Eli refers to a famous account of it in a letter printed in 1674 - less than a century after R. Elijah lived. I believe Gershom Scholem first called attention to this letter. I figured I would post it.
It appears in a mammoth work called Sota by Johann Christoph Wagenseil. It is in the section of notes sent to him by Christopher Arnold. Here is the relevant excerpt:
It describes how the golem is created from lime for being a servant, to do housework. It is animated by writing 'Emet' (truth) on its forehead. But it keeps on growing and gets stronger. To cause it to stop, the thing to do is to erase the aleph, leaving the word 'met' (dead).
He says that the Jews in Poland say that one Elias Baal Schem, the name being derived from those who practice magic using divine names, created such a golem. The problem is that the golem grew so big that he couldn't reach up and erase the aleph. So he ordered the golem to bend down and take off his boots. Upon removing the letter, the heavy golem fell onto him and crushed him.
"To cause (the golem) to stop, the thing to do is to erase the aleph, leaving the word 'met' (dead)."
ReplyDeleteFans of the X-Files TV show will remember that fact from the Golem episode!
S., did the Chacham Tzvi and his son, R' Ya'akov Emden take that story about their presumed ancestor as factual?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like it, but it's hard to know. For example, just from reading this post you would not know one way or another whether I believed this is possible.
ReplyDeleteS,
ReplyDeleteIs 'en passim' Latin, or did you mean 'en passant' (French)?
just from reading this post you would not know one way or another whether I believed this is possible.
ReplyDeleteDo you?
Anon, yes, thank you.
ReplyDeleteHershel, however, if you read many other posts then you probably would know one way or the other.
I forgot to mention in the post that an interesting point which Eli raises is the possibility that R. Eliyah Baal Shem was experimenting with a mechanical human. Even though there will never be any evidence for this, I think it's an interesting suggestion.
ReplyDeleteA suggestion which he did not raise, which I think is entirely possible, is that he actually did build (shape, form) a golem. And why wouldn't he? It is hard to believe that no one ever actually tried to make one. It is certainly possible too that this very heavy golem, fell on top of him.