Ignorance and Bliss

"Once upon a time there was a great rabbi in Prague." Thus began a charming speech given in 1969 by the Jewish historian and thinker Gershom Scholem, who had been asked to preside over the dedication of a new computer at an Israeli research institute. He dubbed the machine "Golem Aleph" (or Golem #1), referring to the traditional Jewish myth of the golem, an artificial creature fashioned by men through the magical arts. There are many versions of this legend, but on that day Scholem had in mind the most famous one, which involves the 16th-century rabbi Judah Löw of Prague.

The story goes that Rabbi Löw made a clay figure and endowed it with the power of his own mind, though that power derived ultimately from God. The transfer was effected when the rabbi wrote God´s name on a slip of paper and put it into the golem´s mouth, animating the figure. From that moment on, the golem served the rabbi and did his bidding--except on Friday evenings, when Rabbi Löw would remove the slip of paper for the Sabbath and give the golem the day of rest all humans are obliged to observe. Yet rabbis, even great ones, are notoriously absent-minded. So it happened one Friday that Rabbi Löw forgot to remove the divine name from the golem´s mouth and left the creature home alone while he went to the synagogue. No sooner had he departed than the golem grew to giant proportions and began raging through the streets of the Prague ghetto, threatening all in its path. The rabbi was called from his prayers by the frightened population, and with some effort he managed finally to tear the paper from the golem´s mouth and render the creature powerless, a block of inanimate clay.

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