In the sixteenth century in Prague the Jewish community was the victim of continuous violence and abuse, despite the reign of Rudolf II, an enlightened ruler and protector of this community.
At the head of the Jewish community there was Rabbi Jehuda Loew well bezalel, known as Rabbi Loew, he was the most knowledgeable theologian of the Talmudic school of Prague and an excellent connoisseur of Kabbalah.
One night in a dream he was ordered to build a Golem to protect the Jews. The Golem is a mythical figure of kabbalistic derivation. It is a shapeless being who is magically given life through the recitation of combinations of letters and numbers. The golem can be used as a servant to carry out heavy work and as a defender of the Jewish people from its persecutors.
Rabbi Loew asked two other rabbi friends for help. The three went to the banks of the Vltava and traced in the mud the shape of a man lying down. Then Loew and the other two turned around the figure seven times holding a torah in their hands and reciting together the verse of Genesis (2.7): "Then the Lord God formed man with soil dust..."
Finally, Rabbi Loew wrote on the Golem’s forehead the word Emet (truth in Hebrew), giving him life. The Golem did not have the ability to speak and listen, so Loew to give him orders and to control him had to insert in his mouth a small wooden table containing the word of God. One day, however, the rabbi forgot about the tablet, and the golem became uncontrollable, destroying everything he encountered.
So Rabbi Loew had to intervene again. After obtaining from the emperor the promise that he would not attack the Jews, he removed the letter alef (e) from the word Emet that the Golem carried on its forehead, changing its meaning to death: Met in Hebrew.
After taking his life, Loew hid the Golem in the attic of the old synagogue in Prague and ordered that no one enter.
He even destroyed the stairs by which it was possible to climb. This attic has remained inaccessible for hundreds of years, but when there was a chance to visit it, no Golem was found. This however fed the whole legend.
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