A Golem with AI Warfare Gives Four Endings

While we know that the Golem was finally deactivated, there are several different conflicting versions about how that happened, each one incorporating different mystical insights into the nature of human-spawned creation, destruction, and power. I will relate a four of them.

1

But the Golem’s mind was quickening, he perceived the reason behind the rabbi’s request and he shook his head.
“All right,” Rabbi Judah Loew said. “I share the responsibility for what happened for I created you. Come. Let us reason together. We will talk about what can be done.” The Golem half turned as though to leave.
“Wait!” Rabbi Loew called out in alarm. “I know you are suspicious, Joseph Golem. That is an all too human characteristic. But I wonder if you have become human enough to be curious.” Or, he added to himself, human enough to be ambitious and greedy? The Golem did not move, but his eyes cautiously studied the rabbi.
“I could reveal a secret to you,” Rabbi Judah Loew said persuasively. “A secret about your creation which you could use to become even stronger and much more attractive. But if I do this for you, you must agree for your part to listen to my advice in the future before you act. If you agree to this bargain, lean down, and I will whisper the secret into your ear.
The Golem hesitated, obviously torn between desire and apprehension. Finally, with a look of cunning, he bent down in such a way that the ear lacking the parchment was inclined toward the rabbi, the other safely out of his reach. Rabbi Judah Loew began whispering. He whispered such marvels that the Golem’s eyes opened wide in wonder and glazed. Softer and softer, the rabbi whispered; the Golem bent closer and closer, intent on hearing every word.
Suddenly the rabbi’s hand darted out and grabbed the small bit of parchment from the giant’s ear. Immediately, the Golem stiffened and toppled forward, crushing the rabbi under his weight. They died together, each one of them the victim of the other.

II

But the Golem’s mind was quickening. He understood the reason behind the rabbi’s request and shook his head. He turned and ran down the street faster than the rabbi could follow. Filled with despair, Rabbi Loew entered the synagogue and approached the holy Ark. Only a short time before he had ordered the Golem to protect the Torah from destruction by a drunken mob of anti-Semites.
But now he bowed his head and prayed for someone, something, to protect humanity from the Golem. All that night he remained in deep prayer. Finally, he became conscious that it was morning and that several people had entered the Synagogue and were waiting agitatedly for him to finish his prayers so that they could speak to him.
“Yes?” he said, straightening up.
“Rabbi, something strange has happened…”
“It’s Joseph Golem, Rabbi…”
Still another troubled voice broke in, “Rabbi, you know Merle, Haim and Rifka’s little girl? Well, Joseph Golem is holding her on his shoulder and he won’t let her down. She is crying, but he just stands there without moving and we are afraid.”
“Quick,” said Rabbi Loew. “Lead me to them.”
The men turned and ran out of the Synagogue, the rabbi following as fast as he could. When they reached the street where Haim and Rifka lived, he heard the little girl sobbing with fright and the Golem, standing at the top of some stairs, holding the child on his shoulder.
“He still hasn’t moved,” called out an onlooker. “Not a muscle.”
Puzzled, the rabbi climbed the stairs and the little girl, seeing him, stopped her crying. But still the Golem did not move. The rabbi was about to speak when he noticed something in the child’s hand.
It was the parchment with the name of God written on it. Apparently the Golem had picked up the little girl and placed her on his shoulder. Why? No one would ever know. But the child, noticing the bit of parchment in the Golem’s ear, had playfully or curiously reached up and removed it.
Without the mystical power of God’s holy name to give him life force, the Golem became once more a rigid lump of clay. It had been only a happenstance, a fortunate one, that the giant’s weight at that instant was perfectly balanced so that instead of crashing to the ground, injuring the child, he continued to stand erect like a statue.
The rabbi called to the child to let herself slide down the Golem’s chest and he caught her, comforting her and taking the parchment from her hand as he set her down on the ground. Then he told the people, “Joseph Golem has died. We must honor him for the help he has given us,” adding in his heart,. “It is not you who failed us, Joseph Golem, but we who are not yet ready for you.”

III

But the Golem’s mind was quickening. Perceiving the reason behind the rabbi’s request, he shook his head, and Rabbi Judah Loew’s heart filled with sympathy for this creature’s wish to live. “All right,” he said. ”Let us submit ourselves to the judgment of the Torah. Since you cannot speak, I shall argue your cause for you.
“In your defense, it can be said that Judaism does not teach pacifism. We believe a man has a right to defend himself. The Ten Commandments do not say, ‘Thou shall not kill.’ Kill is an incorrect translation of the word Retsach. It says, ‘Thou shall not murder.’ So it is not murder when a man kills in self-defense. You have a right to use violence to save yourself, just as the Jewish people have the right to protect and defend themselves against their attackers.
“On the other hand,” said the rabbi, “when we fought the Roman Empire in the days of the Second Temple, and the Bar Kochba rebellion, we did not succeed. The Rabbis have emphasized their belief that Israel shall survive by study, by spirituality, and by dedication to mitzvot.
“And, indeed, we have survived fifteen hundred years since those days when we battled the Roman Empire. Although we have often been persecuted, massacred by the crusaders, victimized by pogroms during the time of the Black Plague, exiled from country after country in Europe, we have always survived. We have long outlived the Romans. We shall survive these medieval kingdoms which now harass us. They will tumble down, but the Jewish people will thrive. We survive not by force, but by the power of faith.
“On the other hand,” continued Rabbi Loew in Talmudic singsong, “a time may come when the gentiles may go beyond pressuring us to convert; they may try to wipe out our very existence. Then shall we not defend ourselves? And will there not come a time during the battles of the Messianic Age when Israel shall once again, as in the days of David, have armies and generals?
“On the other hand,” said the rabbi, deeply troubled, “could we not become corrupted even as Yitzchak was? Could we become like all the other nations, using our military power to persecute and exploit?”
There seemed no resolution to the problem. The pro arguments were as strong as the con arguments. Rabbi Judah Loew began praying for an answer from God and suddenly he saw 360 years into the future: Prague 1939; vastly changed from the medieval town he knew. He recognized it only because his synagogue, the Altneu, still was standing.
Then he saw the Nazis marching into Prague. The city had fallen to madmen due to British and French unwillingness to fight the enemies of freedom, and their willingness to buy peace for themselves at the price of lost freedom for others.
Rabbi Judah Loew saw his people rounded up and thrown into concentration camps. He saw them persecuted and exiled in 1940 and 1941. He saw the Germans murdering men, women and children in the gas chambers in ’42 and ’43 and ’44.
He saw the British preventing the escaping refugees from reaching the land of Israel. He saw the Arabs misled into rejecting the homecoming of their Semitic brothers.
Then the rabbi began to cry. “I cannot destroy this Golem.” he sobbed. “My people will have terrible need of him. But I cannot accept responsibility for harnessing him now to use against the anti-Semites. I will leave his use to a generation much more desperate or much wiser than ours.”
He persuaded the Golem to go up to the attic of the Altneu Synagogue and wait.

IV

He persuaded the Golem to go up to the attic of the Altneu Synagogue and wait. Some say Joseph Golem still was waiting for the Jewish people to call on him when almost all the people of the Altneu Synagogue were destroyed during the Second World War; and the Golem died in the flames of that destruction. They say the Jewish people had waited too long to become militant like the other nations.
However, some say that as young boy in the 1870’s, the founder of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, ventured into the locked attic and discovered the Golem standing there as lifeless as an unbaked pot. As he stood, looking sadly at the inanimate form of the giant, Theodore Herzl had a divine vision.
He saw that the Golem could be brought to life again by the actions of the Jewish people. If the Jewish people worked together, and fought side by side, they could regain their strength. A new state would be reborn, and from the ends of the earth the exiles could return, in fulfillment of the Bible’s Messianic promises.
The Jewish people themselves could be a powerful Golem waiting for the right spirit to bring them to life and strength. If only they had the wisdom and humility to use their reborn power wisely.

Power itself is neutral. But unchecked power does tend to corrupt both people and institutions; and holy power can become wholly corrupting.

Who can know what a new power like the internet or genetic engineering will eventually produce even in the hands of well intentioned and highly intelligent people. May the lessons of the Golem always be with our own religious and political leaders and with us.

For Further Reading:
The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague by Jacob Boehme, Chayim Block
Golem by David Wisniewski (a children’s book for adults)
The Golem by Haiyim Leivick (a play adapted by David Fishelson)
God, Sex and Kabbalah by Rabbi Allen S. Maller
The Golem of Prague by Rabbi Gershon Winkler