Judaism discovered
Yüklə 1,67 Mb.
|
The Golem of Prague As we have seen, during the Renaissance, crypto-Judaism formed the centerpiece of the occult belt of transmission which gave rise to Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, the founders of which professed a "Christian Kabbalah" and performed their magic rites in the name of Jesus Christ. Implicit within this movement was the impression that the rabbis, after millennia of intense Bible study, had a hermeneutical command far superior to that of Christians. There is a substantial literature on this occult amalgam, including Frances A. Yates' classic studies, the previously cited The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972) and The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (1979). The great appeal of the Kabbalah to nascent Freemasons and Rosicrucians was Judaism's doctrine, as expressed by Scottish Rite Freemason Albert Pike in his Morals and Dogma, of the "perfection" of the universe through the intervention of human brain power. By this concept, God's creation is imperfect and the "Jew" and the Jew's assistant, the Freemason (an incomplete "Jew" as symbolized by the masonic square and compass, which is an incomplete hexagram, i.e. "Star of David"), will perfect this flawed creation. This is expressed in the Talmud and Kabbalah. In the Talmud it appears in BT Sanhedrin 65b: "Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Oshaia spent every Sabbath eve in studying the 'Book of Creation' by means of which they created a third-grown calf and ate it." The reference to the "Book of Creation" in Sanhedrin 65b, is to the Kabbalistic book of magic, the Sefer Yezirah, which we discussed earlier. The Sefer Yezirah text is Judaism's pivotal thaumaturgic handbook for man playing God. The notes to BT Sanhedrin 65b in the Soncino edition state that the rabbis' magical act of creating the calf "does not come under the ban of witchcraft (because) the Creation was accomplished by means of the power inherent in...mystic combinations of the Divine Name." While this Talmudic reference to the rabbinic creation of life is obscure, another rabbinic act of creation using Kabbalistic combinations of the letters of the "Divine Name" is better known, if not notorious. This is the "golem," dead matter supposed to have been brought to life as a gentile-killing avenger. Kabbalistic legend has this occurring in the Bohemian capital city of Prague circa 1586, through the power of Rabbi Judah Loew, by means of a Kabbalistic amulet he fashioned containing magical letters. 803
"One of the constant themes of Jewish esoteric thought is the belief in human power, that being made in the image of God, were we wise enough, righteous enough, enlightened enough, we would have it in our power to truly be co-creators with God. How? Well it starts with the esoteric doctrine that the Hebrew letters are the building blocks by which God created the universe (Gen. R. 4:2, 12:10; Bahir 59). It's an imperfect analogy, but Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) treats the Alef-Bet as if it were a kind of periodic table. Properly arranged and joined, we can use the letters as God did in constructive ways. But the key to unlock the power of the Alef-Bet is the correct use of divine names. The proof text for this is a passage from Psalms: "By the word "YHVH,' the heavens were made." Ps. 33:6. Now that's not the conventional translation — your Bible probably translates it as 'By the word of the LORD, the heavens were made.' But the construct 'of is assumed, and the occult translation is equally valid. So if we know how to use the Tetragrammaton and other divine names of power, we too could do as God does. What can you do with the names and letters? Well, a variety of things, but one of the most fascinating is that you can make a golem. A golem is artificial life. This idea that the wise can make life is not limited to the occult side of Judaism, it is even mentioned in the Talmud: Rava stated: If they wish, Zadikkim could create a world. Rava created a man and he sent it to Rabbi Zeira. Rabbi Zeira spoke with it and it did not respond. Rabi Zeira then stated, 'You are created by my colleague, return to your dust.' Rav Chanina and Rav Oshiah would sit every Friday and study the Sefer Yetzirah and create a calf that has reached a third of its potential development and subsequently eat it. From the time of the Talmud, the golem has held a special place in the Jewish imagination. By most accounts, the golem has no free will or the power of language, though some stories have the golem utter words of warning from heaven. As a soulless entity, the golem is not required to fulfill the commandments (There are even theoretical discussions of the rights and obligations of golems under Judaic law."968 Since the animation came from using the secret name of God, the golem could be returned to inanimate earth by reciting the divine name in reverse. Alternate traditions require not only the use of God's name Yahweh in the formation ritual, but also that the word emet (truth) be written on the . 804
forehead of the creature. Erasing the letter alef would leave only the word met (death), thereby slaying the golem (Sefer Gematriot). The most well-known golem story is the golem of Prague, created by Rabbi Judah Loew (1525-1609), the "Maharal" (Morenu Ha-Rav Loew). Intrigued enough to try your hand at making one? We don't recommend it, but golem recipes do exist. Here's a sample that appears in Moshe Idel's book: "Whoever studies Sefer Yetzirah has to purify himself, don white robes. It is forbidden to study alone, but only in two's and three's, as it is written...and the beings they made in Haran, (Gen. 12:5) and as it is written, two are better than one, (Eccl. 4:9) and as it is written, It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him (Gen. 2:18). For this reason Scripture begins with a 'bet' (which has the numeric value of 2) — 'Bereshit bara,' He created. It is required that he take virgin soil from a place in the mountain where none has plowed. Then he shall knead the soil with living water and shall make a body and begin to permutate the alef-bet of 221 gates, each limb separately, each limb with the corresponding letter mentioned in Sefer Yetzirah . And the alef-bets shall be permutated first, then afterward he shall permutate with the vowel — alef, bet, gimel, dalet — and always the letter of the divine name with them, and all the alef-bet. Afterward, (all the letters with each of the vowels, as with the alef: ah, ah, ai, ee, oh, and then e) . Afterward, the permutation of alef with a letter from the divine name plus the vowels, alef-yud, and similarly in its entirety. Afterward he shall appoint bet and likewise gimel and each limb with the letter designated to it. He shall do this when he is pure. These are the 221 gates. {Commentary to Sefer Yetzirah by Eleazar of Worms)." 969 This folklore, which has been invested with great significance by occultists within and without Judaism, is the original Frankenstein concept, which no longer seems so outlandish in the 21st century with its animal and human cloning, its mixture of animal, human and insect genes and the subsequent growth of monstrous, hybrid creatures for the maximization of profit and under the pretext of finding "wonder cures" for various human ailments. The rise of a city of death obsessed with autopsies, cadavers, fetal tissue and other dead matter, and with man playing God, was foretold in the writings of Dr. Dee. 805
"The word golem is an ancient one, probably more than three thousand years old. It makes its first — and only — appearance in the Bible, in a slightly different form in Psalm 139, verse 16: Tour eyes have seen my unformed limbs (or embryo, golmi).' Hundreds of years later the word as we know it, golem, is used in the Talmud, where it means 'unshaped matter' or 'unfinished creation,' and, in one case, in Ethics of the Fathers210 5:9, the opposite of a wise man-a boor, a simpleton, which anticipates the much later evocative Yiddish expression 'leymener geylem' (literally, a clay golem) to signify a fool. But not until the Middle Ages did 'golem' assume its current meaning, 'artificial man,' or 'creature of clay.' In Jewish culture and the Hebrew literary tradition, the concept of a golem goes back about sixteen centuries to a Talmudic sage from Babylonia named Rava, who reputedly created a man, but one who could not talk. Although this creature was not called a golem, the legend surrounding Rava's creation can be viewed as an antecedent for subsequent golem tales. In the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 65b, we read: 'Rava b'ra gavra' — Rava created a man. In its very construction and anagramic quality, the three-word sentence radiates a mysticism of its own, for the letters 'b/v', V and 'a' appear in all three words. Rashi, the classic eleventh-century French exegete to the Bible and Talmud, comments: 'This creature was created with the help of Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation, a seminal kabbalistic text of the third to sixth centuries C.E.), for they learned the proper combinations of letters of God's name." (YHVH). "The Talmud goes on to relate that after Rava created this man, he sent him to Rav Zeira, who spoke to this creation but it did not answer him. Why? Because artificially created men do not have the ability to speak — and Rava's anthropoid followed the rules. Rav Zeira then told him: 'You have been created by one of my colleagues...Return to dust.' Over the centuries, from the Middle Ages to modern times, and in many lands, these famous lines in Sanhedrin...have achieved an iconic status. This passage-a centerpiece in all excurses on the golem — was analyzed and commented upon by many mystics. Leading figures in world Jewry, kabbalists, scholars, and rabbis, Nachmanides among them, were magnetized by these but potent words that were examined from the perspective of magic, religion, spirituality, theosophy, and intellect. In golem legends there are various ways of bringing .
806 the clay creature to life...the golem is vivified by three rabbis marching around him seven times while saying various names of God in special kabbalistic permutations..." 971 Of course it can be rightly said that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the actual corporeal existence of a mute humanoid "Golem" figure. Whether it existed in Prague or whether modern science will bring it into existence in the future, is not the central point. If the Golem is only a myth then it serves to instruct, as all myths do. And we can derive from it insight into the psychology of those who believe the myth and propagate it to future generations. Beyond the sorcerous aspect, the Golem story reveals the attitude of Judaics toward non-Judaics. The central villain of the Golem tale is "the viciously antisemitic Catholic priest Thaddeus," along with any gentile who believes that Judaics in any time or at any place ever murdered a Christian infant. Another key revelation is that the huge, dumb Golem is a non-Judaic who faithfully does the bidding of the rabbi who created him, only to have his vitality "undone" by this god-like rabbi who, in the end, reduces the Golem to dust. It is not difficult to see in this motif the destiny of gentiles who serve the rabbis. Though it has been heatedly denied by many within Judaism, the main source for the Golem mythos is the 17th century work Niflo'es Maharal by Rabbi Loew's son-in-law, Rabbi Isaac Katz. Much like the Toledot Yeshu, Katz' material was circulated in manuscript form in the shetls of Eastern Europe. It was published in 1909 in Warsaw, in a modern Hebrew edition under the auspices of the Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Yudl Rosenberg (1859-1935).972 Fantasy literature (if indeed we can call it that) such as the Golem material, foretells how people would like to shape the world if they had the power. Many talented Zionists entered the New York and California media and entertainment industry in the 20th century and continued this legacy of projecting depictions and predictions onto the minds of the masses, and often by this means they cause the fantasy to become a reality. Hollywood television programs often portray gentiles seeking to frame a Judaic with .
false accusations and contrived evidence. In the Golem tales Christians throw dead Christians babies into the homes of Judaics in effort to blame them for the child's death. On American television, producers have taken populist complaints about Zionists and rabbis, distorted them and then put them into a debate format in a docudrama or police procedure program wherein the gentile antagonist, made to spout stock "antisemitic" invective, is defeated by a kindly or scholarly Judaic. This script is also derived from the stories about the Golem. In one of the Golem tales, "bigoted" Catholic priests debate Rabbi Judah Loew. He of course is victorious in the debate, but nota bene: at the conclusion of the debate, a Catholic cardinal sides with the rabbi against his own priests; quite a prescient prediction! These stories have been imprinted on the minds of Talmudic youth for hundreds of years in Golem storybooks. These remain in print and circulation in our time, with the added dimension of being accompanied by vibrant, full page, all-color illustrations. Here is part of the text from one sample of this hate literature: "A long time ago, there lived a great and learned man who was the chief rabbi of all the Jews in the city of Prague. His name was Judah Loew, which means the lion. So deep was his faith, it was believed he could perform miracles. He was very wise and kind, and the Jews came to him for advice and help whenever they needed it. The life of the Jews was very hard. The emperor permitted them to live in only one part of the city, the ghetto, which they were forbidden to leave after sundown...Most of the Jews were poor, very poor. Jews sometimes worked with the Christians of Prague...But mostly they kept separate. The life of the Jews was mysterious and strange to the others. Maybe because of this, many of the townspeople distrusted the Jews, and some hated them. The hatred went so deep that lies were made up about them. Terrible lies, some of them, spread to give an excuse to arrest Jews or even to start a bloody pogrom, a massacre of innocent Jews. Why? Who knows why? Maybe just because they were Jewish. That was enough."973 "Still, they managed mostly to be as happy as anyone else in the world. So what if they had to break their backs for pennies? So what if they were sometimes hungry? So what if so many Christians hated them? God willing, they believed, and with the help of such a man as Rabbi Loew, they would all
live and be well...Rabbi Loew would make a creature that looked like a man but was not a man. The creature would not exactly be alive like a person, but neither would he be dead. The creature would hear, but not speak. He would move but only when commanded to. He would do just what he was told. He would be big and extremely strong. Such a being, only partly like a human, was called a Golem. 974 .
809
810 "Rabbi Loew called his two greatest students to his house — Isaac Sampson and Jacob Sasson. First he swore them to secrecy. Then he told them of his plan to create a Golem to help and protect the Jews of Prague. The two men agreed to do whatever the rabbi asked. Very early one morning, long before first light, the three men quietly left their houses and met in the night-filled ghetto square. Jacob carried a bundle under his arm. The rabbi held the Torah scroll from the synagogue. Silently, the three walked to the River Moldau. They followed the clay bank until the rabbi spoke. 'Here.' It looked no different to Jacob and Isaac than any other part. But there they stopped, and set to work. With their bare hands, they picked up clay and pushed it together to form a shape. Gradually, as if coming from the earth itself: a figure took form. Complete with arms and legs, head and hands and feet, there lay before them a clay figure of a huge man lying on his back, his eyes closed as if in sleep. Isaac/ The rabbi instructed him to circle the shape seven times, from right to left, and told him the formulas to whisper as he walked. When Isaac had finished, the figure turned glowing red, as though on fire. 'Jacob/ The rabbi then also instructed him to circle the shape seven times, but from left to right, and gave him the formulas he was to recite. When Jacob was finished, the figure darkened and steam poured from the clay, as if water had been poured on flames. While the men watched, hair slowly sprouted from its head, and nails grew on its fingers and toes....With the rabbi in the lead, holding the Torah in his two hands, the three danced slowly around the figure. Seven times they circled the formed clay lying on the earth. They then bowed to the four corners of the world. The rabbi spoke directly to the figure: The Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed the spirit of life into its nostrils, and man became a living creature.' Blood seemed to flow through the clay, which became like skin. The shape took on the look of human flesh. Suddenly, its eyes opened. They looked directly at Rabbi Loew, hard and dark. The rabbi shivered. The Golem was alive. 'Stand up!' the rabbi commanded. Clumsy, half falling, the Golem got to his feet. He towered over the three men. His eyes never left Rabbi Loew's face. 'Golem,' Rabbi Loew said, 'understand that we created you for one reason only — to help and protect the Jews. Do you understand?' The Golem nodded. Tou can hear, but you cannot speak. It is better so. Because you look like a man and walk like a man, but you are not a man. You will remain forever not complete. Do you understand?' the rabbi repeated. The 811
Golem's eyes seemed to flare. He nodded again. *You have been granted great powers/ the rabbi went on, 'powers that no human being can possess. But you will use them only for the sake of the Jews.' The Golem understood. 'Last, you will never forget that you are my servant,' the rabbi continued... 'You will always do exactly what you are told...I name you Joseph, after a creature half human and half demon who did much to help the Jews in ancient times.-.you will dress in the clothes Jacob carries in his bundle. They are shabby but clean. I will tell people that I found you wandering homeless in the streets, a mute of simple mind..." 975 In addition to showing "the great and learned chief rabbi of all the Jews in the city of Prague" wiling to tell people a lie about the origin of the Golem, we see the "Lord God" and the "Torah" being invoked in "formulas" of black magic involving Kabbalistic permutations such as "bowing to the four corners" and "circling" intended to create an artificial man "from clay." Furthermore, it is stipulated that tremendous physical (i.e. military and police) power, as represented by the Golem, is "only for the sake of the Jews." This is not an adults-only text intended for a sophisticated class in comparative religion at a university. This is a horatory book for showing Judaic children how to behave and what their position is in the world in relation to non-Judaics. This paranoid work of magic and hate literature is endorsed by The New York Times Book Review; The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review); School Library Journal ("highly recommended") and Kirkus Reviews ("belongs in every library collection"). It even manages to link the Golem to Auschwitz! Along the way it accuses, defames and degrades gentiles and Christians. If these were Judaics being degraded and libeled this volume would be condemned as hate literature, but because the accusers are Judiacs and rabbis all is well in the eyes of the various media-described "human rights watchdog groups." In the Golem stories imparted to Judaic children generation after generation, in addition to familiar hagiographical exempla, we encounter: 1. Christians trying to poison Judaics: "He (Rabbi Loew) summoned all the people who had been involved with the baking of the Passover matzos and asked if anyone not Jewish had worked with them. 'Yes.' A small Jew with a long beard stepped forward. 'On the last day, we were afraid they .
812
would not be ready in time. So we asked two Christian baker's apprentices to help us. What else could we do?" 976 2. A Christian lies about "Jews" and entraps them with faked evidence ghoulishly extracted from a graveyard: "One of the leaders of the Jewish community — a wealthy man, may his luck stay golden — had lent a large sum of money to a Christian butcher. He did not repay one penny, and the Jew was about to take him to court. The butcher burned with hatred for the Jew, because he knew he could not pay him back. A plan to land him in prison grew in the butcher's mind. He went to the cemetery and found the new grave of a Gentile child who had just died. By the light of the moon, he dug up the body. With his knife, he slit its throat so the corpse would look slaughtered. Carefully he wrapped it in a tallis, the Jewish fringed prayer shawl. This bundle he placed inside the body of a dead pig he had put in his cart, and covered it with a sack. The butcher went off to the ghetto. He planned to leave the poor child's corpse in the Jew's basement, where surely it would be found and result in the Jew's imprisonment." 977 The only thing that prevented this terrible miscarriage of justice against the innocent Judaic on the part of the evil gentile was the intervention of the Golem. 3. A Catholic priest, "Thaddeus," tries to convert a Judaic girl ("Dina")
.
813 wish to leave the Jewish faith?' the cardinal asked, 'Because Judaism is barbaric, and I wish to have no part of it...the Jews slaughter Christians and use the blood in their religious rituals." Dina, the convert to Christianity, is proved to be an evil perjurer and is sentenced to a prison term of six years. Meanwhile, Thaddeus the priest tries to frame an innocent Judaic accused in court of murder, while a "mob had gathered outside the courthouse, not a Jew among them...Jew haters would fall on the ghetto like beasts..." 978 4. In a Golem story titled "The Five-Sided Palace," the priest becomes a child-murderer. While it is a mortal sin of cosmic proportions to accuse any Judaic of child-murder, this Golem tale depicts a Catholic priest killing children and filling "vials" with their blood; this depiction, in a story intended for young people, is of course entirely right and proper in the eyes of the US children's literature Establishment: .
814 The Golem Thaddeus, the evil priest, appears in many versions of the legend. But he is not based on any one person. He is a combination of several, for all too often priests spoke out against Jews, calling them killers of Christ and accusing them of evil and murderous deeds. The lies told about Jews regularly resulted in pogroms, sometimes led by the priests themselves. Often Jews were forced to leave their own country. This happened in England, France, Spain, Italy, and elsewhere throughout Europe. The Five-Sukc) Palace seed of his plot against the Jews. For the child had no reason to suspect the priest, who was no stranger to her, and went with him gladly. Thaddeus murdered her and filled the marked vials with her blood. He was by then so maddened with glee at what he had planned Thaddeus the "evil priest" murders a Judaic child in Barbara Rogasky's popular American children*s storybook, The Golem, "Highly recommended" by the School Library Journal. Kirkus Reviews said, "belongs in every library..." 815 Another version of "The Five-Sided Palace" Golem story: The Maharai knew that this priest always lay in wait to crush him and have his vengeance upon him. The priest cre ated wily stratagems to make him fall into the pit he had dug regarding the blood libel because the Maharai attempted al ways with all his might to guard the city from the false accu sation of ritual murder. The rabbi also knew that the priest Thaddeus still burned with rage over the matter of Reb Mikhli Berger's daughter, because his scheme for converting her was thwarted. Moreover, this priest was a great sorcerer and un derstood that this could have been accomplished by no one but the Maharai Yudl Rosenberg, The Golem 816
|