still go to Prague looking for the golem, much like
they go looking for coughca souvenirs. Very nice, and there's
(06:09):
some merchants in Prague who have made a living out
of popularizing the figure of the golem, Golem dolls, restaurants
named after the golem, golem tours, things like this. People
are very curious about it. But it's unfortunate for serious
scholars in the Jewish community that Lev's name is associated
with the Golem of Prague, because he likely had nothing
(06:32):
to do with the legend, and the legend is likely
just that legendary. The legend came about. I don't even
think the golem was attached to Rabbi Lev's name until
what the eighteen hundreds, yeah, two hundred years after his
death in eighty seven. Well, the funny thing was that
rabbis of the time were actually supposedly trying to make golems,
but not Rabbi Lev. No, he was more known for
(06:54):
the aforementioned facts of his scholarly pursuits into philosophy and mysticism.
So who was it exactly clean started putting his name
with the Golem of Prague. I'm not quite sure that
I can put a name with that person, but I
do know. Like I said, in seven a book of
Jewish folklore came out that attributed Love to the Golem
(07:15):
of Prague. And because Love was so well respected in
the Jewish community, he would have been very well known
and very famous for his time. And so it's likely
that the person putting together this compilation of folklore said, well,
the Golm's pretty famous, so is Love. They must be
connected somehow, when in fact they were not. But that's
not to say that the legend of the Golem has
(07:36):
an influenced popular culture in the arts today, because it
has in very strange and interesting ways. The golem has
actually appeared on The Simpsons, in case you were wondering,
And in nineteen twenties German silent films, the golem appeared
as this lumbering monstrous figure, and some sources say that
that type of lumbering automaton went on to influence Frankenstein's Monster.
(08:00):
I watched a clip of that silent film. Actually today
you can find little bits of it on YouTube. Good
to know. It's also good to know that the golem
persists as this type of legendary savior who can rescue
the world from its darkest hour, not unlike King Arthur.
You know, I guess that's the closest corollary I can
think of. But we discussed King Arthur in a podcast
(08:23):
a while ago, and we talked about that when the
world reaches that point where it just can't be turned
back to good, King Arthur will come and set things right.
And part of the legend of the Golem that persists
is that when we're in our darkest hour, the Golem
will return and I guess walk the streets menacingly until
things are good again. And The New York Times r
(08:45):
in an article earlier this month about the Golem coming
back in this time of crisis, and they quoted a
derivatives trader, Jacob Roth, who's also a prominent member of
the Jewish community, who explained that the one protects from,
to quote him, global recession, Islamic fundamentalism, Russian aggression. It
(09:07):
wouldn't be out of left field to say that these
types of conditions are right for the Golem to come back.
And he's certainly suggesting that the world is in a
place now that it could use a golem. But you've
raised a question to me earlier, Katie, when we were
talking about the golem, that made a lot of sense,
because by definition, the golem takes instruction very literally, and
(09:27):
unless it has that guiding force, what would happen? Well, exactly,
And it's not a messiah that just comes. It's something
that the people of a community create and give life to,
and then give direction to. Even if the golem, the
Golem of Prague was said to have gone on its
murderous rampage, that's not generally what golems do. Know, And
(09:51):
I guess the part of the legend where I'm a
little bit foggy is the idea of the golem coming back.
I think the New York Times was referenced the Golem
of Prague specifically that the goal of prog would come back.
But as you were saying, you know, he had reached
such a point of destruction in this legend, it seems
unlikely that that would be the right golem for the job.
(10:13):
But if the world needed a golem, is it unthinkable
to say that members of the Jewish community today couldn't
create one to set things right? Well, And there seems
to be a bit of debate about whether a golem
could be real or is just in fact some sort
of myth. And it's hard to decipher between fact and
(10:33):
fiction because as we began the podcast by saying, there's
mention of golem and the Talmud and the Bible makes
reference to this incomplete substance that gives rise to man,
exactly like with Adam and the Bible, who is made
out of clay and then was imbued with a spirit
from God to become a person and become someone with
(10:55):
a soul. But before that he was just a man
shaped clay figure exactly. So when we talk about the
Golem of Prague, it's certainly and um an intriguing legend
and even a little bit of a scary story to
think about a goalm amok in the streets. But in
a religious context, obviously it's it's an idea that's very
(11:16):
important to the tenets of Jewish mysticism, and in an
historical sense, to take it one step further, it's also
important to remember, despite the aspect of the story that
includes the Golan, that the Jews very much were persecuted
in Prague and that they were forced to live in
the ghettos. And even though the idea of of blood
libel is in dispute, whether or not the Jewish people
(11:38):
were charged with blood libel, it is a facet of history,
and it's a facet of of Prague's history when it's
something that's still important. Neo Nazis have been on the
rise in Germany and in other countries, and anti Semitism
is not a thing of the past. Katie, You've you've
raised a very serious question. But I do have one
last aspect of Nazi history that pertains to the Gallon
(11:59):
that I think would be an interesting tidbit to leave
our readers with. Again, this is all dependent on whether
you buy into the golem legend or you ascribe to
your religion that supports the idea of the existence of
a golem. But according to the Golem of Prague story, uh,
he's so fiercely guarded the attic of the old new
synagogue where he was kept where Rabbi left put him,
(12:22):
that the synagogue stayed intact and no one disturbed it.
We're talking about the Gestapo coming through, We're talking about
maybe even um urban development coming through this. This place
really withstood its hold in Prague. And my favorite story
is that when the Nazi soldiers came through and we're
raising the temples, raising the synagogues, this one was untouched.
(12:45):
And apparently a few Nazi soldiers got up into the
attic of the synagogue where they found the golem, and
the golem tore them apart, limb by limb. So I
think there's a lesson there, a sovereign thought indeed. So
be sure as all ways to email us your feedback
and your comments on this podcast and any others that
email address again as History Podcast at how stuff works
(13:07):
dot com, and be sure to visit our website for
more information on legends and folklore at how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com, and be sure to
check out the stuff you missed in History Class blog
on the how stuff works dot com home page.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor kend his Keener, joined by a fellow editor,
Katie Lambert. Hi, Katie. We are going to be doing
(00:21):
something a little bit different for stuff you missed in
History class today. We don't usually begin the history lesson
with a reference to the Talmud or the Bible, but
we have an interesting facet of religious history that may
have influenced a piece of history, and in Prague during
(00:41):
a time when Jewish ghettos were very much alive and
a part of the city's landscape, and unfortunate, I should say,
part of the city's landscape. I don't know if y'all
have ever heard of a goal um. The first time
I came across on was reading the novel The Amazing
Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. But it's basically a soulless,
thoughtless lump of clay in the shape of a man
(01:05):
that's been animated with some sort of life force. And
the most famous golem is the golem of Prague. And
let's go back to sixteenth century Prague in the Jewish ghetto,
when there was lots of anti Semitic feelings, and there
were allegations of blood libel, which basically means that people
(01:26):
were saying the Jews were using the blood of Christians
and specifically Christian children in some of their religious ceremonies,
such as Passover during the Sader meal. In the sixteenth century,
one of the most famous rabbis who lived in Prague
was Rabbi Love and today he's very much revered for
his scholarly contributions to the Jewish community. Was a very
(01:49):
prolific writer, wrote some twenty seven different books about Jewish philosophy,
Jewish mysticism, and helped propagate ideas about the id you
have Jewish exile and Zionism, and really instilled in the
Jewish people who were forced to live in the ghettos
a sense of hope and a sense of purpose despite
(02:10):
the fact that they were being shut out of society
and met with such opposition from the rest of Prague.
And in the fifteen hundreds, it wasn't just anti Jewish feeling.
There were violent attacks, there were programs on the Jewish
people and basically they were in need of a protector.
And the story goes that Rabbi Lev created a golem.
(02:30):
I believe with some members of his family he did.
And this is where history turns a little bit to
legend and folklore. So you'll have to pardon us on
this tangent into semi history, and then we'll get back
to the facts. So, acording to legend, Rabbi Lev and
his son in law and his best student set out
to create a golem which would be designed automaton that
(02:54):
it was to protect the Jewish people of Prague. And
the reason that Love chose son in law and the
student was because they embodied the different elements that were
necessary to make a golem. Love had the element of air,
the son in law fire, and the student water, and
those together with the clay used to make the body
(03:14):
of the golem, and pure virgin spring water would have
brought it to life. And I believe legend goes that
Rabbi levd used his knowledge of Kabbalah to make the
golem come alive by I think writing one of the
names of God on a piece of paper. Well, and
it seems that there's different ways from what I understand
(03:35):
of what I've read about the very intense mtical and
spiritual process behind creating a golem. It seems like there's
a couple of different ways when it could be created.
Like you mentioned um, putting sacred words on a piece
of paper and attaching it to the golems forehead would
have brought it to life. In one version of the
story I read, they circled the body of the golem
(03:56):
seven times and enchanted sacred words. And other sources say
that there's a special type of alphabet that's resided in
accordance with the sacred name of God, and there's an
activasation word that brings the golem to life. One of
the more common legends, I think is that the word
(04:17):
truth it wasn't inscribed on the golem's forehead, right, and
to be clear, at the legend attributed to the golem
of Prague. Of course, you get into a very great
area when you start talking about religious tenants, because some
people may hold those to be true and others may
not ascribe to that particular religion. But in the case
that the Golem of Prague, that's part of the legend
(04:39):
that the word truth was the activasition word used to
bring this golem to life, and after the golem came
to life, he set about, it's said about taking care
of the Jewish people. Um it was said that he
could be invisible and raise up spirits from the dead
to help protect the people and to clear their good name,
(05:02):
because there were many instances of the Jewish people being
scapegoaded by by members of the city who would bring
dead Christian children into the ghettos to make it look
like the blood libel was true that they were killing
these Christian children. But eventually the golem somehow went bad
and went on some sort of a rampage and started
(05:23):
actually menacing the Jewish people who was supposed to protect
as well as everyone else in Prague. And so rab
I Love of course, was forced to deactivate, for lack
of a better word, take the life force out of
the golm. And according to legend, he took the life
force from the goalm away and then put him in
the attic of the synagogue, the old New Synagogue in Prague,
(05:45):
which still stands today. Here we are crossing again from
the realm of legend back into history. So follow me
if you will, back in history now. Great, So the
old New Synagogue still stands today, and no one's allowed
into the attic. We don't know what's there, but people
still go to Prague looking for the golem, much like
they go looking for coughca souvenirs. Very nice, and there's
(06:09):
some merchants in Prague who have made a living out
of popularizing the figure of the golem, Golem dolls, restaurants
named after the golem, golem tours, things like this. People
are very curious about it. But it's unfortunate for serious
scholars in the Jewish community that Lev's name is associated
with the Golem of Prague, because he likely had nothing
(06:32):
to do with the legend, and the legend is likely
just that legendary. The legend came about. I don't even
think the golem was attached to Rabbi Lev's name until
what the eighteen hundreds, yeah, two hundred years after his
death in eighty seven. Well, the funny thing was that
rabbis of the time were actually supposedly trying to make golems,
but not Rabbi Lev. No, he was more known for
(06:54):
the aforementioned facts of his scholarly pursuits into philosophy and mysticism.
So who was it exactly clean started putting his name
with the Golem of Prague. I'm not quite sure that
I can put a name with that person, but I
do know. Like I said, in seven a book of
Jewish folklore came out that attributed Love to the Golem
(07:15):
of Prague. And because Love was so well respected in
the Jewish community, he would have been very well known
and very famous for his time. And so it's likely
that the person putting together this compilation of folklore said, well,
the Golm's pretty famous, so is Love. They must be
connected somehow, when in fact they were not. But that's
not to say that the legend of the Golem has
(07:36):
an influenced popular culture in the arts today, because it
has in very strange and interesting ways. The golem has
actually appeared on The Simpsons, in case you were wondering,
And in nineteen twenties German silent films, the golem appeared
as this lumbering monstrous figure, and some sources say that
that type of lumbering automaton went on to influence Frankenstein's Monster.
(08:00):
I watched a clip of that silent film. Actually today
you can find little bits of it on YouTube. Good
to know. It's also good to know that the golem
persists as this type of legendary savior who can rescue
the world from its darkest hour, not unlike King Arthur.
You know, I guess that's the closest corollary I can
think of. But we discussed King Arthur in a podcast
(08:23):
a while ago, and we talked about that when the
world reaches that point where it just can't be turned
back to good, King Arthur will come and set things right.
And part of the legend of the Golem that persists
is that when we're in our darkest hour, the Golem
will return and I guess walk the streets menacingly until
things are good again. And The New York Times r
(08:45):
in an article earlier this month about the Golem coming
back in this time of crisis, and they quoted a
derivatives trader, Jacob Roth, who's also a prominent member of
the Jewish community, who explained that the one protects from,
to quote him, global recession, Islamic fundamentalism, Russian aggression. It
(09:07):
wouldn't be out of left field to say that these
types of conditions are right for the Golem to come back.
And he's certainly suggesting that the world is in a
place now that it could use a golem. But you've
raised a question to me earlier, Katie, when we were
talking about the golem, that made a lot of sense,
because by definition, the golem takes instruction very literally, and
(09:27):
unless it has that guiding force, what would happen? Well, exactly,
And it's not a messiah that just comes. It's something
that the people of a community create and give life to,
and then give direction to. Even if the golem, the
Golem of Prague was said to have gone on its
murderous rampage, that's not generally what golems do. Know, And
(09:51):
I guess the part of the legend where I'm a
little bit foggy is the idea of the golem coming back.
I think the New York Times was referenced the Golem
of Prague specifically that the goal of prog would come back.
But as you were saying, you know, he had reached
such a point of destruction in this legend, it seems
unlikely that that would be the right golem for the job.
(10:13):
But if the world needed a golem, is it unthinkable
to say that members of the Jewish community today couldn't
create one to set things right? Well, And there seems
to be a bit of debate about whether a golem
could be real or is just in fact some sort
of myth. And it's hard to decipher between fact and
(10:33):
fiction because as we began the podcast by saying, there's
mention of golem and the Talmud and the Bible makes
reference to this incomplete substance that gives rise to man,
exactly like with Adam and the Bible, who is made
out of clay and then was imbued with a spirit
from God to become a person and become someone with
(10:55):
a soul. But before that he was just a man
shaped clay figure exactly. So when we talk about the
Golem of Prague, it's certainly and um an intriguing legend
and even a little bit of a scary story to
think about a goalm amok in the streets. But in
a religious context, obviously it's it's an idea that's very
(11:16):
important to the tenets of Jewish mysticism, and in an
historical sense, to take it one step further, it's also
important to remember, despite the aspect of the story that
includes the Golan, that the Jews very much were persecuted
in Prague and that they were forced to live in
the ghettos. And even though the idea of of blood
libel is in dispute, whether or not the Jewish people
(11:38):
were charged with blood libel, it is a facet of history,
and it's a facet of of Prague's history when it's
something that's still important. Neo Nazis have been on the
rise in Germany and in other countries, and anti Semitism
is not a thing of the past. Katie, You've you've
raised a very serious question. But I do have one
last aspect of Nazi history that pertains to the Gallon
(11:59):
that I think would be an interesting tidbit to leave
our readers with. Again, this is all dependent on whether
you buy into the golem legend or you ascribe to
your religion that supports the idea of the existence of
a golem. But according to the Golem of Prague story, uh,
he's so fiercely guarded the attic of the old new
synagogue where he was kept where Rabbi left put him,
(12:22):
that the synagogue stayed intact and no one disturbed it.
We're talking about the Gestapo coming through, We're talking about
maybe even um urban development coming through this. This place
really withstood its hold in Prague. And my favorite story
is that when the Nazi soldiers came through and we're
raising the temples, raising the synagogues, this one was untouched.
(12:45):
And apparently a few Nazi soldiers got up into the
attic of the synagogue where they found the golem, and
the golem tore them apart, limb by limb. So I
think there's a lesson there, a sovereign thought indeed. So
be sure as all ways to email us your feedback
and your comments on this podcast and any others that
email address again as History Podcast at how stuff works
(13:07):
dot com, and be sure to visit our website for
more information on legends and folklore at how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com, and be sure to
check out the stuff you missed in History Class blog
on the how stuff works dot com home page.
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