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The Czech-Spanish publication of the seminar proceedings Golem in Religion, Science and Art
The Czech-Spanish publication, The Golem in Religion, Science and Art, comprises a series of ten papers by renowned Czech and Argentine authors. It is based on the seminar of the same name that was held as part of the Golem 2002–5763 project at the Education and Culture Centre of the Jewish Museum in Prague on 9 October 2002. The aim of this seminar was to connect various scientific disciplines by means of a common theme (i.e., the Golem phenomenon), as is evident in the papers of the individual authors. The publication was put together by Miloš Pojar and edited by David Grossmann and Miloš Pojar. Spanish translation by Kateřina Kráčmarová and Eduardo Fernandéz Couceiro. Cover design by Jana Žemličková, graphic design by Kateřina Vlčková. Printed by Helvetica & Tempora, spol. s.r.o.
Content:
Maria Kodama de Borges, Borges’s Golem
Abraham Skorka, God, Man and Golem. Golem Aspects of Human Beings
Neubauer, The Legend of the Golem
Vladimír Sadek, Rabbi Loew and the Tradition of the Golem
Arno Pařík, The Golem in Czech Art, or Problems with Figuration
Ladislava Hájková, The
Golem in Czech Literature
Blažena Urgošíková, The Golem Myth in Film
Pavel Šmok, The Golem and Ballet
Maria
Kodama de Borges, Borges’s Golem
Jorge Luis Borges was introduced to the world of the Hebrew Bible as a little boy by his grandmother Fana Haslam. Naturally, it was his later fascination with the work of Gustav Meyrink, whose biography he wrote for the Buenos Aries journal El Hogar, that brought him closer to Jewish mysticism and the Golem. An interest in the cabbala led to his studying the works of Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem and others. In fact, the influence of the cabbala is apparent in Borges’s entire output.
In the poem The Golem (1958), the use of the hidden name of God in connection
with the creation of the Golem leads to nothing but questions, doubts
and anxiety. In the story The Aleph the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet
is used to provide a vision of a small iridescent sphere which can encompass
the entire universe. The story Circular Ruins (1944) suggests a link
between Buddhist philosophy and the idea of the Golem.
Borges often plays with the idea of the power of words. He creates the
notion of a parallel world where our existence is either dreamed up
or written down (poem The Compass, 1964). The influence of the “literalism”
of the cabbala and of Gnostic and Rosicrucian texts is perhaps most
evident in The Library of Babel (1941), in which is materialised the
idea of a colossal library that comprises within it all combinations
of letters, including, therefore, the mighty name of God. The power
of the word in combination with alchemy appears also in Paracelsus’s
Rose (1983). For Borges, however, words not only represent power that
mankind tries to abuse; they can also save it, as is demonstrated in
the story On the Salvation of Art (1984), in which Shinto deities decide,
in the end, not to destroy mankind only because of the beauty of the
seventeen syllables of a haiku.
Leo Pavlát, The Golem
The prototype golem is Adam. While God managed to pass onto man part
of his creative strengths, speech and free will, he made him his partner.
Mankind, however, was not able to pass on these qualities to the Golem.
Talmud scholars read the Torah to find the mystery of the creation and
hidden divine judgements. In the tractate Sanhedrin it is written: “If
the devout wanted, they could create the world.” The means of this creation
was the Word. This interpretation became the central theme of Jewish
mysticism, the basic work of which is Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation).
According to this book, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet also have
material energy and the way they are combined brings about the creation
of the world in all its variety. From this also comes the idea of the
golem as an artificial being created by man. Indeed, it is in the twelfth-
thirteenth century commentaries to this work that the first instructions
for creating the golem appear (Sodey razayya Eleazar of Worms, instructions
of the Cherubim Cabbalistic sect of northern France). Conversely, the
creation of a golem as a journey towards an ecstatic vision that is
part of mystical contemplation is described by Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
of Saragossa. For any reference to the creation of something material
was unacceptable to him. The creation of a material golem followed on
more from the German Hassidic tradition. Naturally, a material golem
of such a kind had its limitations – it could not speak or reproduce
and was denied a number of other attributes with which God endowed man.
It is not able to make decisions and cannot differentiate between good
and bad.
The most prominent golems came into existence in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, which was also a time when Christian alchemists (such as
Paracelsus) were working on the creation of artificial beings. The first
of these was the Chelm Golem, which was created by Eliijah Baal Shem
who shaped a being from clay and brought it to life by suspending an
amulet with the inscription emet (truth).
Of course, much more well-known today is the second of the above beings
– the Golem of the Rabbi Loew of Prague, who is enveloped in many other
legends. Loew himself does not refer directly to the creation of the
Golem in any of his works but, when describing the world of divine causality,
which is superior to the world of natural laws, he does admit that there
are ways of manipulating the name of God in order to create such a being.
In his commentary on Pirkei avot he refers to the Golem, in a completely
different sense, as a person who is the opposite of a scholar. In the
end, it was as an unmannered and unintelligent oaf that it found its
way into Prague legends.
It was not until the first half of the nineteenth century that the Golem
set out on its true path for fame. In the 1840s it appeared in collections
of Jewish legends, which were later developed by Czech and German scholars
who achieved world fame for the Golem. At the beginning of the twentieth
century, Judith Rosenberg “discovered” the book Nifla’ot Maharal ha-Golem
mi Prag (The Miraculous Deeds of Rabbi Loew with the Golem in Prague),
which allegedly dated from the sixteenth century. In it the Golem is
shown to be a protector of the ghetto against false accusations of ritual
murder. It is precisely because of this theme, which was topical at
the time that researchers came to view it as a faked document.
The Golem now lives a life of its own. As a powerful metaphor it attracts
artists and scientists throughout the world who are giving it a new
form that is not dependent on old Jewish models.
Abraham Skorka, God, Man and Golem. Golem Aspects
of Human Beings
The multiple meaning of the word golem in Hebrew has been analysed many
times, the main focus being placed on two interpretations – as an artificial
anthropoid and as a person whose behaviour is, in a certain sense, unbalanced.
The latter interpretation was subsequently incorporated into Yiddish,
where the word golem became synonymous with a stupid, clumsy or boorish
(inconsiderate) person. This interpretation is supported and concretised
in commentaries on the Mishnah, specifically the tractate Pirkei avot.
In these the Golem is seen as a person who can acquire intellectual
skills but lacks moral qualities. The ideal of human wisdom is therefore
the attainment of a balance between scholarship and the ability to recognise
and to do good.
This interpretation opens up the possibility of a psychological account
of the golem phenomenon. This is of particular relevance after the brutalities
that were inflicted during World War II by one of the most educated
European nations with the consent of a large portion of its intelligentsia.
In the course of Creation, Adam was a golem, a substance that has the
possibility of acquiring certain abilities that can help him to attain
wisdom or to turn him into a destructive creature of terror. The same
is the case for man. The Creation was therefore not completed on the
sixth day; it is still continuing. Man, thanks to his free will and
ability to recognise and do good, participates in a continual process
of creation with God. Justice and faith enable man to transcend his
golem stage and to take on board his creative development.
Efraim K. Sidon, The Prague Golem
The creation of golems is described in the Torah, although this is somewhat
problematic when Abraham and Sarah, during their departure from Charan,
took their property and the “soul they had made”.. The Talmud describes
the creation of a golem both as a calf and a person; naturally, it also
tries to find an answer to the question why man cannot create as perfectly
as the Creator himself. The difference lies only in the existence of
human sin. For we do not live in the world as it could and will be after
the arrival of the Messiah, but in a world corrupted by sin. Man cannot
therefore create a perfect artificial being.
In the Jewish tradition the creation of artificial beings is not understood
as something forbidden or impossible. Man can create by using the word
for, in this world, it is the image and imprint of God who does so.
On the other hand, however, he asks the question whether man should
really create such beings (as in the tradition of Rabbi ben Sirovi).
And this question, facing the reality of genetic engineering, is once
again a topical issue. Even the righteous were tied down by sin to such
an extent that they could create only imperfect golems. What could genetic
engineers create then?
Zdeněk Neubauer, The Legend of the Golem
Originally the Golem theme was seen as a tale about the dangers that
came about as a result of the seizing of God’s creation by man in the
desire to take the place of God. The Golem myth was initially considered
to be a warning against the consequences of science which claims to
be rational while using magical, ‘non-transparent’, means and procedures
about which one has ascertained how they work but not what they mean.
According to such an interpretation the Golem legend warns us of the
opacity of scientific assumptions.
According to current understanding, this legend expresses man’s fear
of his own creations. However, it reminds us more of the unforeseeable
nature of the consequences of our rationality, whose assumptions we
nonetheless regard as comprehensible and reliable. It has emerged that
science is not a form of magic that merely claims to be rational, but
that its very rationality is magical. It is a completely different kind
of rationality than the traditional one, which is based on a direct,
rational view. It is a cabbalistic rationality based on text – depending
on the fact that “what is written is done” – clearly and distinctly,
in black and white. It is the rationality of the Cabbala, fully in the
context of biblical spirituality. The Golem, too, belongs to the Cabbala.
The Golem personifies the nature of modern science. In fact, it emerged
at a time when science was fundamentally changing its view of the world.
Analogical perception was replaced by various processes of rationalism.
The Golem also connects the mythical world with the world of science.
As a mass of clay brought to life by the word, it is a part of the mythical
Prague trinity which comprises the Bambino di Praga (the Infant Jesus)
– the second Adam, the Word of God which materialised into a body –
and, in the centre, Jan Nepomuc, a historical figure whose sculpture
stands on Charles Bridge, connecting the Old Town – the Golem’s territory
– with the Little Quarter, the “home” of the Prague Infant Jesus.
There is also an analogy with the Golem in the present. One such analogy
is the computer. This works by using letters and symbols – specifically
ones and zeros. The basis of the clay from which the Golem was created
is silicate. One of the main materials used in modern computer technology
is silicon. The shem of computers, which is what makes it similar to
human beings, is their software – programs that are the fruit of human
invention. It is therefore no coincidence that, on a proposal of sGershom
Scholem, the first Israeli computer was named after the Prague Golem.
The second analogy is the atomic reactor. To a certain extent it may
be claimed that Jewish scientists worked on the use of atomic energy
before and during World War II in order to save their nation; in certain
legends, a similar role was performed by the Golem. An analogy may also
be drawn with the destructive impact and power of atomic energy, which
mankind can keep under control only with difficulty.
Vladimír Sadek, Rabbi Loew and the Tradition
of the Golem
The creation of an artificial being is described in the Babylon Talmud
(Sanhedrin 65b) and the word golem also appears in the Hebrew Bible
(Psalms 139:6). The first known instructions for creating a golem, however,
do not appear until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – in the commentaries
on the Sefer Yetzirah in the context of medieval Hassidism. The original
meaning of the creation of the golem was clearly based on a mystical-ecstatic
experience. Later on, of course, golem making ceased to be an initiatory
mystic experience and came to be described as an endeavour to create
a servile being. In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries this endeavour
was ascribed to various Jewish scholars and mystics. In subsequent legends
there appeared also an element of rebellion in the golem, directed against
its creator (as in the Chelm legend). In the present day the golem legend
is connected most frequently with the name of Rabbi Loew, who is the
hero of countless other legends, but on no account is his historical
and intellectual importance rooted in them.
Rabbi Loew was, at the same time, a traditional and a modern thinker.
In the sphere of religious philosophy, pedagogy and aesthetics he was
able to place traditional ideas in new contexts and, in this way, reach
what for his time were progressive conclusions (such as the equality
of nations and their right to self-determination). The term golem, however,
was used by Rabbi Loew only in a philosophical sense and is not mentioned
in any of his works. The earliest known connection between Rabbi Loew
and the Golem can be found in a book by Ludwig Kalisch, dating from
the first half of the nineteenth century. Later on, at the beginning
of the twentieth century, a discovery was made of the book Nifla’ot
Maharal, which was popularised in the 1920s by Hayyim Bloch. In the
view of most contemporary historians, however, this was a faked document.
It is therefore very difficult to find the answer to why the golem legend
is so often connected with Rabbi Loew. Perhaps it is because the golem
tradition is close to Hassidism and to mystical thinking, of which Rabbi
Loew was a proponent. Moreover, there are a number of indications from
which it may even be inferred that he considered the creation of a golem
to be a possibility.
Interpretations of the golem tradition have undergone various developments. In the earliest versions the Golem is created by using the name of God; for the Prague Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), which placed emphasis on rational knowledge, the golem is more of an artificial machine; at the beginning of the twentieth century the Golem is created with the purpose of protecting the Jews.
But what exactly was the Golem, if it was actually created? It is probably
that the creation of the Golem was a certain mystical-ecstatic experience.
The Golem could also be the vision of a spiritual or astral body. For
such an interpretation of the Golem there is even a Tibetan analogy,
which is described by ethnographer Alexandr David-Néel.
Rabbi Loew realized the danger connected with the creation of the Golem
and decided not to continue in his experiments with the artificial being.
It remains to be seen whether humanity will be as far-sighted and whether
it will take an example from Rabbi Loew in its attempt to be on a level
with God.
Ladislava Hájková, The Golem in Czech Literature
Paradoxically, it was a German-language collection of Jewish legends
Sippurim (1847) that brought the Golem and Rabbi Loew into the world
of Czech literature in the mid-nineteenth century. For this book was
used as a source by such authors as Alois Jirásek (for his Staré pověsti
české / Old Bohemian Legends) and Eduard Petiška, thanks to whom the
Golem and Rabbi Loew became established in the Czech context. Although
the individual variations of these legends are very similar, they can
broadly be divided into two groups. In the first, the Golem is brought
to life to protect the ghetto and its life is ended once the danger
has gone; in the second, the Golem is created as a servant and must
be stopped the moment he starts to rage.
Naturally, themes from the golem legends also appeared in original literary
works by Czech writers. Rabbi Loew is a central character in Jaroslav
Vrchlický‘s comedy Rabínská moudrost / Rabbinic Wisdom. The latter also
wrote a separate poem entitled Golem (Já nechal svět jít kolem / I Let
the World Go Past, 1902), in which Rabbi Loew is punished for his desire
to be on a level with God. The Golem theme was also used by the representative
of the Prague Decadence Jiří Karásek of Lvovice. In his novel Ganymedes
(1925) he tries to connect with golem theme with that of Pygmalion,
while replacing heterosexual love with a destructive, homosexual one.
In 1931, thanks to Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich, the Golem appeared
on the stage of the Liberation Theatre in the form of a “romantic revue”.
In the 1960s it was featured by the Semafor Theatre and later used in
satirical poems by Jiří Suchý. A somewhat more serious treatment of
the Golem theme was attempted by Vítězslav Nezval. In his poem Rabbi
Loew (Praha s prsty deště / Prague with the Rain’s Fingers, 1936) he
tries to find an analogy between poetry and the creative yet destructive
power of Rabbi Loew and his creation. Eva Hudečková’s short prose work
Bratříček Golem / Brother Golem (1993) shows that the Golem theme still
appears in Czech literature to this day. In it the Golem, this time,
appears as a protector of the righteous.
Arno Pařík, The Golem in Czech Art, or Problems
with Figuration
It was relatively late on, in connection with new interest in the Golem
legend at the beginning of the twentieth century that the Golem was
represented in art. It was not by chance that many of these initial
literary, theatrical and film versions of Golem stories, which from
the beginning were often tinged with an apocalyptic vision of destruction,
were made during or shortly after World War I. The golem character gained
popularity as a result of Meyrink’s novel, Bloch’s dramatisation and
Wegener’s films; its image in art, however, only appeared in illustrations
and set designs. The post-war period was full of social, national and
artistic revolutions and utopian movements that declared the necessity
of destroying the old world and creating a new type of man. The golden
age of these visions occurred in the 1920s, which was a period overflowing
with enthusiasm at the possibilities afforded by new technology and
new ways of arranging the world. Also emanating from the 1920s are various
constructivist projects for the world, ideologies and utopian myths.
It was not until the crisis in European society and the threat of the
Fascist and Nazis movements in the 1930s and 40s that there emerged
a new, more substantial interpretation of the Golem as part of modern
art, in particular surrealism.
However, the Golem had to wait until the second half of the twentieth
century to be genuinely developed in art as one of the symbols of the
modern world. At this time, the Golem resonated in a new way with the
hopes and feelings of anxiety of people living in a technical world
and modern society. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Golem
often embodied the hopes and desires for emancipation and the redemption
of mankind in a better and more just world (including the national aspirations
of the Jews). In the second half of the twentieth century, however,
the Golem embodied mainly the theme of the Sisyphean fate of man and
the feelings of danger associated with the rapid development of modern
technology and society and the imminent threat of self-destruction.
It was in the transformations of the figurative art of this period that
the golem theme found a broader fulfilment and reflection in diverse
variations that perhaps serve to provide a deeper perspective of this
ambiguous symbol of the modern age.
Blažena Urgošíková, The Golem Myth in Film
The Golem first appeared in film in 1914 (under the direction of Paul
Wegener), since when the Golem theme has returned to film at irregular
intervals. It is used both in horror movies and comedies, but has also
appeared in more substantial film material. Within these genres, four
films are of particular interest.
Golem (1920), directed by Paul Wegener, is a horror film that is visually
influenced by German Expressionism. Another important aspect of this
film centres around the abilities and dilemmas of the creator of the
Golem, Rabbi Loew. A Czech-French co-production directed by Julien Duvivier
(Golem, 1936) was made in the mid 1930s. In this film the Golem is brought
to life for a noble purpose – freedom for the Jewish nation; at the
end, however, its destructive force comes to the fore. In 1951 the Golem
appeared in the Czechoslovak comedy The Baker's Emperor – The Emperor's
Baker (Cisaruv pekar a pekaruv cisar), directed by Martin Frič. This
film centres around the exact likeness of the emperor Rudolf II and
his baker. While the emperor is not able to prevent the intrigues of
his courtiers, however, the baker is able to use the enormous strength
of the Golem, not for gaining power but for working to the benefit of
the common people. The overall impression of the film was undoubtedly
influenced by the period and place in which it was made. In the 1980
film Golem, directed by the Polish director Piotr Szulkin, far more
themes than the Golem legends of Prague were drawn from Meyrink’s novel.
By exploring the relationship between man and the Golem and the idea
of the Golem in man and man in the Golem, this film reflected a far
more philosophical and psychological basis.
The fact that the Golem legend still remains a lively topic for filmmakers
is highlighted by the films made by the Israeli director Amos Gitai
in the 1990s.
Pavel Šmok, The Golem and
Ballet
The Golem legend from the perspective of ballet master and choreographer
Pavel Šmok is a personal and witty overview of the various Golem stories.
It describes the dilemmas facing a choreographer who has the task of
getting a clay, formless homunculus and, through dance, to relate his
story in such a way that it is interesting and understandable to the
audience. The whole lecture relates to the staging of the ballet Golem
by the Prague Chamber Ballet, which was premiered on 8 November 2001.
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