3.1345 Golems (68)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 2 May 90 17:12:07 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1345. Wednesday, 2 May 1990.
(1) Date: Tue, 01 May 90 22:02:46 EST (9 lines)
From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM>
Subject: golem
(2) Date: 1 May 90 22:38:00 EDT (9 lines)
From: "O. B. Hardison, Jr." <ohar@guvax.georgetown.edu>
Subject: RE: 3.1340 Robots and Golems (50)
(3) Date: Wed, 02 May 90 00:57:23 EDT (6 lines)
From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 3.1340 Robots and Golems (50)
(4) Date: Wed, 02 May 90 09:33:13 IST (44 lines)
From: Itamar Even-Zohar <B10@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 3.1340 Robots and Golems (50)
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 01 May 90 22:02:46 EST
From: "STEVEN D. FRAADE" <FRASTED@YALEVM>
Subject: golem
See now Moshe Idel, _Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on
the Artificial Anthropoid_ (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1990).
S. D. Fraade
Yale University
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: 1 May 90 22:38:00 EDT
From: "]" <ohar@guvax.georgetown.edu>
Subject: RE: 3.1340 Robots and Golems (50)
There is an interesting discussion of the Golem legend in Marvin Minsky
(ed) ROBOTICS (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1985). -- O. B. Hardison, Jr.
(OHAR@GUVAX)
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------13----
Date: Wed, 02 May 90 00:57:23 EDT
From: Julie Falsetti <JEFHC@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 3.1340 Robots and Golems (50)
An interesting account of the golem can be found in Bruce Chatwin's book
'Utz'.
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------51----
Date: Wed, 02 May 90 09:33:13 IST
From: Itamar Even-Zohar <B10@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 3.1340 Robots and Golems (50)
Boyarin's "Maharal", is the acronym MHRL, which refers to the same Rabbi
Yehuda Leob, the creator of the Golem. M=morenu (our teacher), H=Ha rab
(the professor) R=Rabbi (in this connection, perhaps "Sir" rather than
"tecaher") L=Liva (this is the current form of the name in the Hebrew
sources). "Golem" comes from the Hebrew root GLM denoting "primordial,
raw". It means "a creature without shape", embryo, and also clumsy,
idiot, ignoramus. "gelem" in Hebrew is "raw material" (for the
industry, for instance).
The Golem story is said to have inspired Capek, who invented the word
ROBOT (from the Czech root denoting "work"). But we must remember that
Rabbi Yehuda put eventually the golem to eternal sleep because he was
unable to control him. Nobody is allowed even today to climb to the
attic in the Prague synagogue where Rabbi Liva is supposed to have
finished the Golem's life.
When computers became known to my generation in this country in the
1950's, people referred to them as "the golem". This connoted computers'
brainlessness, a pun created probably to refute the Hebrew "moax
eleqtroni" (electronical brain) which was given to those computers
before the word "maxsheb" was invented ('x' is pronounced as aspirated
'h').
Rabbi Liva probably invented software much before von Neuman, since the
Golem would work only when Liva put in his mouth a piece of paper with
the name of god written on it, and when he took it out, the golem would
again become a piece of clay. This is what happens to our PCs, isn't
it? (except for the text, and the materials...)
A popular song of my childhood was:
Golem ish
qax patish
lek la-abod
ve al taamod
(Stupid fellow, take a hammer, go to do some work, and don't stand
[idle])
Itamar Even-Zohar
Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics