An animated being was made by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609) of Bohemia. Around 1580, the rabbi made a clay figure that he called a golem, from the name given to Adam before Jehovah (Yahweh) breathed life into him. The golem was made to protect the Jews of Prague against attack by Christians.
The rabbi used pure water and clay from a new pit to make the little figure. As he fashioned each part, he blessed it. The golem was brought to life by inserting a slip of paper with the sacred word shem written on it under the clay tongue.
The golem scared away the Christians who prowled around the Jewish quarters, and it also did all the cleaning in the rabbi’s house. Each Friday night the rabbi removed the life-giving slip of paper from beneath the golem’s tongue, so that like all Jews it would cease to work until sunset on Saturday (Sabbath).
However, one Friday night the rabbi forgot to remove the slip of paper and the golem ran riot. After some brief mayhem the golem was captured and locked away in the cellars of the Great Synagogue in Prague. According to tradition, it lies there still, waiting to be reanimated.
Hasidic-Lubavitch rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) wrote that his father-in-law told him that he saw the remains of the Golem in the attic of Alt-Neu Shul. A rabbi should have reanimated the Golem during the Holocaust and Soviet era. THE END
