Rabbi's
Sermons
Rosh HaShanah
Day Two
Sinai Synagogue, Thursday AM, September 14, 2007
On a cool evening in the spring of 1580 three figures under the cover of darkness stood on a river bank donned in white garments. The leader took his staff and drew the figure of a man in the soft clay. Then he began to walk in a circle around the figure he had drawn while intoning the secret mystical names of God. His disciples followed him, walking seven times around the figure one way and then seven times in the opposite direction. Using the aleph bet in sacred combinations with each other they envisioned the shapes of each of the letters and as they meditated on these holy combinations the creature began to move. Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, known as the Maharal, leader of the community, one of the leading Jewish thinkers and scholars of all the 16th century Jewish world, poured a cup of water over the stirring creature and blew into his nostrils. As he recited verses of Torah the creature began to detach himself from the earth. Hair grew on his head. Nails sprouted from his fingernails. Loew cautiously approached the creature and placed under his tongue a parchment on which was written, ‘The Lord is Truth’. “Arise, Golem”, called out the Maharal, and the Golem arose in the dark night ready to do his master's bidding.
This is, of course, the famous legend of the Golem. Probably the most famous Jewish story ever written, it has grown in its cultural significance over the last 100 years. Over the summer program I participated in a seminar for my doctoral program at Spertus on the meaning of the Golem in modern life with Dr. Byron Sherwin, an outstanding scholar and author of several books about Jewish sources relating to modern ethical issues. Sometime this fall I will offer a class on Jewish sources related to this fascinating topic.
But this morning I want to begin by comparing the Jewish legend of the Golem with its equally famous non Jewish version, Frankenstein. The legend of the Golem and the Maharal is just that, a legend. For the tale is unknown before the end of the 18th century several hundred years after the Maharal had died. And there is no evidence that Mary Shelley was familiar with this legend when she wrote her book. Thus it is interesting to compare the two stories which offer very different perspectives on the idea of human capability to create life. In the story of the Golem of Prague, Rabbi Loew creates the Golem using mystical powers to protect the Jews of Prague who are threatened by pogroms and blood libels. In the original version Rabbi Loew retires the Golem after many years of devoted service by removing the parchment from his mouth. The Golem is obedient, useful and protective. Its creator is pious, humble and knows the limits of his power. In Mary Shelley’s literary creation, the monster is horrid, willful, and very dangerous. Dr. Frankenstein is arrogant and ambitious and sickened by the hideous sight of his creature, later to be ashamed at the destruction he has created.
Since Frankenstein, all stories, even later versions of the Golem legend, that tell the story of human beings tinkering with the ability to recreate life have been affected by Shelley’s disapproving approach to human attempts to play God. In H. Leivick’s great Yiddish play Golem, the rabbi creates the Golem with a desire for revenge, even banishing Elijah and the Messiah until the Golem can complete his task. Only after the Golem begins to develop his own free will does the Rabbi recognize the great danger of his creation. It has become axiomatic that if humans use their knowledge to tinker with nature we do more harm than good. Think of the countless stories, books, movies, television shows that you have read or seen in which scientists create something for the good of humanity, some new elixir or creature or life force that instead of helping the world begins its destruction. But why should that be? Why should we assume that humans will screw up the world while using their abilities to heal it?
What lies at the bottom of this divide is how one thinks of the basic human condition. Jews look positively towards the creation of the human being. We have no doubt about the depths of evil that humans can sink to and how destructive they can be to the world but we also recognize the potential good that human beings can do. We are created “b’tzelem Elokim”, in the divine image. Thus we are linked in some core way to God. And if the divinity’s essence is Life then shall we not follow such a mandate for ourselves? The Torah (Deut 13:5) demands of us that “acharei Hashem Elokeichem taleykhu” You shall follow after the Lord Your God. Rabbi Hamah bar Hanina teaches this means follow God’s middot – God’s ways, God’s qualities.
But as with everything in life the question, to paraphrase Moshe Friedland, is not what one does but how one does it. Is our human creative faculty engaged to assist and nurture or to gain personal glory and power? When we create are we cognizant of the source of our creativity? Are we humble in using the powers and faculties God granted us or in the words of arrogant, (Deut 8:17) “Kochi v”otaem yadi asah li et kol haCahyil hazeh” “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.”
While Frankenstein may have taught the lesson that humans can only bring unintended negative consequences in tampering with the creation of life, the Jewish lesson of the Golem legend may be that creating and manipulating life can be an opportunity to emulate the divine and partner with God in the act of creation.
In fact, a midrash from Bereshit Rabbah suggests that we ourselves are not so very far from the creation of a golem.
It was taught in the name of R. Eliezer: The world was created on the twenty-fifth of Elul. Thus you are left to conclude that Adam was created on Rosh HaShanah, the first of Tishri, the sixth day from the twenty-fifth of Elul.
And what was the process by which Adam was created? In the first hour the idea of creating man entered God’s mind, in the second God took counsel with the Ministering Angels, in the third God assembled Adam's dust, in the fourth and fifth God kneaded and shaped him, in the sixth God made Adam into a golem, in the seventh God breathed a soul into him, in the eighth God brought him into the Garden of Eden, in the ninth he was commanded [against eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge], in the tenth he transgressed, in the eleventh he was judged, in the twelfth he was pardoned. ‘This,’ said the Holy One, to Adam, ‘will be a sign to your children. As you stood in judgment before Me this day and came out with a free pardon, so will your children in the future stand in judgment before Me on this day and will come out from My presence with a free pardon.’ When does this occur? IN THE SEVENTH MONTH, IN THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH.
What do we learn from this midrash? That we humans were once golems. That what distinguishes humans from golems is the soul that comes from God, but that paradoxically Adam does not, cannot transgress until he receives his soul (automatons cannot sin) and that even after transgressing God’s command, God is willing to pardon and forgive.
God recognizes that for humans to be partners with God they must be other than God, they must be given a will, a freedom to act differently. And God desires so strongly to have such a partner, and companion in the world that God is willing to accept human failure. But God has confidence in the potential of humankind because God has sweetened the odds, as it were, of the human potential for doing good. For the soul with which God created the human person comes from the Divine Self.
The midrash informed us that it was in the seventh hour that God breathed the soul into Adam. We are told in Genesis 2 “Vayipach b’apav nishmat haim”. And according to Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady, the founder of Habad Hasidism, quoting the Zohar : “Kol mahn d’napakh mitochehah napkh” Everything that exhales out, exhales from within itself. That is in exhaling out this Divine breath, a component of God enters into the human being and remains. But just a part. Just an imprint of the Holy One. It is up to us to complete the creation of the human person, our human person, ourselves.
Each year on this day, we stand between the hour of the golem and the hour of the ensouled Adam. It is our task to develop our human selves to the best of our ability. The Maharal of Prague, the real one not the one of legend wrote – Hakol tzarikh tikun al-yidai adam Everything in the world needs reparation, or completion, through human efforts. God creates the world, God creates man to be a partner in the world and then leaves the human person to complete the universal project.
And that project begins with ourselves. Today is the day that we begin the work of renewal and reparation. The midrash that I shared with you a moment ago about Adam being created on Rosh HaShanah was surprising.
You thought today begins the judgment period, if I do a good job of teshuvah then on Yom Kippur I gain atonement and then I start afresh. But the midrash tipped God’s hand! - ‘This,’ said the Holy One, blessed be He, to Adam, ‘will be a sign to your children. As you stood in judgment before Me this day, the first day of Tishrei, and came out with a free pardon, so will your children in the future stand in judgment before Me on this day, this first day of Tishrei, and come out from My presence with a free pardon.’ God has indicated that we will be pardoned and we did not even have to do anything! But in fact it is not so. Knowing that we will be pardoned allows us to do teshuvah, to change our ways, to correct our errors, to begin anew the work of tikun and hashlamah, reparation and completion, out of free will and love for God, out of a desire to partner with God in repairing the world not out of fear of punishment.
Into the lifeless golem God blew a breath and out came a human being distinguished from the rest of the animal kingdom, so too on this day we blow into the shofar taken from animal and from it comes a sound, a Kol – in the words of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a kol reminiscent of the “kol demamah dakah” the still small voice that Elijah heard, a kol reminiscent of the commanding voice heard at Sinai. We blow into this shofar and coax God into the world.
Today is a new beginning for us and for God in the world.
When a hasid of the Baal Shem Tov wanted to do teshuvah, the Baal Shem Tov told him to go see Moshe the Woodcutter. The hasid was slightly put off because it was known that Moshe the Woodcutter was not the most pious of Jews, nevertheless he followed the advice of his rebbe. When he got to Moshe’s place he saw a roaring fire in the fire pit. This was not so unusual as it was just before Rosh HaShanah and the weather had turned cooler. But beside the fire was Moshe with two separate piles of papers and he was throwing both piles sheet by sheet into the fire. He came over to Moshe and asked him what he was doing. He said, every year I write down every single time someone hurt me, or insulted me. Every incident in which I was wronged. But I also write down every good thing that happened. All the good things that were done for me and all the good things done by me. And then I sit by the fire and throw them all away. For this is a new year and a new start.
Today begins a new year and a new start. Let us work to turn ourselves from golems into human beings, human beings for whom it is a privilege to partner with God.
