Today, I shall take you on a trip in time. We will follow the tradition and religious field. I’m not too much into religion as you know, but I do like rituals and discovering more about them.

So, today we will travel and discover more about the Judaic religion. I shall tell you about a Judaic tradition. According to tradition, if you are in trouble and you are of Judaic religion .. well then you are in luck. The tradition says you can invoke a clay creature to come and save you from your foe. You may ask, how come? What kind of creature is, does that exist? Well, until recently I never heard about it, but it seems that this creature has a long history. Long enough that the first time when mentioned is in the book of books, and that is the Bible. Where we humans, were seen by God as raw, unfinished creatures of clay. 

We are supposed to be made out of clay considering religions ..even if science has an opposite view about this, saying that more likely we are made out of blood and flesh ( I tend to believe the seconds as hmm I never bleed clay, but who knows:) ) 

Let’s get back to the story, so this creature that you can invoke when you are in big trouble and you need protection is a Golem. Golem in Hebrew means dumb, brainless. Getting back to the Bible, it seems that the two words were characteristic of Adam, the first man. I hope that they were wrong… 

In Talmud, the book of books, of Jewish there are also mentioned other guys, that are made of clay and can’t speak for themselves or so I heard.

What is supposed to be a Golem? It seems a golem is a clay creature, that was created by someone to protect him or to protect loved ones. Now you will wonder how can we create a Golem? Well, the tradition says first you should know some words in Hebrew as you will need to use them in your spell or prey, however you want to call it. 

Here in this link, you can see a picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

A man that brought to life a Golem was the rabbi of Prague, Judah Loew ben Bezalel ( I hope I spelled right his name, he might send a Golem after me if I upset him even if he is from a long time passed on the other world). He brought to life the Golem to protect his community. As in those times, the Jews were persecuted. He brought it to life by sticking in his clay figurine the ” truth” word written in Hebrew. The Golem protected them for a time until one day, Judah Loew ben Bezalel forgot to indicate his Golem. So the golem started to attack everyone. The story goes, that to stop him from killing, another word had to be put in his mouth, the word “death” in Hebrew. 

What remained from this Golem was stored in the old Synagogue from Prague, in the attic. Those that are curious can go to look for it and see if the legend has some truth in it.

But have in mind that a few hundred years went by since then and two wars, so most likely the Golem, if he was there, probably was moved or vanished with time( clay can do that at times).

The legends about Golems are not just Prague. It seems another Golem was about to be born in Vilna, Lithuania, in the 18 century, when the rabbi Chaim Volozhin tried when he was a boy to bring one to live but he received a sign from heaven to stop, and so he did.

So we have at least two legends, at least so far those that I found. While we have this trip, maybe we will encounter other people that know more about these legends. Or you who have joined me, perhaps you know more. If you do, let me know 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this short trip and that you will want to follow me on other trips too.