And I have heard, in a certain and explicit way, from several respectable persons that one man, [living] close to our time, in the holy community of Helm, whose name is R. Eliyahu, the master of the name, who made a creature out of matter [Golem] and form [ẓurah] and it performed hard work for him, for a long period, and the name of 'emet was hanging upon his neck, until he finally removed for a certain reason, the name from his neck and it turned to dust.
Later retellings of this story would add a specific justification for why Rav Eliyahu Baal Shem of Chelm deactivated his golem. Rav Yaakov Emden, a descendant of Rav Eliyahu, in שאילת יעב"ץ ב:פ"ב explained that the golem slowly grew and Rav Eliyahu deactivated it out of a fear that it would destroy the world. This becomes the core of later more elaborate versions of the story. In which a rabbi creates a golem and the golem becomes a threat to the community or the wider world.
In the earliest versions of the Maharal of Prague's golem, the Maharal creates a golem which he uses to help him with chores. When the Maharal forgets to deactivate the golem before Shabbat, the golem begins to go rougue and damages property. Then the Maharal deactivates the golem and hides the golem's body away.
The story of the Maharal's golem is a historically romantic folktale that exists in the context of other romantic literature in the 19th century. These other romantic short stories and novels play with the idea of a golem or golem-like being developing feelings as an individual character. Most famously, there's Frankenstein's monster, but there are versions of this story that are specific to the golem. Rudolf Lother's short story The Golem of Rabbi Loeb, which was published in english translation in the Menorah magazine, portrays the golem as the manifestation of Eleazar's love for his reluctantly bethrothed Esther. (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3); (Also see Eden Dekel and David Gantt Gurley, "How the Golem Came to Prague," in Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 103, No. 2 (Spring 2013): 241–238.)
None of these stories contain any events in which the golem becomes the protector of the Jewish communtiy. Yet somehow, in the 1920 film The Golem: How He Came into the World, the golem is specifically created to protect the Jewish community of Prague.
In the narrative of the film, the emperor sends a decree to expell the Jews from Prague since they have been accussed of killing Christ and oppressing the Christian residents of the city. In response, the Maharal creates the golem. For a bit the Maharal tests the golem's abilities by having him aid in household chores. The Maharal and his golem soon set out to meet with the emperor during a festival and somehow convince him to repeal the decree.
Upon arriving at the festival, the emperor asks the Maharal to entertain the crowd with one of his magic tricks. The Maharal offers to show a moving picture of Jewish history, but warns that if the audience laughs at all there will be dangerous consequences. This stipulation is a trap. The Maharal projects the image of a caravan of middle eastern nomads, one particularly wizzened man looks to the audience and declares that he is Ahasuerus the wandering Jew. The audience bursts out laughing. With the pretext, the Maharal causes the roof of the banquet hall to begin collapsing. Some people get crushed in the rubble, while others jump out of the windows to their deaths. In desparation the emporer offers to repeal his decree against the Jews if the Maharal saves him. Immediately, the Maharal orders the golem hold up the collapsing roof, saving the emperor and the others who haven't been crushed yet.
Using the literary motifs of the romantic versions of the golem story, the movie translates the increasing power of the golem into the golem distancing itself from its creator and becoming more human. It is this emotional development of the golem that eventually leads it to kidnap the Maharal's daughter Miriam and accidentally set the ghetto on fire.
The golem movie seems to have greatly popularized the self-defense element of the golem story. Almost all of the versions of the story that follow contain some element of Jewish community self-defense in the golem story. This element of community protection becomes integral to the comic book super heros that were based on the golem.
The golem movie did not orginate the self-defense motif in the golem story. I was able to locate one published version of the golem story contianing a narrative of communal self-defense. It's likely there are a few more that pre-date the 1920 golem movie, but I have not been able to locate them.
In 1897, the Jewish Publication Society produced a small book of Jewish folktales by Henry Iliowizi called In The Pale. One of the stories in this book is titled The Baal Shem and His Golem. Although the title seems to make it fit right into the tradition of previous golem stories, almost everything contained within it is a departure from the traditional golem story.
This is the plot summary:
Payutin, the recently appointed magistrate of Karolin, falls in love with Mayor Pozanow’s daughter Tilka. The couple, holding deeply antisemitic beliefs, recruit Russian Orthodox Father Shapirow, the son of a Jewish convert, to convince Mayor Pozanow to target the Karolin Hassidim. Mayor Pozanow instructs the Karolin fire brigade to respond to any loud festive noise created by the Hassidim worshiping as if it was a call of emergency, and then charge the Hassidim with disorderly conduct and fine them for the cost of the false alarm.
Rav Aarele Baal Shem of Karolin instructs his Hassidim to ignore the new policy and continue worshiping as usual. Then, he enlists the help of the local Jewish blacksmith Pulasky to create a golem. After spiritually cleansing himself, Pulasky studies the divine names with Rav Aarele and summons a divine workforce to staff his workshop all night. When the sun rises, Pulasky and his spirit team have created a fire breathing iron monster. On the day of Payutin and Tilka’s wedding, Rav Aarele sent the iron golem to attack the wedding. The golem killed all the people at the wedding and destroyed the mayor’s house.
That's the story, its just the Jews lived happily ever after and defeated their enemies. There's no part where the golem turns on the Jewish community. In fact the story stresses "Not a Jewish house was damaged; not a Jewish body hurt."
Although the story refers to Rav Aarele's creation as a golem, the creature is quite different from the traditional golem. In the underlying mystical reasoning for the golem, it is necessary for the golem to created from clay just like God created humans from dirt. The golem is created in a human form. The fact that the golem appears on the outside to be almost human was intriguing to the romantic authors who sought to explore the similarly almost human mind contained within the golem.
Rav Aarele's golem is neither made from clay nor formed to look like a human. This is how Rav Aarele describes the golem to the blacksmith Pulasky,
. . . forge for me a horror of black iron. It shall be as awe-inspiring as Death, as terrible as the Plague, gigantic as the Anak who followed Noah's Ark through the waters of the deluge, implacable as Satan the Beast and Lilith the Harlot. Hissing serpents shall be its hair; its eyes shall glow like the fire of hell; from its mouth shall shoot forth a live dragon as tongue; its claws shall be like those of the tiger; and its tail a venomous hydra. The Golem's hands shall reach to the soles of its feet. Dress it in a garb of feathers as black as Abaddon. It shall stride forth with wings outspread, shall breathe fire and vomit flame; a hellish roar shall issue from its throat; and I shall cause it to move and act as a power possessed of reason and will.
This golem is as inhuman as possible. Iliowizi specifically rejects any of the romantic human weakness or instability of the traditional golem. Rav Aarele's golem is simply an agent of death that can only harm oppressors of the Jewish community. The reference to the safety of Jewish houses during the golem's rampage is a clear reference to the death of the Egyptian firstborn in the Exodus story. Iliowizi's golem is an idealized form of divine protection and defense.
In creating this perfect divine agent of retribution, Iliowizi rejects the foundational message of earliest golem stories. Looking back to Rav Yaakov Emden's retelling of the story, the golem is inherently a growing threat to safety of the world. Later story tellers found different ways of expressing this threat. They all illustrated it with some harm befalling the Jewish community. While transforming the golem into an agent for community defense, Iliowizi sheds the fundamental message of all the golem stories. That a human cannot create a perfect creation.
Paul Wegener synthesized Iliowizi's golem of self-defense with human feeling golem of the romantic stories. He created a powerful message about the dangers of violent self-defense and how it can backfire. In doing so, he maintained foundational message of the limits of human achievement.
The archetype of Iliowizi's golem is still very present in the cultural imagination of the modern Jewish community. We tell ourselves that Rav Aarele's monster golem is attacking the bad guys, and everyone it kills deserves to die. We tell ourselves that no Jewish houses will be harmed by the golem. After all the golem we created has been ridden of human weakness and will only target our oppressors.
Just because Iliowizi denies that the golem is a danger to the world, does not make it true. He simply gives us permission to pretend that the golem can maintain our communal defense forever without any consequences. Such a blind attitude will only lead us to severe consequences.
Iliowizi's golem is a complete fantasy, whether or not he intended it to be read as such, that's what it is. An army is made up of people, not divine mechanical monsters. Unlike divine mechanical monsters, people are immoral. There is no such thing as a moral army, let alone a 'most moral army in the world.'