One of the most celebrated Jewish folk tales in Prague is the Prague Golem. Unlike other golem tales, the story of the Prague Golem makes people speculate that a Golem did once walk in the very same streets now called the Old Town of Prague. All the places and the people in the story existed in the 16^th century including the creator of the Golem, the reknowned Rabbi Judah Loew.

In one of the more popular versions of the story, the Rabbi created the Golem to serve the Jewish people in Josefov, the Jewish Quarter now known as Prague 1. He molded the Golem from clay found at the banks of the Vltlava, where the Rudolfinum Concert Hall now stands. Along with incantations, he placed a secret Divine name in a grain of wheat and put it in a hole in the golem’s head. It then became a protector of the Jewish People of the ghetto. Then, as the story goes, it served the Jewish people well until one day, the Rabbi forgot to give it Shema. The Shema is an affirmation of the basic foundation of Jewish Faith which states primarily that “the Lord is One”. The failure to give the Golem this affirmation transformed the creature from a protector to a destroyer. It wrought havoc in Prague, killing innocent gentiles. As a result, the Rabbi removed the wheat containing the secret Divine name. The Golem never came to life again.

The Golem in Hebrew means fool, a word that is related to gelem, which stands for ‘raw material’. It is usually believed that the golem is an unformed man. It moves but has no awareness.

Along with the Buddhists, the Jews are regarded to be the masters of human consciousness. Sigmund Freud is a famous Jewish psychoanalyst that spoke of the id, the ego and the super-ego. Many of the mystical teachings of Judaism, speak of some version of this. It is very possible that Freud got his inspiration from the concept of the Yetzer Hara, an evil inclination within man and the Higher Self which comes from a Divine source. Indeed, even former friend and rival Carl Jung was once quoted saying that Freud’s assertions are unique to Jewish psychology. A phrase which depending on the source, was either a criticism or praise to Freud’s work. Carl Jung’s later assertions on the collective unconscious built on Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind, is pointing towards the latter. It was however Jung’s theories that foreshadowed (or some say inspired)Nazism, the racist movement that slaughtered the Jewish people by the millions.

The Shema is a prayer that declares the ultimate belief of the Jews that the "Lord is One". It is prayed twice a day, and once before a person dies. It is considered one of the most important prayers in Judaism. It declares that all aspects of creation, good and evil, light and dark, are created by and are from a single Divine Being. In the study of human consciousness, this belief in unity, whether external or internal parallels one of the most important insights in psychological health. For the psyche to attain inner harmony and peace, one must embrace all aspects, including the shadow self. The shadow self is the rejected self. This rejected self is usually projected unto an other - this other becomes the object where this hate is expressed externally. So, if you hate a particular trait in another person, this only means you are hating an aspect of yourself that the other person reminds you of.

If Carl Jung is to be believed that the individual unconscious has a collective counterpart, then perhaps the story of the Prague Golem is an archetypal tale of the same theme. Because of their persecution, the Jews in the Prague ghetto have learned to persecute. They lost sight of the basic teaching that all are from one source. This caused them to attack two innocents. Segregation of self from others and the focus on being separate is the source of all hate crimes.

The Golem, the half-wit creature of incredible strength, seems to be an archetypal symbolism of the subconscious mind. When the subconscious, presumably located in the lower brain is engaged in self-protection, it short circuits the part of the brain that foresees the future. This is the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that can perceive unity and is the source of altruistic instincts. The body then becomes autonomous to the mind. Daniel Goleman calls it “the amygdala hijack” in his bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence. Very frequently, human beings operate on lower brain mode in times of fear and during war.

The Golem may be a symbolism of an army, mobilized to protect the Jewish people. The failure to remind this army of the basic tenets of Judaism cut off their cause from their conscience. What was once a protective force became a destructive force. This in fact is a universal story of the human condition. Our self protective instincts usually are the source of our destructive instincts. Racism is a clear example.

Perhaps this realization made Rabbi Leow cease the Golem’s task of protecting the Jewish people. It is possible that the true lesson in the Prague Golem story is this, that only through the declaration of unity, symbolized by the Shema, thatthe protective walls that separate us from uniting with other people will break down. It is in the daily reminder and affirmation of this truth that harmony and peace can become possible.