Utz Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. ‘Go on about golems.’
    One of Utz’s favourite golem stories was a mediaeval text discovered by Gershom Scholem: wherein it was written that Jesus Christ (‘like our friend J. J. Kaendler’) used to make model birds from clay – which, once He had uttered the sacred formula, would sing, flap their wings and fly.
    A second story (‘Oh! What a Jewish story!’) told of two hungry rabbis who, having fashioned the figure of a calf, brought it to life – then cut its throat and ate veal for supper.
    As for making a golem, a recipe in the Sepher Yetzirah or ‘Book of Creation’ called for a quantity of untouched mountain soil. This was to be kneaded with fresh spring water and, from it, a human image formed. The maker was required to recite over each of the image’s limbs the appropriate alphabetical combination. He then walked around it clockwise a number of times: whereupon the golem stood and lived. Were he to reverse the direction, the creature would revert to clay.
    None of the earlier sources say whether or not a golem could speak. But the automaton did have the gift of memory and would obey orders mechanically, without reflection, providing these were given at regular intervals. If not, the golem might run amok.
    Golems also gained in stature, inch by inch, every day: yearning, it would seem, to attain the gigantic size of the Cosmic Adam – and so crush their creators and overwhelm the world.
    â€˜There was no end’, said Utz, ‘to the size of golems. Golems were highly dangerous.’
    A golem was said to wear a slip of metal known as the ‘shem’, either across its forehead or under its tongue. The ‘shem’ was inscribed with the Hebrew word ‘emeth’, or Truth of God. When a rabbi wished to destroy his golem, he had only to pluck out the opening letter, so that ‘emeth’ now read ‘meth’ — which is to say ‘death’ – and the golem dissolved.
    â€˜I see,’ I said. ‘The “shem” was a kind of battery?’
    â€˜It was.’
    â€˜Without which the machine wouldn’t work?’
    â€˜Also.’
    â€˜And the Rabbi Loew . . . ?’
    â€˜Wanted a servant. He was a good Jewish businessman. He wanted a servant without paying wages.’
    â€˜And a servant that wouldn’t answer back!’

Y ossel was the name of the Rabbi Loew’s golem. On weekdays he did all sorts of menial tasks. He chopped wood, swept the street and the synagogue, and acted as watchdog in case the Jesuits got up to mischief. Yet on the Sabbath – since all God’s creatures must rest on the Sabbath – his master would remove the ‘shem’ and render him lifeless for a day.
    One Sabbath the Rabbi forgot to do this, and Yossel went berserk. He pulled down houses, threw rocks, threatened people and tore up trees by the roots. The congregation had already filled the Altneu Synagogue for morning prayers, and was chanting the 92nd Psalm: ‘My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn . . .’ The Rabbi rushed into the street and snatched the ‘shem’ from the monster’s forehead.
    Another version places the ‘death’, amid old books and prayer-shawls, in the loft of the synagogue.
    â€˜Tell me,’ I asked, ‘would a golem have had Jewish features?’
    â€˜Not!’ Utz answered with a touch of impatience. ‘The golem was always a servant. Servants in Jewish houses were always of the goyim.’
    â€˜Would a golem have had Nordic features?’
    â€˜Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Giants’ features.’
    Utz brooded for a while and then arrived at the crux of the discussion:
    All these tales suggested that the golem-maker had acquired arcane secrets: yet, in doing so, had transgressed Holy Law. A man-made figure was a blasphemy. A golem, by its presence alone, issued a warning against idolatry – and actively