As Confucius Says “Who’s Confused Now?” Better Known As, Samuel L. Beckett’s “Waiting for the Golem.”

Dr. S.Z. Leiman in his last shiur of the season referred back to an email, he received from a gentleman, which questioned why Dr. Leiman did not address the ‘fact’ that there is evidence of a documentary nature that a Talmid of the Maharal of Prague created a Golem.

The evidence stems from a sefer entitled Yeshurun that combed sources indicating that R’ Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm, a Talmid of the Maharal, created a Golem and that people confuse that creation as one made by the Maharal himself.

Unfortunately, the real confusion is that this R’ Eliyahu could not have been a Talmid of the Maharal. He is actually a Talmid of the Marshal and possibly a contemporary of the Maharal.

Moreover, R’ Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm is also confused with R’ Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Worms, who actually may have been A Talmid of the Maharal. In the Haskama to Gedulos Mordechai, a commentary on the Mordechai with annotations by the Maharal, R’ Eliyahu of Worms indicates that the Maharal was either his Rebbi or, by calling him Moheiranu Rabbaeinu, gives the Maharal the respect due to the Gadol Hador.

Each of the two R’ Eliyahu B’al Shems are buried in their own plots in their respective towns, so they are not one and the same. R’ Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Chelm was an ancestor of R’ Ya’akov Emden. In Migilas Sefer, R’ Emden mentions that R’ Eliayhu created a man, which may have been a Golem On the other hand, there is no documentary evidence of R’ Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of Worms, who may possibly be a Talmid of the Maharal, creating a Golem. Neither for that matter is there any evidence of the Maharal himself creating a Golem.

Golem stories!

Oh what a tangled web we weave.