The Golem

In order to define Golem, which is identified specifically with Jewish mystical tradition, Goldsmith traces the term back to the Hebrew word golem, meaning "shapeless matter, ignorant person, dummy," and in Yiddish often used as an insult. However, the foundation of the golem myth is said to reside in Jewish mysticism, specifically its preoccupation with the "mystery of Creation, contained in the so-called Book of Creation, or Sefer Yezirah, and encoded in the "22 letters of the [Hebrew] alphabet and in the various names of God which can be combined from them. God Himself was supposed to have used them in creating the world" (Singer 6). The Golem figure itself is a giant figure that is created out of earthen clay that is infused with motion and sensibility according as the alphabet letters and

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ian faith, or anyway by demonstrating lack of commitment to Judaism (Baer 344), only to reassert Jewish identity once locating elsewhere in Europe. Citing in particular a trial of conversos accused of occult child murder, Baer acknowledges that Jews, like Gentile contemporaries, might have dabbled in magic rituals. But, he says, it "is utterly out of the question that they should have made use of Christian ritual objects, or that they should have allowed the participation of conversos, who were not regarded as Jews and were not even circumcised" (Baer 403). It is difficult to see why Baer is so intent on arguing the facts of a trial, given the temper of the times and the decisiveness with which the blood libel appears to have entered popular imagination. Indeed, the popular imagination throughout Europe was exercised by fears of occult heresy and/or revolution as late as the seventeenth century, and directed not only against Jews. Summers (xiv) describes the 1590 trial in England of a coven of some two hundred accused witches, who "had assembled for their rites at the old haunted church of North Berwick, where they consulted with their Master, 'the Devil,' how they might most efficaciously kill King James." The content or proof o
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4152
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)