Dear Kobi,



In the Talmud it is told that Rava (a Babylonian sage who lived in Mechoza) created a person by combining the letters of the Holy Name (Sanhedrin 65b).

What is important to understand is that the use of magic for man’s purposes was considered a “scientific” pastime known to the select few, just as certain law of nature are now known only to a select few scientists.

Thus did Rava say: “Righteous people may create a world just as G-d created the world, but their sins are the cause of the separation between G-d’s ability and that of the righteous, as is written, ‘But it is your sins which separate you from your G-d'” (Isaiah 59:2).

The very belief that there is a practical way for a spiritual entity (G-d) to spontaneously create heavens, earth, and man is that which causes the believer to also believe in the ability of the righteous, whose souls are part of the Divine, to create earth, heavens, and man.

The faith in the creation of man through magical powers is so obvious that it is discussed as a halachic question: may a man created through combinations of the Holy Name join a minyan to say kaddish?

The answer of the Chacham Tzvi is that he does not join the minyan because he has no soul as does a man born through the natural way of birth (Responsa Chacham Tzvi 93).

One who wishes to expand his knowledge about the golem, the Jewish concept of the creation of a man through magical means, should read Prof. Moshe Idel’s book “Golem—the magical and mystical Jewish tradition of the creation of an artificial man,” Schoken Press, 1996.

We will cite a short bit which matches our opinion: “The connection between the technique through which G-d creates the creature (Man), based on what is written in Sefer HaYetzira, and the later kabbalistic writings is quite clear: the technique of combining letters is identical in both cases.”



To illustrate the faith which is widespread amongst those who believe in the Jewish religion about the ability to create a human through a combination of the Holy Name, we will bring the legend of the creation of “the golem of Prague,” a creature named Yossele.

With the increased power of the enemies of Israel in Prague and the many blood libels invented by the oppressors of the Jews, the Maharal of Prague (R’ Yehuda Loew, the son of Betzalel, 1512 (?) – 1609, Prague) asked a dream question, and was answered with the following, in the form of an acrostic. “You create a golem, glue together the material and tear the evil ones, those who prey upon Israel.”

The Maharal understood that with these combinations of the Holy Name he could create a living artificial man. In secret (secrecy is powerful to one who wishes to create ex nihilo) his father-in-law Rabbi Yitzchak the son of Rabbi Shimshon Katz and his best student, Rabbi Yaakov the son of Chaim Sasson the Levite, revealed to them the secret of creating an artificial man to save the Jews, and told them they would participate in the creation of the man. He severely warned them that they should never revela the secret to anyone else and instructed them to prepare themselves over the course of a week, to fast and to immerse in the mikveh before this act of creation. In the year 49, on second of Adar, after midnight, the three went to the banks of the Moldavian River and found material suitable for creating the form of a man, with a face, arms, and legs spread out on the ground. Afterwards the three of them stood at the edge of the golem, facing its face. The Maharal told his father-in-law, Rabbi Yitzchak, to circle the golem seven times, right to left, and gave him the combinations of the Holy Names to say when making the circles. The three saw, when the circles were complete, that the entire golem was red as a burning ember.

After this the Maharal made seven of these circles and the three of them whispered “And He blew the breath of life into his nostrils and he became a living soul.” Then the golem suddenly opened his eyes and looked at them, like one awakened from a dream.

The Maharal told the golem “Know that your only purpose in life is to protect the Jews from all the troubles which their enemies and oppressors cause them, and your name shall be Yosef.”



After the Maharal saw that the land had quieted and that Yossele the golem had fulfilled his goal and his purpose, he decided to return the golem to the earth. At 2 am the three rabbis circled Yossele and repeated those combinations of the Holy Name, but backwards, until Yossele’s sudden demise.



N.B. As G-d created worlds and destroyed them, so did the Maharal create a man and then destroy him at whim. Just as the story of Maharal’s creation is nonsense, so is the story of G-d’s creation of man by His breath nonsense.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet