#581-582 "Blood Lies" and "Shabbos Goy"

 Fun Fact #581 

War of The Blood Lies

The story goes that in 1580, in what is now The Czech Republic, The city of Prague had fallen upon hard times. Supposedly it was even so bad that cannibalism began to be practiced and so the city passed a law. Anyone caught with a body in their home would be killed and the one who reported them would receive all the murderer owned, and for a time this worked. 

Yet a short time later people began to get the idea to murder children and plant them in other people’s homes before making false claims. This Practice became known as Blood-Libel (Blood Lies). 

According to myth The Jewish Old-New Synagogue had a Rabbi ask God and helped him create the first Golem by forming the shape of a person using clay/dust and brought it to life by placing a “Word of Power” (thought by some to be God’s name “Yahweh”, but by others to be a Kinyan –person’s soul). Then he informed the unthinking being to guard the Jewish Quarter and it did so.  In some variations of the myth the creature attacks anything that approached the Jewish quarter resulting in the Rabbi having to kill his own creation which is how the word Golem became an adjective in Yiddish for “Clumsy” since it could not distinguish the intent of an order but only the literal translation. Other variations however have the Golem be successful until the Time of Troubles has passed and the Golem is decommissioned with it’s remains being placed in the attic of the Church it protected. 

Yet while Golems in fiction still serve a similar role today, they have evolved somewhat past fiction –in a sense (Robotics). For instance the idea of something that does what you tell it to but can't easily interpret intent unless sat down and trained, is similar to the term used by some programmers in reference to Robots as “High speed Idiots”  since they will do exactly what you tell them without regard to the consequences since they can't think about what the consequences might be to interpret. In this way Robots are a type of Golem with whole languages being invented just to program them (giving them a word so to speak) and names like Huey. 

 Heck even training AI to be better is similar to how only trained Golems in fiction would operate as intended. In fact, since 1965, Israel’s Mainframe has been named “Golem Aleph”  in reference to this fact (translates to “Golem A” with the letter symbolizing oneness with God’s plan). 

While there are more ways such as the Shabbos Goy in which they relate to the modern era that will be a fun Fact for another day. In the meantime just know that Golems are very interesting myths with several variations of the story having evolved over time. 

The interior of the Old New Synagogue in Prague, photograph by Zikmund Reach around 1900; Fostin Cotchen Collection

Image of the original circuit board for “Golden Aleph” 

Fun Fact #482 

Addiction, Art, and The Shabbos Goy

As mentioned Yesterday the Myth of the Golem has evolved over time  even having been thought to have inspired The Novel “Frankenstein” and so let's explore just a few more:

• Art

• Often when an artist struggles to write or make some artwork it to say something specific or meaningful, yet once created and released art can be interpreted in ways contrary to what the creator intended. Thus one moral is “Be careful what you create”

• Shabbos Goy 

• Often stories of Golems have them created to act as the Shabbos Goy or Sabbath Gentiles who take care of the community when the rest of the community is unable to do their work on the Sabbath according to their custom. Yet this is a real Job that people can have with 2 notable former Shabbos Goy being Elvis Presley when he was young, and later President Barack Obama

• Addiction

• Part of the idea of a Golem is it does that which it must and may not be thinking (at least rationally). This is why later addicts in some communities became known as Gollums or Gelems, since they could no longer go easily against addictive will. Which also means it’s likely you’ve met someone with this qualification for a Gelem  before and thus not really a cryptid or mythical monster –although addicts can be dangerous in their own sense. 

• Another way to think of it is the following:

• Slave (Physical) Vs Golem (Mental) (What's the difference)

• Golems are forced servants of the mind but Slaves are forced servants of the body. 

Lastly here is one last Fun Fact for the road: 

One of the more recent versions of The Golem Tale  was the 1916 book “The Golem” by Gustav Meyrink which uses the titular Golem as the monster for a crime-fiction/ detective novel in which once every 33 years The Golem rises again to terrify the city of Prague by striking from the Shadows (a later Detective Comic has Batman fight the Golem and is notable as the first time Batman outright won a story by straight up killing the creature). The Character proved to be popular, but in an attempt to flush him out better The Golem was later reworked into the batman villain known as “ClayFace” –even though he doesnt fit any of the modern definitions for a Golem, but just appears like one in most stories. 

That’s gonna wrap it up for today. Thank you all for reading and please have a wonderful weekend!

Images of Golems for sale to Tourists in Prauge