In Jewish mysticism, the Golem symbolizes a “shell” — matter stripped of divine light. According to tradition, its reappearance in the Jewish quarter every thirty-three years inspired fear and dread, for the Golem embodied the demonic aspect of the ordinary, an empty form without spirit. One of its principal flaws was the inability to speak. The Sanhedrin 65b recounts how Rava created a Golem using the Sefer Yetzirah. When sent to Rabbi Zeira, the creature remained silent. Realizing what had happened, Zeira said: “I see you were formed by one of our brethren; return now to the dust.”
Occult traditions ascribed tremendous significance to speech and the Word. Language was seen as a bridge to the spiritual world, while the concept of the Logos linked speech to the very essence of creation. The Golem stood as the opposite of this ideal: a mute automaton, an empty vessel responding only to external commands and the will of its maker.
Interestingly, some sources describe Adam, the First Man, as the primordial Golem into whom God breathed life. In Kabbalistic thought, this parallel becomes profound: if humanity began with a Golem, then in messianic times the Jewish community itself would become a single collective Golem, embodying the sorrow and exile of the universe. Supporting this symbolism, rabbis were said to animate clay figures by placing inscriptions, incantations, or pentagrams into their mouths, giving them a symbolic “soul.”
The Hebrew word golem literally means “unshaped being,” “doll,” “figure,” or even “fool.” Its root gal relates to “heap” or “ruins.” From the same root comes gilgul, the key mystical concept of “transmigration of souls,” suggesting that the soul animates successive crude forms of matter, each temporarily individualized.
The most famous legend places the Golem in Prague. Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (the Maharal of Prague) is said to have shaped the creature from clay along the banks of the Vltava River to protect the Jewish ghetto. To animate it, he inscribed either one of God’s names or the word emet (“truth”) on its forehead. Yet as the Golem grew, it became violent, sowing terror and bloodshed. The emperor, alarmed by its destructive force, begged Rabbi Loew to destroy it, promising in return to end the persecution of the Jews. The rabbi agreed: he erased the first letter of emet, transforming it into met (“death”). Tradition claims the Golem was not destroyed entirely but placed in a coffin in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue, where its body remains hidden to this day.
Kabbalistic philosophy expands this imagery. Isaac Luria’s doctrine of tzimtzum (“contraction”) taught that God withdrew, leaving an empty space for creation. Into this void, divine light streamed into vessels (sefirot). But many vessels shattered (shevirat ha-kelim), and from their shards arose the qliphoth — “husks” that obscure divine light. In this context, the Golem becomes an embodiment of matter in which the light is nearly extinguished.
The process of restoration, tikkun, involves freeing the light from the qliphoth through spiritual practice and observance of the commandments. Three upper sefirot remained stable, joined by Zeir Anpin and the Shekhinah in her positive aspect. Mystics saw in this the promise of future rebirth — the breaking of the shell and the liberation of divine radiance.
Linked to this, Kabbalah also spoke of the “demonic Shekhinah.” While Shekhinah usually denotes God’s indwelling presence, in some mystical texts she appears in exile, abandoned and fallen into the abyss of matter. In this darker form, Shekhinah mirrors the Golem, together embodying sorrow, estrangement, and ignorance.
Jewish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer interpreted the Golem as a grotesque symbol of the distance between Creator and creation. In his view, Judaism emphasizes God’s externality, always beyond the world He created. The Golem, then, reflects this distance: a human-machine, a hollow form in which Jews saw themselves and their people — chosen not for heroism but for the desperate knowledge of the futility of existence. [anon; Information collected from the Internet]
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