Don't
be a Golem
Academics & scholars,
frum or non-frum, Jews or non-Jews, consider The famous story of the
Golem of Prague as
fictitious. There is no evidence of the Maharal ever creating a Golem.
Probably 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
was put in Cherem. Auerbach is trying to ridicule the Frum Yidden and
their Cherem. For not believing in fairy tales they are put in Cherem.
These few lines in the novel
are the first and only mention of the Golem. 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 & later in
Montreal. He claimed to have acquired from The (non-existent) Royal Library in
Metz,
manuscripts of R. Yitzchok
Katz zt"l son in law of the Maharal. One of them was the
manuscript describing
in detail the creation
of the Golem.
In the year 1908/9, Reb Yidel
Rosenberg printed this manuscript and called it "Niflaos Maharal".
It was R.Y.Rosenberg's "Niflaos
Maharal" which popularized the Golem story amongst the Yidden
& eventually even amongst
the Non-Jews.
Within the first year, after
it was published, R, Mendel Eckstein z"l, published a Sefer and
called it Sefer Yetzira.
He refuted the Sefer Niflaos
Maharal and claimed it to be a fraud. He also claimed that some
parts of the story
would be even Halachically
incorrect.
One of his proofs is (among
many) Ri Katz writes about a Talmid of the "Tosfos Yom Tov". In
his days there was no such Sefer printed yet. R. Yom Tov Lipman Heller
Wallerstein was not known as the Tosfos Yom Tov. Ri Katz could not have called
him "The Tosfos Y.T."
Since then many more such
proofs were found that the Sefer is a total fraud. One of
the proofs is,
he mentions the word "שעון"
(watch) This word was invented a few hundred years later by Ben Yehuda.
In Seforim of that time or
the ones printed within hundred years later none of them ever mention The
Golem
of Prague.
The Chacham Zvi who lived a
hundred years after the Maharal mentions of a Golem created in Chelm a
few
hundred years before the
Maharal. The Chida too speaks about the Golem in Chelm.
They were both not
aware of the Golem of
Prague.
In Chabad, on the other hand,
they do believe in the story of the Golem of Prague. The Rebbe zt"l
writes,
his father in law (מהריי"צ)
told him that he personally went up to the attic of the Altneu Shul and
saw the
remains of the Golem* there.
Another reason from the Rebbe
believing the story to be true is because even the Goyim knew about it and
claim
so to be true.
*The Sefer Niflaos Maharal (Y. Rosenberg)
writes,"The Maharal placed the decommissioned Golem in the attic of the
Altneu Shul."
