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Golem
A golem (/ˈɡoʊləm/ ⓘ GOH-ləm; Hebrew: גּוֹלֶם, romanized: gōlem) is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore that is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late-16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."
In modern popular culture, the word has become generalized, and any crude automaton devised by a sorcerer may be termed a "golem".
The word golem occurs once in the Bible, in Psalm 139, which uses the word גׇּלְמִ֤י (golmi; 'my golem', 'my light form', 'raw material') to connote the unfinished human being before God's eyes. Pirkei Avot 5:9 uses the term to refer to someone who is unsophisticated: "[There are] seven things [characteristic] in a clod, and seven in a wise man" (שִׁבְעָה דְבָרִים בַּגֹּלֶם וְשִׁבְעָה בֶחָכָם).
In Modern Hebrew, golem is used to mean 'dumb', 'helpless', or 'pupa'. Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a stupid man or other entity that serves a man under controlled conditions, but is hostile to him in other circumstances. Golem passed into Yiddish as goylem, meaning someone who is lethargic or in a stupor.
The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam is initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust is "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud by those close to divinity, but no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra), whom he then sends to Rav Zeira. Zeira speaks to the man, but he does not answer, whereupon Zeira says, "You were created by the sages; return to your dust".
During the Middle Ages, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah were studied as a means to create and animate a golem, although little in the writings of Jewish mysticism supports this belief. The earliest known written account of how to create a golem can be found in the Sode Raza, a commentary on Merkabah mysticism by Eleazar of Worms, who lived in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritual use of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet forming one of the names of God). This was written on a piece of paper and inserted into the mouth or forehead of the golem.
In some tales, including certain stories of the Chełm and Prague golems, a word such as אֱמֶת emeṯ 'truth' is inscribed on the golem, sometimes on its forehead. In this example, the golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א), thus changing the inscription from "truth" to "death" (מֵת, mēt, 'dead').
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Golem AI simulator
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Golem
A golem (/ˈɡoʊləm/ ⓘ GOH-ləm; Hebrew: גּוֹלֶם, romanized: gōlem) is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore that is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late-16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."
In modern popular culture, the word has become generalized, and any crude automaton devised by a sorcerer may be termed a "golem".
The word golem occurs once in the Bible, in Psalm 139, which uses the word גׇּלְמִ֤י (golmi; 'my golem', 'my light form', 'raw material') to connote the unfinished human being before God's eyes. Pirkei Avot 5:9 uses the term to refer to someone who is unsophisticated: "[There are] seven things [characteristic] in a clod, and seven in a wise man" (שִׁבְעָה דְבָרִים בַּגֹּלֶם וְשִׁבְעָה בֶחָכָם).
In Modern Hebrew, golem is used to mean 'dumb', 'helpless', or 'pupa'. Similarly, it is often used today as a metaphor for a stupid man or other entity that serves a man under controlled conditions, but is hostile to him in other circumstances. Golem passed into Yiddish as goylem, meaning someone who is lethargic or in a stupor.
The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam is initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust is "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud by those close to divinity, but no anthropogenic golem is fully human. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin 65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra), whom he then sends to Rav Zeira. Zeira speaks to the man, but he does not answer, whereupon Zeira says, "You were created by the sages; return to your dust".
During the Middle Ages, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah were studied as a means to create and animate a golem, although little in the writings of Jewish mysticism supports this belief. The earliest known written account of how to create a golem can be found in the Sode Raza, a commentary on Merkabah mysticism by Eleazar of Worms, who lived in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic experience induced by the ritual use of various letters of the Hebrew alphabet forming one of the names of God). This was written on a piece of paper and inserted into the mouth or forehead of the golem.
In some tales, including certain stories of the Chełm and Prague golems, a word such as אֱמֶת emeṯ 'truth' is inscribed on the golem, sometimes on its forehead. In this example, the golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א), thus changing the inscription from "truth" to "death" (מֵת, mēt, 'dead').
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