An illustration of a golem by Philippe Semeria.
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing.
The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word גלמי, meaning "my unshaped form".[a] The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", Pirkei Avos 5:9 in the Hebrew text (English translations vary). We know from the "pearls before swine" reference (see part 7) that as a youngster, Hannibal may be being depicted as an uncultivated person.
The earliest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God. A very holy person was one who strove to approach God, and in that pursuit would gain some of God's wisdom and power. One of these powers was the creation of life. However, no matter how holy a person became, a being created by that person would be but a shadow of one created by God.
Early on, it was noted that the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak.[10] Recall that Hannibal is mostly mute for a lengthy period of time, starting with the occurrence of the atrocity at his family's hunting lodge and his rescue by soldiers, up until he has been with Lady Murasaki for a while.
As far as we know, the Vilna Gaon is the only Rabbi who had actually claimed that he had tried to create a Golem (all such stories about other rabbis were in every case a very late legends created long after their time). Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, (Hebrew: ר' אליהו בן שלמה זלמן) known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna and simply by his Hebrew acronym Gra ("Gaon Rabbenu Eliyahu") or Elijah Ben Solomon, was a Talmudist, halachist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry of the past few centuries. He was born in Vilnius in 1720.[11] Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania; recall that Hannibal Lecter is said to be from Vilnius and its aristocracy.
Once widely known as Yerushalayim De Lita (the "Jerusalem of Lithuania"), Vilnius since the 18th century was comparable only to Jerusalem, Israel, as a world center for the study of the Torah, and for its large Jewish population.[12] According to the book Kol HaTor, the Gaon of Vilna had tried to create the Golem to fight the power of evil at the Gates of Jerusalem. The Gaon had also written the most extensive commentary known on the Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation), which shows his interest in the subject.
a. J. Simpson, E. Weiner (eds), ed (1989). "golem". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
