The Paradox of the Golem: Sin and Magic

This exile produced the golem. The word, golem, "unformed," appears in Psalm 139:16, where Adam claims that his substance was formless and imperfect before God shaped and perfected him. The Talmud elaborates, claiming that Adam on his first day, before he had received soul and language, was a golem. A midrash from the second or third century claims that the preformed Adam was a golem with the size and power of the cosmos.

In a legend from the Haggadah, this cosmic Adam contracts after his fall to the proportions of a giant human. The golem Adam is a material version of Adam Kadmon as well as a condensation of the earths power.⁹

These two features foreshadow the contradictory traits of later golems: the animat­ed clay is a redemptive restoration of the dismembered primal man and a violent precipitation of the earths force. Golem legends of the Middle Ages and Renaissance emerged from third- and fourth-century tales of rabbis who brought clay to life.

God's Alphabetic Power

These tales are grounded on the idea that only sin separates humans from God, and thus that a sinless being can create life. This rabbi magic influenced the alphabetical theurgy of the Cabbala. The Rook of Creation (c. A.D. 300-600) emphasizes this alphabetic power, claiming that God made the world from letters. If God can create from scripts, a person in concord with God can do the same. The earliest discussions of the golem are twelfth- and thirteenth-century commentaries on this idea.

The primary questions of these glosses are two. Can a magus create a being equal to or superior to humans, anthropos returned? Or is the magician capable only of crafting an unintelligent tel­lurian creature, fallen man intensified?¹⁰

These questions point to two views of magic. In one, growing from the Book of Creation, the universe is magical. Each creature thrives through its participation in God's alphabet. A person's practice of God's magic is not a violation of sacred order but a realization of spiritual potential.

In the other view, based on the Zohar, magic is a result of the fall, Adam's violation of God's law. Magical knowledge emerges from the leaves of the tree of Knowledge with which Adam covered his nakedness after he eats the fruit. Magic in this instance is a veil covering Adam's shame. If the magic of the Book of Creation requires transcendence of fear and desire, a return to Eden, then the magic intimated by the Zohar results from fear and desire and marks the separation between Eden and man.

Most medieval visions of the golem issue from the former tradition. However, later legends of the golem are con­nected to the latter tradition.¹¹