The Golem is an entity that many view as defensive, created in a response to centuries of violence as a being that removes the culpability of reciprocal violence from human hands. A watchdog, a know-nothing, a pawn.
I, however, have always viewed the matter and make-up of the Golem as a personified accumulation of suffering. The dredges of earth that come to form this imperfect humanoid are not coincidental — in a Jewish context they are the aching remnants of the Temple, the ashes of pogroms, the silt in the Red Sea. They are formed when a community has been profoundly disenfranchised. When a rabbi takes it upon themselves to forge a Golem, there is an emergency. The being represents an attempt to rebuild, to protect, and most literally, to physicalize the truth.
Truth to me will always be Tikkun Olam. It will always be the sanctity of life. It will always be the preservation and fight for freedom. It will always be protecting individual liberty, bodily autonomy, and right to existence. Regardless of who you are or what flag you were born under.
What truth is not, and what a Golem is not, is a rationalization of atrocities. A Golem is not the answer to oppression — it is a byproduct of it. It is not gleeful. It exists as a harsh symbol that things have gone too far, and when it acts out of accordance with the wishes of the people, it is not rewarded. We cannot reward those using symbols or ideology to support the murder of others. Regardless of who you are or what flag you were born under.
It is impossible to articulate the pain of this week.
To see the world indifferent or joyful at the slaughtering of innocents.
To know this is far from the beginning, yet somehow only the start.
I ask you to take time this week, for prayer, for joy, for anger, for yourself.
I ask that you honor the truth in what it means to be human, and that your humanity supersedes any affiliation that might cloud empathy, reason, or the rights of those you perceive as different from you.
And I ask that if you call for a Golem, you call for one to protect us all.
