Now You Know The Rest Of The Story..........
The Torah Matzav
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
Don't be a Golem
Don't be a Golem
Academics &
scholars, both Jews and non-Jews, frum and non-frum, consider the famous
story of the Golem of Prague as fictitious. There is no
evidence of the Maharal ever creating a Golem.
The first mention of the Golem of Prague goes back to the year 1837. A
Maskil by the name of Berthold
Auerbach wrote a novel on Spinoza. In
the fictional details of the Cherem, Spinoza declared not to believe in
the Golem of Prague. He was put into Cherem for not believing in the
Golem. Auerbach was trying to ridicule the Frum Yidden by
portraying them putting into cherem anyone who does not believe in fairy
tales. These few lines in the novel are the first and only mention of the
Golem in Prague.
This part in the novel might have created the legend of the Maharal
creating a Golem.
R. Yidel
Rosenberg z"l who was a Rav in Lodz & Warsaw
immigrated to Canada. He became a Rav in Toronto and later in
Montreal. RYR was a great Talmid Chacham who wrote many Sefarim. He
translated the Zohar in Loshon Hakodesh. He was also a novelist who wrote
Yiddish novels.
Reb Yidel Rosenberg
He claimed to have acquired the manuscripts of R. Yitzchok Katz zt"l,
son in law of the Maharal, from
The Great
Library in Metz. (This library is in fact nonexistent.)
One of these manuscripts described in detail the creation of
the Golem. In the year 1908/9, R. Yidel Rosenberg printed this
manuscript and called it "נפלאות מהר"ל".
It was R.Y.Rosenberg's " ספר נפלאות מהר"ל" which
popularized the Golem story amongst the Yidden and eventually even
amongst the Non-Jews.
R. Y. Rosenberg tries to validate the story by claiming that the Noda B'Yehuda
believed in the Golem story. R.Y.R invented a story of the Noda B'Yehuda
climbing up the attic** to observe the decommissioned
Golem.
Within the first year of the ספר נפלאות מהר"לbeing published,
R, Mendel
Eckstein z"l, published a Sefer and called it Sefer Yetzira.
He refuted the ספר נפלאות מהר"לand claimed it to be a fraud. He also
claimed that some parts of the story would even be Halachically
incorrect.
One of his proofs (among 25 proofs) is that in the manuscript R.
Yitzchok Katz writes about a Talmid by the name of "Tosfos Yom Tov".
In his days there was no such Sefer Tosfos Yom Tov printed. R. Yom Tov Lipman Heller
Wallerstein was not known as the Tosfos Yom
Tov. R. Yitzchok Katz could not have called
him
"The Tosfos Yom Tov."
*His
grandson, Mordechai Richler was one of the most famous Canadian
novelists. ** The Rebbe
Rayatz Zt"l (Frierdiker Lubavitcher Rebbe) climbed up the
attic. He never claimed
to have seen the Golem there but some Chasidim claim that he did.
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