I hate to write a column about Pokémon. I really do. But it's indicative of the direction of our culture that one of the game's characters is named Golem.
     Those of you who have been in a coma for several months or have no pre-adolescent children around need to jot this down: Pokémon cards are the latest cool thing. Kids trade them, they pit the more than 150 different characters against one another in a card game, they play the video game and watch the animated television show and movie. In other words, its a marketing bonanza. It's baseball cards squeezed through an LSD trip. It's Beanie Babies flattened out and made even cuter, but with an edge. And kids who have a hard time memorizing "Jesus wept" can run through the intricate rules of the game for 20 to 30 minutes in one breath.
     The cards pull from every mythological tradition to build their "legends," which are used to set each character's powers and abilities.
     Which brings us back to the Golem.
     In the Pokémon universe, Golem is a permutation from two previous characters. Geodude can transform into Graveler, who can then transform into Golem. If Golem is killed in a battle, one of the "cheats" in the game is to throw down a certain card that will release a Golem "ghost" with which you can continue to attack your opponent.
     You can see I've done my homework here.
     But the idea is much older than the Japanese computer game geeks imagine.
     In Jewish legend, the Golem is a reference to a story about a rabbi who made a clay figure of a man and brought him to life using the ineffable Name of God. It's the basis for the story of Frankenstein's monster, the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" section of the Disney movie Fantasia and the Gollum character in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
     The word itself means "unformed mass" in Hebrew. It's only used once in Scripture. Psalm 139:15-16 says, "My substance was not hidden from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect (unformed, golem); and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."
     The stories are fascinating. The most famous is about Rabbi Leib of Prague, who "found sacks with the clay and began to sculpt the figure of a man. Rabbi Leib did not use a chisel but his finger to carve the figure of the golem. He was working with great speed; at the same time, he prayed for success in what he was doing. All day Rabbi Leib was busy ... when it was time for the evening prayer, a large shape of a man with a huge head, broad shoulders and enormous hands and feet was lying on the floor – a clay giant."
     The Golem was brought to life by using the unspeakable Name of God and used as a tool to save the Jewish community from its enemies and to help in various ways. But eventually, the stories show that it became uncontrollable and a danger to its maker. The Golem of Prague, for instance, turned out to be a literalist. When he was ordered to bring water from the well into Rabbi Leib's house, he kept on carrying pails of water until the house was flooded.
     This is where Disney's storytellers came up with the idea for the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence in the movie Fantasia. The tale also touches on matters related to computers, artificial intelligence, the soul and the question of consciousness. But I will restrict this column to a spiritual subject: Are we all really just Golem?
     The Golem had no real soul. He was unfinished, primordial. The Talmud says "A vessel that is not complete is called a golem." Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish commentator, says that "golem" refers to a human that has not realized his potential in God's eyes; "a person who has some intellectual and moral virtues. They, however, are not perfected." In effect, he says, a golem is like a utensil in the Temple that was unfinished or wasn't being used properly.
     A Christian version of the story says that Albertus Magnus created a servant to help him. When Thomas Aquinas saw this servant, he destroyed the being as the work of the devil.
     Scripture gives a hint of what this is all about in Revelation 13:15.
     In the same way that God breathed life into Adam to create a living soul, the Beast causes those that dwell on the earth to create an image. "And he hath power to give life (breath) unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."
     I don't think it is too much of a stretch to see this as the false identity everyone creates to escape the shame and pain of human existence. In a very real sense, the human creator of the Golem confronts the human creature – himself – in his own primitive, underdeveloped and primordial form. We create a false self – a Golem – in which we invest our hopes, aspirations and indeed our worship. We put our name on it. We hide behind it. But it is all unrealized potential. It will never see fruition. And God demands perfection, something we cannot come up with from our own strength or resources. At best, we are automotons, programmed robots who are slaves to our misfiring emotions, misguided wills and just plain stupid ideas.
     A Targum on Isaiah 59:2 says, "If the righteous desired it, they could be creators. ...But your iniquities have distinguished between you and your God."
     All our creations are doomed. Although some of the Golem stories seem to portray the creation of the creature as a good thing, there is an underlying sense of operating outside God's parameters.
     A Talmudic version of the Golem tale says, "Rabbah created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zera. Rabbi Zera spoke to him but received no answer. Thereupon he said to him: You are from the companions (charmers or magicians). Return to thy dust." The Golem was destroyed.
     Our earthen vessel is not made to function on its own, but to contain God. That can only happen when our false self goes to the Cross.
     In one Golem story, the creature was brought to life by enscribing the Hebrew word for truth, "emet," on its forehead. To unmake the Golem, one had to erase the initial letter "aleph," leaving the Hebrew word "met," or death.
     Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. All other truths have had the "aleph" erased, leaving only death.
     Now, back to Pokémon.
     If one has enough energy cards, a fallen Golem might be resuscitated to play the game again – like the beast whose deadly head wound was healed. Not so in real life, thank God. When Christ said "It is finished," he meant it.
     So – bottom line – can any of this improve your Pokémon playing advantage?
     I guess we'll have to wait for a Japanese animé version of the Book of Revelation to find out.