I bought the book of Jewish fairy stories in Prague; it is an English translation. It is a little like the Brothers Grimm meet Orthodox Judaism. There are stories of men who discover Gold and Rabbis who cheat death. In particular the stories focus on one Rabbi, Rabbi Loew, who creates the Golem, a man fashioned from clay and brought to life. The purpose of the Golem is to protect the Jewish community but he never seems to be used for this and shortly afterwards the Rabbi, by saying the original prayers backwards, returns the Golem to clay.
The trouble with these sort of religious stories is that morality is repeatedly confused. In Rabbi Loew the Benefactor of the Jews in Prague the good Rabbi persuades Emperor Rudolph that "the whole community should never in future be held responsible for the guilt of the individual." This is clearly right and proper and a bedrock of decent law. In the story after next, Beleles Street, the very same Rabbi discovers that the cause of the plague which has been killing the children of the community is that two couples are wife-swapping. It is apparently OK for God, or Death, to make the whole community suffer for the sins of a few but it is not OK if the Emperor does it.
Double standards. Superstitious nonsense.
December 2011; 63 pages
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