The Golem of Prague in Recent Rabbinic Literature

The Golem of Prague in Recent Rabbinic Literature

 

by: Shnayer Z. Leiman

 

In a recent issue of המאור – a rabbinic journal of repute – an anonymous notice appeared on the Golem of Prague.¹ Apparently, a rabbi in Brooklyn had publicly denied the authenticity of the Maharal’s Golem, claiming that R. Yudel Rosenberg (d. 1935) – in his נפלאות מהר"ל (Piotrkow, 1909) – was the first to suggest  that the Maharal had created a Golem. According to the account in המאור, the rabbi based his claim, in part, on the fact that no early Jewish book records that the Maharal had created a Golem. In response to the denial, the anonymous notice lists 6 “proofs” that the Maharal of Prague, in fact, created a Golem. Here, we list the 6 “proofs” in translation (in bold font) and briefly discuss  the weight they should be accorded in the ongoing discussion of whether or not the Maharal created a Golem.

   1. How could anyone imagine that a [Jewish] book written then [i.e., in the 16th century] could include a description of how Jews brought about the deaths of numerous Christians? At that time, the notorious censors censored even more fundamental Jewish teachings. Fear of the Christian authorities characterized every move the Jews made, from the youngest to the oldest.

 

The argument is presented as a justification for the lack of an early account of the Maharal and the Golem. Only in the 20th century could the full story appear in print, as it appears in נפלאות מהר"ל.  Apparently, the author of the anonymous notice has never read נפלאות מהר"ל. The volume does not depict how “Jews brought about the deaths of numerous Christians.” If the reference here is to the punishment meted out by the Golem to the Christian perpetrators of the blood libel,  נפלאות מהר"ל never depicts the Golem as bringing about the death of anyone, whether Christian or Jew. If the reference here is to the blood libel itself, נפלאות מהר"ל describes only how Christian criminals plotted against Jews (by means of the blood libel) and subsequently needed to be brought to justice by the Christians themselves. Nowhere are Jews described as bringing about the deaths of numerous Christians.

 

This argument, of course, does not prove that the Maharal created a Golem in the 16th century.

    2. The Maharal’s creation of the Golem is alluded to on his epitaph, in the line that reads: “It is not possible to relate.” More proof than this in not necessary.

 

The full line on the epitaph reads as follows: “For him, praise best remains silent, for in any event it is not possible to relate the full impact of his many good deeds.”² See Psalm 65:2 and cf. Rashi to b. Megillah 18a, ד"ה סמא דכולא משתוקא. Nothing is said – or hinted – here about a Golem. Alas, more proof than this is necessary indeed.

 

    3. If this was an invention of the author of נפלאות מהר"ל, how come a storm was not raised up against him when he published his book a century ago? Although one solitary voice was raised up against him, the majority of Gedolei Yisrael greeted his book with esteem, especially since its author was the noted and respected Gaon, author of numerous works, Rabbi Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg.

 

First, it should be noted that R. Yudel Rosenberg did not invent the notion that the Maharal of Prague had created a Golem. Evidence for the Maharal’s Golem dates back to 1836 (before R. Yudel Rosenberg was born).³ If the rabbi in Brooklyn claimed otherwise, he was mistaken. Thus, the claim in 1909 that the Maharal of Prague had created a Golem occasioned little or no surprise.

 

Second, R. Yudel Rosenberg ascribed the book to R. Yitzchok b. R. Shimshon Katz, the son-in-law and contemporary of the Maharal. R. Yudel described in great detail how he had managed to come into possession of this rare manuscript.⁴ There was no immediate reason to suspect that this was a literary hoax, especially coming from the hand of R. Yudel Rosenberg.

 

Third, had the book contained pejorative material about the Maharal, a storm would surely have been raised against it. Instead, the book presented the Maharal as a master kabbalist, who created the Golem in order to stave off the notorious blood libel accusations against the Jews. Why should anyone have protested against this heroic image of the Maharal?

 

In any event, even if one concedes that “the majority of Gedolei Yisrael greeted his book with esteem” (a dubious claim that cannot be proven), it surely does not “prove” that the Maharal created a Golem. A book published in 1909 is hardly proof that the Maharal created a Golem in the 16th century.

    4. Chabad Hasidim relate in detail how R. Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn visited the attic of the Altneu shul in Prague and saw what he saw. He wasn’t the first to do so – as reported by various elders – in the last 400 years.

Indeed, a long list of the names of the famous and not-so-famous who visited the attic of the Altneu shul can easily be drawn up. That the sainted Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, visited the attic of the Altneu shul is established fact. It is recorded in contemporary documents, i.e, in the Sichos and Letters of his successor, the Rebbe, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson.⁵ Exactly what the Rebbe saw in the attic is less certain. According to one account, when asked, R. Yosef Yitzchok chose not to respond.⁶ According to another account, he reported that he saw ”what remained of him,” i.e., of the Golem.⁷ For Lubavitchers, this may be unassailable proof that the Maharal created a Golem, and perhaps that is as it should be. But for historians, dust – or even a bodily form – seen in an attic early in the 20th century hardly constitutes proof that the Maharal created a Golem in the 16th century. As a matter of fact, it should be noted that extensive renovation took place in the attic of the Altneu shul in 1883. No evidence of the Golem was discovered then.⁸ A film crew visited and filmed the attic in 1984. No evidence of the Golem was discovered then.⁹

    5. No one disputes the fact that the Maharal put an end to the blood libel accusations that the Jews had suffered for generations. And even this was not fully spelled out in the book [i.e., נפלאות מהר"ל]. Can someone explain how the Maharal accomplished this?

 

The rhetorical question at the end of the fifth “proof” presupposes the existence of the Golem. Only by means of the Golem was the Maharal able to counter the blood libel accusations. No one disputes that the Maharal put an end to the blood libel accusations? Quite the contrary, no one has ever discovered a shred of evidence that links the Maharal to staving off a blood libel accusation! Nowhere in his writings, nowhere in the writings of his contemporaries (Jewish and non-Jewish) and disciples, is there a word about the Maharal’s involvement in staving off a blood libel accusation. That he put an end to the blood libel accusation is historically untrue. While the blood libel charge became less frequent in the Hapsburg lands after the 16th century, it hardly disappeared.¹⁰ From the 16th through the 18th centuries, the blood libel accusation largely shifted to Eastern Europe. In Poland alone, between 1547 and 1787, there were 81 recorded cases of blood libel accusation against the Jews.¹¹ The Beilis case is a sad reminder that the blood libel accusation continued into the 20th century as well.¹²

 

Needless to say, this argument hardly proves that the Maharal created a Golem in the 16th century. 

 

    6. I saw in מליצי אש  to 18 Elul,¹³ a citation from a manuscript copy of a letter by the Maharal from the year 5343 [=1583] addressed to R. Yaakov Ginzburg, describing how he [the Maharal] was directed by Heaven to create a Golem in order to save the Jewish people. See there for details.

 

The manuscript referred to here is a notorious 20th century forgery of a letter ascribed to the Maharal, itself based upon R. Yudel Rosenberg’s נפלאות מהר"ל. The Munkatcher Rebbe, R. Hayyim  Eleazar Shapira (d. 1937), apparently was the first of many to expose this forgery.¹⁴

 

II

 

 In a subsequent issue of המאור, R. Hayyim Levi added 4 new “proofs” that the Maharal created a Golem.¹⁵  A brief summary of each of the new “proofs” is followed by an even briefer discussion of the weight they should be accorded in the ongoing discussion of whether or not the Maharal created a Golem. 

    1. The חיד"א in his שם הגדולים¹⁶ cites a responsum from the חכם צבי,¹⁷ who in turn cites a letter by R. Naftoli Ha-Kohen of Frankfurt,¹⁸ who mentions his ancestor the Maharal “who made use of the Holy Spirit.” The חיד"א adds that he heard an awesome story about the Maharal and a revelation he had which led to a private conversation between the Maharal and the King of Bohemia.

 

Not a word about the Golem of Prague appears in any of these sources. Indeed, where we can examine the available evidence (in the case of the awesome story heard by the חיד"א), it apparently had nothing to do with a Golem.¹⁹

    2. R. Shimon of Zelikhov, משגיח of Yeshivat Hakhmei Lublin, said: “Everyone knows that the Maharal made use of the Sefer Yetzirah and created a Golem. I don’t claim that one needs to believe the tales in the storybooks about the Maharal. But it is clear that the Maharal used the book of Yetzirah and created a Golem.”²⁰

 

R. Shimon of Zelikhov, a great gaon and zaddik, died as a martyr in 1943.²¹ His claim in the 20th century, however weighty, does not prove that the Maharal created a Golem in the 16th century. 

 

    3. In the book אלף כתב,²² the author writes that he heard from the Spinka Rebbe²³ in 1922 that he saw an original letter of the Maharal that described how and why he created the Golem.

 

This is the same notorious 20th century forgery listed as a “proof” above, section I, §6. For the refutation of this proof, see the reference cited in note 14.

 

    4. See סיפורים נחמדים,²⁴ which records a story in the name of R. Yitzchok of Skvere²⁵ about the Maharal, the Golem, and the double recitation of מזמור שיר ליום השבת at the קבלת שבת service.

 

This story, first published in 1837,²⁶ is one of the oldest of the Maharal and the Golem stories. It was retold by R. Yitzchok of Skvere, and published in Yiddish (in 1890) and Hebrew (in 1903). Wonderful as the story may be, it cannot be adduced as “proof” for an alleged event that occurred some 300 years earlier.

 

---------------------------

 

Even aside from the dictates of rationalism, what militates against the notion that the Maharal created a Golem is the fact that nowhere in his voluminous writings is there any indication that he created one. More importantly, no contemporary of the Maharal – neither Jew nor Gentile in Prague – seems to have been aware that the Maharal created a Golem. Even when eulogized, whether in David Gans’ צמח דוד ²⁷ or on his epitaph (see above), not a word is said about the creation of a Golem. No Hebrew work published in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (even in Prague) is aware that the Maharal created a Golem.²⁸

 

In this context, it is worth noting that R. Yedidiah Tiah Weil (1721-1805),²⁹ a distinguished Talmudist who was born in Prague and resided there for many years – and who was a disciple of his father R. Nathaniel Weil (author of the קרבן נתנאל) and of R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz, both of them long time residents of Prague – makes no mention of the Maharal’s Golem.

R. Yedidiah Tiah Weil

 

R. Nathaniel Weil

 

This, despite the fact that he discusses golems in general, and offers proof that even “close to his time” golems existed. The proof is a listing of famous golems, such as the golems created by R. Avigdor Kara (d. 1439) of Prague³⁰ and R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem (d. 1583) of Chelm.³¹ Noticeably absent is any mention of the Golem of the Maharal of Prague.³²

 

Note too that the first sustained biographical account of the Maharal – by a distinguished rabbinic scholar from Prague – was published in 1745.³³ It knows nothing about a Golem of Prague. The deafening silence of the evidence from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries needs to be addressed by those who are persuaded that the Maharal created a Golem.

 

The cumulative yield of the “proofs” put forward in המאור in support of the claim that the Maharal created a Golem is perhaps best described as an embarrassment of poverty. In the light of what passes for historical “proof” in המאור, it would seem that המאור – a reputable rabbinic journal – would probably do well to focus more on halakhah and less on Jewish history.

 

III

 

Whereas המאור commemorated the 400th anniversary of the Maharal’s death by focusing on the imaginary accounts of the Maharal and the Golem, scholars in the Czech Republic are to be congratulated for commemorating the 400th anniversary by designing a magnificent exhibition of the Maharal’s life and works and displaying it at the Prague Castle. The exhibition was accompanied by an even more magnificent printed volume edited by Alexandr Putik and entitled Path of life (and referred to several times in the notes to this posting). Despite the many excellent studies in the book devoted to the Maharal’s life and thought, much space – some will argue too much space – is devoted to the history of the Golem in art, sculpture, film, and theater. In contrast to המאור, the essays in Path of Life assume that the Golem of Prague was legendary, not a fact. Here, we reproduce one of the many imaginary paintings of the Maharal and the Golem displayed at the exhibition and included in the volume. It was done by Karel Dvorak in 1951.³³

 

 

 

Not to be outdone, the Czech post office issued a commemorative  stamp to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of the Maharal. It features an imaginary portrait of the Maharal wearing a European casquette, reminiscent of the one the חפץ חיים used to wear in Radun. The first day cover includes an imaginary portrait of the Golem as well.

One wonders if the Maharal, prescient as he was, ever imagined that this is how he would be remembered on the 400th anniversary of his death!

 

 

Notes

 

1.  Anonymous, “הילולא קדישא הארבע מאה של המהר"ל מפראג זי"ע: יצירת הגולם” Ha-Ma’or  62:4 (2009), p. 95. 

2.  The Hebrew original reads:
לו דומיה תהלה כי אין מספרים לרוב כח מעשי[ו] הישרים . See O. Muneles, כתובות מבית-העלמין היהודי העתיק בפראג, Jerusalem, 1988, p. 273. Cf. K. Lieben, גל עד, Prague, 1856, Hebrew section, p. 3.

3.   See S. [the author asked that I not reveal his name], “An Earlier Written Source for the Golem of the Maharal from 1836,” at On the Main Line, November 4, 2009. Cf. S. Leiman, “The Adventure of the Maharal of Prague in London,” Judaic Studies 3(2004), p. 20, n. 34; and see below, n. 32, for evidence from 1835 that may link the Maharal and the Golem. 

 

4.  נפלאות מהר"ל , Piotrkow, 1909, pp. 3-4.

 

5.  See, e.g., R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, תורת מנחם: התוועדויות, Brooklyn, 1992, vol. 1, p. 6.

 

6.  See previous note.

 

7.  Copy of a hand-written note by R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson published in the periodical כפר חב"ד, issue 798, 1998. The Hebrew reads in part:

בנוגע לעיקר הענין (שהמהר"ל עשה את הגולם), בעצמי שמעתי מכ"ק מו"ח אדמו"ר שראה הנשאר ממנו בעליית בית הכנסת דמהר"ל פראג.                                                                                     

 The full text of the letter is also available online at http://theantitzemach.blogspot.com, entry "למה נקרא שמו ברוך דוב", Tuesday, April 27, 2010, in a comment by Anonymous posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 12:28 A.M. I am indebted to Zalman Alpert, reference librarian at the Mendel Gottesman Library of Yeshiva University, for calling my attention to the online version (and to many other important references over the many years we have known each other).

 

Yet a third account, drawn from a conversation with Rebbetzin Chana Gurary, a daughter of R. Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, provides even more detail. Rebbetzin Gurary reported:

I then asked him [her father, the Rebbe] to tell me what he had seen there. My father paused for a moment and said: “When I came up there, the room was filled with dust and shemus. In the center of the room I could see the form of a man wrapped up and covered. The body was lying on its side. I was very frightened by this sight. I looked around at some of the shemus that were there and left frightened by what I had seen.

Special thanks to Rabbi Shimon Deutsch for providing me with a copy of Rebbetzin Gurary’s testimony, as reported to Rabbi Berel Junik.

 

8.  See N. Gruen, Der hohe Rabbi Loew, Prague, 1885, p. 39.

 

9.  See I. Mackerle, Tajemstvi prazskeho Golema, Prague, 1992. Cf. his “The Mystery of Prague’s Golem,” December 12, 2009, at http://en.mackerle.cz.

 

10.  See, e.g., R. Po-chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder, New Haven, 1988, pp. 203-209.

 

11.  See Z. Guldon and J. Wijaczka, “The Accusation of Ritual Murder in Poland 1500-1800,” Polin 10(1997), pp. 99-140.

 

12.  For basic bibliography on the Beilis case, See S. Leiman, “Benzion Katz: Mrs. Baba Bathra,” Tradition 42:4 (2009), pp. 51-52, n. 1.

 

13.  Rabbi A. Stern, מליצי אש, Vranov, 1932. In the three volume Jerusalem, 1975 photomechanical reproduction of מליצי אש, the passage appears in vol. 2, p. 87.

 

14.  For discussion and references, see S. Leiman, “The Letter of the Maharal on the Creation of the Golem: A Modern Forgery,” Seforim Blog,  January 3, 2010.

 

15.  R. Hayyim Levi, “המהר"ל זי"ע” Ha-Ma’or 63:1 (2009), p. 84.

 

16.  R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai (d. 1806), שם הגדולים השלם , Jerusalem, 1979, vol. 1, p. 124.

 

17.  R. Zvi Ashkenazi (d. 1718), שו"ת חכם צבי, סימן ע"ו, ed. Jerusalem, 1998, pp. 183-4.

 

18.  Loc. cit. R. Naftoli Ha-Kohen Katz of Frankfurt died in 1719. Cf. below, n. 32.

 

19.  See Rabbi A.S. Michelson, שמן הטוב, Piotrkow, 1905, pp. 118-120.

 

20.  R. Avraham Shimon of Zelikhov, נהרי א"ש, Jerusalem, 1993, p. 173. 

 

21.  See M. Wunder, מאורי גליציה, Jerusalem, 1978, vol. 1, cols. 238-243; Jerusalem, 2005, vol. 6, cols. 105-106.

 

22.  Rabbi Y. Weiss (d. 1942), אלף כתב, Bnei Brak, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 47-48.

 

23.  R. Yitzchok Eizik Weiss (d. 1944). On him, see T.Z. Rabinowicz, The Encyclopedia of Hasidism, London, 1996, pp. 534-5.

 

24.  Y. W. Tzikernik, ספורים נחמדים, Zhitomir, 1903, pp. 13-14. Tzikernik’s hasidic tales were reissued by G. Nigal in סיפורי חסידות צירנוביל, Jerusalem, 1994.  In Nigal’s edition, the story about the Maharal and the Golem appears on pp. 128-130.  Tzikernik, who died circa 1908, was a follower of R. Yitzchok Twersky of Skvere (see next note) and recorded his stories for posterity.

 

25.  On R. Yitzchok Twersky of Skvere (d. 1885), see Y. Alfasi, אנציקלופדיה לחסידות: אישים, Jerusalem, 2000, vol. 2, cols. 339-40.

 

26.  The 1837 version appears in B. Auerbach, Spinoza, Stuttgart, 1837, vol. 2, pp. 2-3. See above, note 3, for a similar version of the story published in 1836. But the 1836 version makes no mention of the double recitation of מזמור שיר ליום השבת at the קבלת שבת  service. 

 

27.  See David Gans, צמח דוד, Prague, 1592, entry for the year 5352 (= 1592). In M. Breuer’s edition (Jerusalem, 1983), the passage appears on pp. 145-6.

 

28.  It is noteworthy that in 1615, Zalman Zvi Aufhausen, a Jew residing in Germany, published a defense of Judaism against a vicious attack by the apostate Samuel Brenz. In the introduction to his defense, Aufhausen writes that he was encouraged by the great Jewish scholars in Prague and Germany to undertake his defense of Judaism. In the list of accusations, Brenz accused the Jews of engaging in magical rites and creating golems out of clay. Aufhausen admitted that Jews created golems out of clay in the talmudic period (see b. Sanhedrin 65b), but only by means of Sefer Yetzirah and the Divine Name, and not by engaging in magical rites. After the talmudic period, according to Aufhausen, Jews no longer had the ability to create golems out of clay, especially in the German lands. Aufhausen concludes:

 אביר אונזרי גולמיים אין דיזן לאנדן מכין מיר ניט אויש ליימן זונדר
                    אויש מוטר לייב ווערין זיא גיבורן.

    In these lands, however, our Golems are not made from clay, but
    rather they are born from the bodies of their mothers.

See Zalman Zvi Aufhausen, יודישר טירייאק [second edition], Altdorf, 1680, pp. 7a-b. Given the apologetic nature of Aufhausen’s defense, it is difficult to assess how much stock should be put in his claim. But, surely, if the Maharal’s Golem had been strolling the streets of Prague a decade or two earlier than the appearance of the first edition of Aufhausen’s work, he could hardly claim openly that Jews no longer had the ability the create Golems out of clay after the Talmudic period. 

 

29.  See L. Loewenstein, Nathaniel Weil Oberlandrabbiner in Karlsruhe und seine Familie, Frankfurt, 1898, pp. 23-85. 

 

30.  See the entry on him in Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1971, vol. 10, cols. 758-759. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was widely believed that he was the author of ספר הפליאה, a kabbalistic work that describes the creation of a Golem. Prof. Moshe Idel (in a private communication) suggests that this may have led to the belief that R. Avigdor Kara of Prague created a Golem. In any event, the fact that a distinguished Talmudist in 18th century Prague was persuaded that R. Avigdor Kara had created a Golem, suggests the possibility of a transfer in Prague of the Golem legend from R. Avigdor Kara (who by the end of the 18th century was relatively unknown) to the Maharal (who by the end of the 18th century resurfaced as a major Jewish figure whose works were being reprinted for the first time in almost 250 years).  For other suggestions regarding the linkage between the Maharal and the Golem, see V. Sadek, “Stories of the Golem and their Relation to the Work of Rabbi Loew of Prague,” Judaica Bohemiae 23(1987), pp. 85-91; H. J. Kieval, “Pursuing the Golem of Prague: Jewish Culture and the Invention of a Tradition,” Modern Judaism 17(1997), pp. 1-23; Kieval’s updated version in his Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands, Berkeley, 2000, pp. 95-113;  B. L. Sherwin, “The Golem of Prague and his Ancestors,” in A. Putik, ed., Path of Life: Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Prague, 2009, pp. 273-291; and J. Davis, “The Legend of  Maharal before the Golem,” Judaica Bohemiae 45(2009), pp. 41-59. 

 

31.  On R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm, see J. Guenzig, Die Wundermaenner in juedischen Volke, Antwerpen, 1921, pp. 24-26; G. Scholem, “The Idea of the Golem,” in his On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, New York, 1969, pp. 199-204; M. Idel, “R. Eliyahu, the Master of the Name, in Helm,” in his Golem, Albany, 1990, pp. 207-212; and idem, גולם, Tel Aviv, 1996, pp. 181-184. 

 

32.  R. Yedidiah Tiah Weil, לבושי בדים, Jerusalem, 1988, p. 37. The passage comes from a sermon delivered in 1780.

 

Yet another 18th century witness, R. Saul Berlin (d. 1794), was apparently ignorant of the Maharal’s Golem. In his כתב יושר (written in 1784 but published posthumously in Berlin, 1794), p. 3b, Berlin writes:

 ואולי דבר סרה על הנסים הידועים לכל בני הגולה, כאותם שעשה מוהר"ר לוי [קרי: ליוא] בהזמינו את הקיסר רודאלפוס למשתה, וע"י שם הוריד בירה מן השמים, או בגולם שעשה מוהר"ר נפתלי זצ"ל אשר עפרו עודנו טמון וגנוז.

 

              Did [Wessely] speak disparagingly about the miracles known throughout the Jewish Diaspora? [Did he speak disparagingly] about those miracles performed by Rabbi Liva when he invited Emperor Rudolph to his party, and when by means of a Divine name he caused the Prague Castle to descend from heaven? Or regarding the Golem created by Rabbi Naftoli of blessed memory, whose dust still remains stored away?

 

Clearly, R. Saul Berlin knew legends about the Maharal. But when he needed to adduce a sample of the Golem legend, he had to turn elsewhere! Interestingly, the legend about the Prague Castle descending from heaven onto the Jewish quarter of Prague was first told about R. Adam Baal Shem, and not about the Maharal.  It first appeared in print in Prague in the 17th century. By the 19th century, the very same story was told in Prague circles with the Maharal as its hero. Once again (see above, note 30) it would appear that we have a sample of the transfer in Prague of a legend from one hero to another, with the Maharal as the recipient. In general, see C. Shmeruk, ספרות יידש בפולין, Jerusalem, 1981, pp. 119-139.

Even more interesting is the reference to the Golem of R. Naftoli, otherwise unrecorded in Jewish literature. The reference is almost certainly to R. Naftoli Ha-Kohen Katz (1645-1719), distinguished halakhist and master of the practical kabbalah, whose amulets – apparently -- didn’t always work. From 1690 to 1704 he served as Chief Rabbi of Posen. (Note too that the Maharal served as a Chief Rabbi of Posen!) Recorded in Jewish literature (though I have never seen it cited in any discussion of the Golem of Prague) is an oral tradition from 1835 that the Maharal’s Golem was created in Posen and that the remains of the Golem could still be seen in the 19th century in the old synagogue of Posen “under the eaves, lifeless, and inactive like a piece of clay.” See S. M. Gollancz, Biographical Sketches and Selected Verses, London, 1930, pp. v and 50-55, and especially p. 54. It is at least possible that R. Saul Berlin heard about the legend of the Golem of Posen and assumed (wrongly) that the Golem was created by the famed practical kabbalist and rabbi of Posen, R. Naftoli. 

   

I am indebted to S. of the On the Main Line Blogspot (see above, note 3) for calling my attention to the כתב יושר passage.

 

Apparently, reports about the remains of Golems in attics were a rather widespread phenomenon in the early modern period. Aside from the reports about Prague and Posen, see the report about the Great Synagogue in Vilna  (where the Vilna Gaon’s Golem rested in peace) in H.L. Gordon, The Maggid of Caro, New York, 1949, p. 176. A similar report about a Golem in Beshtian circles is recorded in R. Yosef of Tcherin, דרכי החיים, Piotrkow, 1884, Introduction, pp. 14-15.

   

33.  R. Meir Perels (d. 1739), מגילת יוחסין , appended to R. Moshe Katz, מטה משה, Zolkiev, 1745. It was reissued separately in Warsaw, 1864, and is available in L. Honig, ed., חדושי אגדות מהר"ל מפראג, London, 1962, vol. 1, pp. 17-32. Perels’ מגילת יוחסין is riddled with inaccuracies and needs to be used with caution. See A. Putik and D. Polakovic, “Judah Loew ben Bezalel, called Maharal: A Study of His Genealogy and Biography,” in A. Putik, ed., Path of Life: Rabbi Judah ben Bezalel, Prague, 2009, pp. 29-83. Putik and Polakovic cite significant earlier studies by Y. Yudlov, D.N. Rotner, S. Sprecher, and others. See also N.A. Vekstein ‘s important analysis of Perels’ מגילת יוחסין, entitled “המהר"ל מפראג,” in המודיע, September 4, 2009.
 
In the light of the discussion in notes 30-33 -- and until new evidence is forthcoming -- it seems evident that the linkage between the Maharal and the Golem originated after 1780 and before 1835, almost certainly in Prague but perhaps in Posen.

 

34.  See A. Putik, ed., Path of Life, pp. 398-399.

The Letter of the Maharal on the Creation of the Golem

The Letter of the Maharal on the Creation of the Golem: A Modern Forgery

By: Shnayer Leiman

For a related post by Dr. Leiman see "Did a Disciple of the Maharal Create a Golem."

I. Introduction

    In 1923, Chaim Bloch (1881-1973), noted author and polemicist,¹published a letter of the Maharal (d. 1609) that was previously unknown to all of Jewish literature.² The letter, dated 1582 (or more precisely: Tuesday of parshat va-yera, [5]343), was addressed to R. Jacob Günzberg (d. 1615), Chief Rabbi of Friedberg in Hesse.³ Rich in content, the letter provides a lengthy and detailed account of why it was necessary for the Maharal to create a Golem, how he went about doing it, and the precise spiritual, psychological, and halakhic status of the created Golem. Bloch assured his readers that the letter was published from an original copy in his possession. In order to quell any doubts, he reproduced a facsimile of the Maharal’s autograph, as it appeared on the original letter.⁴

  

    Bloch did not provide much detail about the letter’s whereabouts for the more than 300 years it apparently had been withdrawn from circulation and unknown. He thanks Rabbi Samuel Neuwirth of Vienna for his efforts in acquiring the letter and handing it over to Bloch for publication. Given that it was published together with a series of hasidic documents (including letters of the Baal Shem Tov), allegedly recovered from East European archives that had been plundered during World War I and its aftermath, the impression one has is that the Maharal letter belonged to these archives as well – though this is never explicitly stated by Bloch.⁵

    In 1931, R. Yitzchok Eizik Weiss (d. 1944), the Spinka Rebbe,⁶ published the very same letter of the Maharal (without any mention of the prior Bloch publication) based upon -- what he believed to be -- an original manuscript in his possession. He appended it to the posthumous publication of his father's אמרי יוסף על המועדים⁷ .  Although he gave no indication as to when or how the letter came into his hands, two witnesses provide us with some interesting detail.

    The first witness, R. Yitzchok Weiss (d. 1942), Chief Rabbi of Kadelburg,⁸ in his אלף כתב, a book written primarily between 1927 and 1939 but published posthumously in 1997, includes the following entry:

The Gaon and Zaddik of Spinka informed me on Monday of [parshat] Hukkat-Balak, 7 Tammuz, 5682 [= 1922], that a manuscript written by the hand of the Maharal of Prague came into his possession. In it, he responded to R. Jacob Günzberg about the making of the Golem, how and why it was done, and whether the Golem will be included in the resurrection of the dead.⁹

Thus, we know that the letter reached the Spinka Rebbe no later than the beginning of July in 1922.

    The second witness, R. Samuel Weingarten (d. 1987), noted scholar of Hungarian Jewry and religious Zionist,¹⁰ reported that he was present at the home of R. Hayyim Eleazar Shapira (d. 1937), the Munkatcher Rebbe, circa 1922-23, when two of the sons of the Spinka Rebbe [R. Yitzchok Eizik Weiss], R. Naftoli and R. Yisrael Hayyim, approached  the Munkatcher Rebbe with a query. They carefully removed a manuscript from a large envelope and asked the Rebbe to examine it. It was a handwritten letter signed by the Maharal of Prague and it dealt with the creation of the Golem. They explained that a soldier who had been taken captive at the Russian front during the World War, and who had participated in the looting of government archives during the Russian revolution, had brought the letter to their father and was prepared to sell it to him for a stiff price. Since the Spinka Rebbe was not expert in Hebrew manuscripts, he sought the advice of the Munkatcher Rebbe. The latter examined the manuscript carefully for some fifteen minutes. He then asked that a magnifying glass be brought and he re-examined the manuscript. He concluded that it was worthless; it was a forgery. The sons thanked the rabbi and went on their way with the manuscript.¹¹

    In 1969, the very same letter of the Maharal was published once again by R. Zvi Elimelech Kalush of Bnei Brak.¹² The title page of the volume assures the reader that the text of the letter was copied from the “original handwritten holy manuscript” penned by the Maharal of Prague himself. Kalush admits that he is simply reprinting the text published by the Spinka Rebbe in his father’s אמרי יוסף. Indeed, Kalush’s text incorporates all the misreadings and printers’ errors of the text as it appeared in the אמרי יוסף and, as often happens when type is reset, adds several new printers’ errors as well.¹³

              Since the letter is often reprinted and quoted as an authentic letter of the Maharal, it is probably useful to list some of the reasons that led the Munkatcher Rebbe and others¹⁴ to declare that it is a forgery. In order to facilitate discussion of the evidence, the full text of the letter is printed below, with each line identified by number.

II. Letter of the Maharal¹⁵

^{III. Evidence of Forgery16}

^{p. 86, l. 2:  ושלום     The 1931 edition reads correctly: והשלום. As an epistolary formula, the phrase חיים שלום וברכה (and its variations) does not appear in Jewish literature prior to the eighteenth century.}

 אל כבוד יד"נ   As an epistolary formula, the phrase  אל כבוד יד"נ does not occur in Jewish literature prior to the eighteenth century.

^{כקש"ת  This abbreviation for כבוד קדושת שם תפארתו first appears in Jewish literature in the eighteenth century.}

^{p. 87, l. 6:   בשנת השלום (בו?) לפ"ק The 1931 edition reads correctly: בשנת ה' של"ב לפ"ג. Thus, according to the Letter, Maharal was appointed Rabbi of Prague in 1572.  According to the historical sources, the Maharal was appointed Rosh Yeshiva of Prague in 1573.  His appointment as Rabbi of Prague came many years later.}

^{p. 87, l. 8:    The Maharal is depicted throughout the letter as devoting all his energies to countering the blood libel in Prague. There is no historical evidence – Jewish or Christian – of a charge of blood libel in Prague during the lifetime of the Maharal.}

^{p. 87, l. 12:  Cardinal Johann Sylvester is described here as the leading Christian authority in Prague. No cardinal by that name served in Prague or, for that matter, anywhere else in Christian Europe. For a list of the cardinals who functioned in Prague, see Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi 3(1920), pp. 297-354; 4(1935), p. 288; and 5(1952), p. 323; and cf. A. Frind, Die Geschichte der Bischoefe und Erzbischoefe von Prag, Prague, 1873, pp. 178-249.}

^{p. 87, l. 27:  An anti-Semitic priest and rogue in sixteenth century Prague by the name of Thaddeus is unknown to all of Jewish and Christian literature prior to the twentieth century.}

^{p. 87, l. 28:  יהודים חשוכים בדעתם, used here in the sense of “unenlightened Jews,” is a usage found only in modern Hebrew literature.} 

^{p. 88, l. 4: Rudolph II is described here as serving as King of Bohemia in 1572-3. In fact, Maximilian II served as King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor in 1572-3. It is surprising that the Maharal confused these two kings with each other.}

^{p. 88, l. 6: The Maharal reports that he was summoned for an audience with King Rudolph in 1573. Aside from the fact that Rudolph was not in office at the time, the Maharal met with Rudolph only once – in 1592. See the testimony of the Maharal’s disciple, R. David Gans, צמח דוד, ed. M. Breuer, Jerusalem, 1983, p. 145. Since this letter was allegedly written and sent to R. Jacob Günzberg in 1583, the confusion here is astonishing.}

^{p. 89, l. 7:    מולדווקא refers to the Moldau River, today the Vltava River. It is surprising that the Maharal was unaware of the correct spelling for this river in Hebrew – an essential ingredient for the writing of legally valid divorce documents. In the commentaries to the standard editions of the שלחן ערוך it is always spelled מולטא17. It is even more surprising that the Maharal was unaware of the fact that the Moldau flows through the center of the city of Prague, and not on the “outskirts of the city” (see line 6).} 

p. 90, I. 21-22: Maharal here refers to the permutations and combinations of the Hebrew letters that enable one to create a Golem, as they appear in the printed editions of Sefer Yetzirah. Alas, no such permutations and combinations appeared in any of the printed editions of Sefer Yetzirah until 1883 (פירוש הר"א גרמיזא על ספר יצירה, Przemysl, 1883).¹⁸

^{p. 91, l. 20:   כלי המ"ש = כלי המורה שעות, a watch or clock. This term first entered  Hebrew in the nineteenth century.}

^{p. 91, l. 25:  מכונה  in the sense of “machine” entered Hebrew in the modern period.}

^{p. 94, l. 9: The signature reads: Judah, dubbed Leib, son of R. Bezalel. In fact, the Maharal never signed his name in this manner. See A. Gottesdiener, המהר"ל מפראג: חייו תקופתו ותורתו, Jerusalem, 1976, pp. 19 and 29.} 

^{IV.  Comments}

    ^{We have hardly exhausted the evidence – historical and linguistic – that can be adduced in order to prove that Bloch’s Letter of the Maharal is a forgery. The cumulative evidence is sufficiently overwhelming that there is really no point in adducing more of the same. Suffice to say that anyone familiar with the syntax and vocabulary of the authentic, published writings of the Maharal will recognize instantly that the Letter of the Maharal is a crude forgery. What remains to be investigated is the identity of the forger. Who forged the letter of the Maharal? When was it forged? Why was it forged? While we cannot provide answers to these questions (due to our ignorance), the following comments may prove useful for others who wish to do so.}

1. Much of the material in the Letter of the Maharal was borrowed directly from R. Yudel Rosenberg’s נפלאות מהר"ל, Piotrkow, 1909.¹⁹ Clearly, the Letter of the Maharal is dependent upon נפלאות מהר"ל. It is unclear whether both documents came from the same hand, or whether the Letter of Maharal was an independent work. Either way, the Letter of the Maharal may have been a forgery done in order to “prove” the authenticity of נפלאות מהר"ל by providing the original manuscript of the Letter, together with the signature of the Maharal. It would have been much too cumbersome to provide a forged manuscript of the entire text of Rosenberg's נפלאות מהר"ל ²⁰.

^{2. It is noteworthy that the Letter of the Maharal was not included in, or even mentioned by, Chaim Bloch in his reworking and expansion of R. Yudel Rosenberg’s נפלאות מהר"ל18 This suggests that the Letter first reached Bloch sometime after 1919, i.e. after he had published his final version of the Golem stories.}

3. I am not aware of any evidence that either suggests or proves that Bloch – despite his predilection for forgery²¹ – forged the Letter of the Maharal. It is perhaps more likely that the forger of the Kherson Geniza (see note 5) was responsible for the forged Letter of the Maharal.

One matter, however, deserves further attention. Bloch, after all, published a facsimile of the Maharal’s signature. Precisely for that reason the publishers of the later editions, misled by the signature, stress the fact that the Letter of the Maharal was written בכתב יד קדשו. In 2009, the four hundredth yahrzeit of the Maharal was commemorated throughout the world. Those commemorations have yielded a remarkable volume, recently published in Prague. Entitled Path of Life: Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the opening pages include a genuine facsimile of the Maharal’s signature.²²

^{Here is the Maharal’s signature as published by Bloch:}

^{Here is the Maharal’s signature in the recently published Path of Life:23}

 ^{Quod erat demonstrandum!}

In sum, the Letter of the Maharal is a modern forgery. It should not and cannot be cited as evidence relating to the Maharal, the Golem, or any of the events that occurred in the sixteenth century. It is a twentieth century document that was probably forged sometime between 1909 and 1922. At best, it sheds light (or: darkness) on what Jewish forgers were thinking and doing during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

^NOTES

^{1  See the entries on Bloch in G. Bader, מדינה וחכמיה, Vienna-New York, 1934, p. 40; I. Landman, ed., Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, New York, 1940, vol. 2, p. 396; and M. Wunder, מאורי גליציה, Jerusalem, 1978, vol. 1, cols. 502-506 (and vol. 6, col. 213). It is unconscionable that no entry on Bloch appears in either edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Bloch was a prolific author and an astute polemicist who contributed significantly to a variety of Jewish topics, including folklore, apologetics, and anti-Zionist sentiment. A biography and intellectual history of Bloch remains a scholarly desideratum.}

^{2 קובץ מכתבים מקוריים מהבעש"ט ותלמידיו זי"ע, Vienna, 1923, pp. 86-94.}

3 ^{On R. Jacob Günzberg, see D. Maggid, תולדות משפחות גינצבורג, St. Petersburg, 1899, pp. 12-13. It is unclear when Günzberg was appointed Rabbi of Friedberg. R. Man Todros Spira served as Rabbi of Friedberg until circa 1582. He was succeeded by R. Samuel b. Eliezer, who was succeeded by Günzberg. See A. Kober, “Documents Selected From the Pinkas of Friedberg, a Former City in Western Germany,” PAAJR 17(1947), pp. 28-29.}

^{4 See below for the facsimile of the signature. In fairness to Bloch, it should be noted that he equivocated somewhat as to whether the document was an original or a copy. On the title page of the volume, and under the facsimile of the signature itself, he clearly implied that the letter and the signature were originals, not copies. Toward the end of the Introduction to the volume, however, Bloch describes the manuscript as ancient, difficult to read, and “ascribed to the Maharal.” Indeed, he invites his scholarly audience to determine whether or not the autograph is authentic.} 

^{5  The hasidic documents allegedly recovered from East European archives are known in scholarly circles as the Kherson Geniza. The Kherson Geniza has generated a rich literature, too cumbersome to be listed here. Some of the more important discussions are: D.Z. Hilman, אגרות בעל התניא ובני דורו, Jerusalem, 1953, pp. 240-272; Y. Raphael, “גניזת חרסון,” Sinai 81(1977), pp. 129-150; B. Schwartz, “די כערסאנער גניזה,” Der Yid , November 2 – December 28, 1984; A. Rapoport-Albert, “Hagiography with Footnotes,” History and Theory 27(1988), pp. 119-159; H. Liberman, “הוי גוי חוטא,” in ספר הזכרון לרבי משה ליפשיץ, New York, 1996, pp. 139-140; and M. Rosman, Founder of Hasidism, Berkeley, 1996, pp. 123-125.}

^{6  See Tzvi M. Rabinowicz, Encyclopedia of Hasidism, Northvale, 1996, pp. 534-535.}

7 ^{אמרי יוסף על המועדים, חלק ב׳, Vranov, 1931 (reissued: New York, 1969 and 1990).}

^{8  Kadelburg, also known as Karlburg, Oroszvar, and Rusovce, was some 11 kilometers southeast of Pressburg (= Bratislava). On Weiss, see Y.Y. Cohen, חכמי הונגריה, Jerusalem, 1997, pp. 460-461.}

^{9  אלף כתב, Bnei Brak, 1997, vol. 2, p. 47.}

^{10  See the entry on him in אנציקלופדיה של הציונות הדתית, Jerusalem, 2000, vol. 6, columns 391-393.}

^{11 Samuel Weingarten, "האדמו"ר ממונקטש רבי חיים אלעזר שפירא: בעל תחושה בקרתית" Shanah be-Shanah, 1980, pp. 447-449.}

^{12 שלוש קדושות, Bnei Brak, 1969, pp. 127-135.}

^{13 See, e.g., the last line of the letter, where Kalush (p. 135) mistakenly reads מתפורר, whereas Bloch and the Spinka Rebbe read correctly מתגורר.}

 ¹⁴  See below, note 16.

^{15 The text is taken from קובץ מכתבים מקוריים, pp. 86-94.}

^{16  The evidence of forgery is culled from G. Scholem’s review of Bloch’s קובץ מכתבים מקוריים in Kiyrat Sefer 1 (1924-5), pp. 104-106; the Munkatcher Rebbe’s comments as recorded by Weingarten (see above, note 11); and my own reading of the text.}

^{17 See also R. Ephraim Zalman Margolioth, טיב גיטין, Lemberg, 1859, p. 52a,  section on the spellings of towns and rivers.}

¹⁸ For the correct year of publication of R. Eleazar of Worms commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, see S. Ashkenazi's note in Tzefunot 1(1989), n. 4, p. 122.

^{19  נפלאות מהר"ל, ascribed to Maharal’s son-in-law, is itself a literary hoax. See S.Z. Leiman, “The Adventure of the Maharal of Prague in London,” Judaic Studies 3(2004), pp. 1-43.}

^{20 Chaim Bloch, Der Prager Golem: von seiner Geburt bis zu seinem Tod, Vienna, 1919. An English version, The Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague, Vienna, 1925, became a best seller, and is often reprinted. Bloch’s version of the Golem stories first appeared in serial form in 1917 in the Viennese periodical Oesterreichen Wochenschrift. For a comparative study of the Bloch and Rosenberg versions of the Golem stories, see A. L. Goldsmith, The Golem Remembered, 1909-1080, Detroit, 1981, pp. 51-72. Unfortunately, much of Goldsmith’s analysis is flawed due to the fact that he read Bloch and Rosenberg in translation, rather than consulting the original texts.}

^{21 See S. Weingarten, מכתבים מזוייפים נגד הציונות, Jerusalem, 1981. Cf. G. Elkoshi, “ספיחי פולמוס,” Moznayim 42(1976), pp. 212-215.}

^{22 A. Putik, ed., Path of Life: Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Prague, 2009. The signature, recorded in 1597, appears on the frontispiece and at p. 37. Cf. pp. 73-74.} 

^{23 The ז"ל ה"ה at the end of the signature stands for: זכרונו לחיי העולם הבא .  Cf. the Maharal’s signatures with the very same endings in his הסכמה to R. Samuel b. Joseph’s לחם רב, Prague, 1609 (reissued: Jerusalem, 2003), p. 5, and in the document cited by Gottesdiener, op. cit., p. 29.}