[Image]
Golem med sin Pragskapare, rabbi Löw. Av Mikoláš Aleš, 1899. Nationalgalleriet i Prag.
They say that a baal shem in Poland by the name of Rabbi Elias
made a Golem who became so large that the rabbi could no longer reach
his forehead to erase the letter e. He thought up a trick, namely that
the Golem, being his servant, should remove his shoes, supposing that
when the Golem bent over, he would erase the letters. And so it happened
, but when the Golem became mud again, his whole weight fell on the
rabbi, who was sitting on the bench, and crushed him.
Legenden Golem har jag alltid förknippat med Prag och den judiska befolkningen där. Men det finns uppenbarligen andra trådar också. Uppstod Golem-berättelsen rentav i Polen? Culture.pl skriver i veckans nyhetsbrev:
"The legend of the golem - the unformed mass of clay which,
thanks to a magical spell, becomes a living creature – inspired Jewish
cabbalists as early as the 12th century. The possibility of creating a
humanoid creature raised interest from both theorists and practitioners
of Cabbalah - Jewish or not - from Spain to Germany. But the story of the Golem as we know it, whose main narrative
is located in Prague, and which connects the creation of the golem with
the figure of the rabbi Jehuda Loew ben Betsalal (Maharal), was formed
much later - in a period scholars tentatively identify as a time between
the 17th and early 19th century.
It turns out some of the key elements of the legend, including
the figure of Betsalal himself, may have come to Prague via Poland."
Detta spår är mycket intressant att följa. Längre fram i artikeln skriver Mikołaj Gliński:
"According to the Praguian legend, rabbi Betsalal created a golem to
defend the Prague ghetto from anti-semitic attacks and pogroms.
Depending on the version, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled
or killed under the rule of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II. The problem is that this period, often referred to as the Golden Age
of Czech Jewry, was a time of remarkable tolerance toward Jews and
Protestants alike, when Jewish cultural life flourished, and the Jewish
population grew significantly. This makes it a rather unlikely
background for the history of a golem whose main function was to be a
bodyguard of the Jewish community. Another problem is posed by Betsalal himself, the creator of the
Prague Golem. Hillel J. Kieval, an expert in the golemology, points to
the fact that while Betsalal does appear to have had an interest in the
speculative side of Jewish mysticism, he had never written about golem,
nor was he known for having been a devotee of "practical" Kabbalah - the
art necessary to create a Golem. This art, however, flourished in
another nearby state, namely Poland. And Betsalal himself was really
born in Poznań, where he became also the rabbi of Poland, that was
before he moved to Prague."
Hela artikeln kan läsas här. Given fredagsläsning.
Vill du ha ytterligare material är denna sida hos Jewish Virtual Library mycket givande. Där påpekas bland annat detta:
"The golem has been a popular
figure in the arts in the past few centuries
with both Jews and non-Jews. In the early
20th century, several plays, novels, movies,
musicals and even a ballet were based on the
golem. The most famous works where golems
appear are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,
Karel Capek's R.U.R. (where the word
"robot" comes from), Isaac
Bashevis Singer'sThe Golem and The X-Files. There is also a character
named Golem in J.R.R. Tolkien's classic series The Lord of the Rings. Today, there
is even a golem museum in the Jewish Quarter
of Prague."
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