Golem vs. Dybbuk: Jewish rabbis and scholars break down the battle

As a middle-schooler at West Hartford Yeshiva my father’s preoccupations were simple. He wanted to be one of few Jewish great baseball stars and he loved comic books. He took his bike to the pharmacy and purchased mostly Marvel comics, which cost 20 cents. Some special editions were 25. Then he organized the comics by their relative fighting powers. For example, the Avengers comics would rank higher than those featuring Thor alone, as they are clearly less powerful than the Avengers collectively.

One eternal question spans all of pop culture: “Who would win?” That’s why we’re dedicating an entire week to debates that have shaped comics, movies, TV, and games, for better and worse. Prepare yourself for Polygon’s Who Would Win Week..

My dad didn’t go on to be one of the great Jewish baseball stars, but he did hold on to his passion for comics. Growing up, he filled lulls in our conversations with “who would win, Superman or Batman?” And “so, listen, if the Hulk and Godzilla got into a fight … ” And in those early hero versus hero discussions, he made sure to tell me how fundamentally Jewish comic books were. He was right: Superman’s Kryptonian name came from Hebrew, and most of the early Marvel authors were immigrant Jews and their children. American comics’ history is intertwined with American Jews’ history. This was something my father told me, which I also remembered.

“I just wanted to teach you Yiddishkeit … teach you a certain amount of pride in the Jewish contributions to American culture,” he told me.

I didn’t really start seeing my culture in comics in a way that excited me until years later, when I learned about the Golem and the Dybbuk.

Two creatures from Jewish myth, the Dybbuk and the Golem have been incorporated most strongly into American culture. As such, I think it’s an essential investigation that I apply my father’s “hero versus hero” framework to them. Which one has the greater impact on how Jews see ourselves in this adopted country — and, if the two were to step into some sort of boxing ring or wild-west shootout, who would win?

We must investigate each creature to determine who is most powerful: From the mythical Old Country, to today’s comic-book or horror-movie eras.

The golem

Microsoft. Image

In its simplest form the golem can be described as a huge humanoid animal made from clay. The golem is brought to life by the use of holy words and has the responsibility for protecting the Jews. The best-known version of the golem legend, according to the researchers at the Jewish Museum of Berlin, takes place in Prague and revolves around the learned Rabbi Loew, who brings a great clay golem to life to defend his people from pogroms, and then takes that golem’s life away after the massive earthen creature goes feral, Frankenstein-style.

Medieval commentaries in the Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzirah) contain first-hand instructions for creating a Golem. In the beginning, creating a Golem was an attempt to bring medieval Jewish mystics closer to God.

And now, the golem is everywhere: Polygon’s readers might know a version of the golem from MinecraftIt is neutral and can help or hurt a player.

Paul Wegener made the original golem film in Germany during the 1920s. This movie retells Rabbi Loew’s story but with a added love triangle. Frankenstein stories also have echoes of the golem, which is an almost-human creature created innocent, but possessing great power. And now the golem is featured in several novels – The Puttermeser PapersIn this video, a woman makes a golem from her New York City apartment. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & ClayBoth come to my mind. The golem has left its mark on my dad’s comic books, too, with the Hulk and the Fantastic Four’s Thing thought to be versions of the creature. To this day, miniature golems can still be purchased in Prague.

Our golem is generally regarded as strong and big, but with literal born-yesterday innocence underneath. As my dad describes him, “he has no maturity. He’s not thinking … like the Hulk, like Frankenstein.”

The dybbuk

The dybbuk is in some ways the golem’s opposite: Rather than being a weighted-down creature of Earth without a soul, the dybbuk is a soul disconnected from the Earth. It’s. It’s a human spirit whose unfinished business (or incredibly weighty sins) on this Earth compels them to possess the body of another, and can only be banished from this world through rituals conducted by a rabbi.

The dybbuk has found its home in horror films over the years, from the early — and gorgeous — 1937 Yiddish horror movie Der DybbukTo more recent movies (and worse), such as The Possession (2012) and even 2021’s Indian horror-drama Dybbuk.

Original Der Dybbuk movie, a young man falls in love with a girl from a neighboring shtetl – – unaware that they were betrothed to each other since birth thanks to a foolish vow by their fathers. Before he can wed the girl he loves and dies, his evil spirit comes back to Earth to fulfill his vow. He seizes the body of his beloved to make sure she doesn’t marry a wealthy man. Eventually, he is exorcizedexorcized, but his beloved dies too, giving her life for her forever-fiancé.

Faceoff

This brings us to how the golem is and the dybbuk work together: both are most easily defeated by an understanding of history as well as sacred rites. Their killability is greater by one another than by the other. In fact, it’s difficult to see how a golem and a dybbuk could fight at all. While the golem and dybbuk are both physical creatures, they have metaphysical counterparts.

According to the Safed-based kabbalist Hayyim Vital, in order to get rid of a dybbuk, “It was imperative that the exorcist remained strong-hearted, displaying no fear. The spirit was to leave the body only between the big toe and its nail; any other exit route might cause permanent damage to the possessed person.” The dybbuk was, critically, to be made to return to the place it came from, rather than just jumping from one body to another.

One might ask — could the dybbuk possess the golem? The answer lies in the spiritual biology of the golem, which means that it lacks a soul where one should.

As the golem cannot be soulless, a dybbuk is unable to possess a golem. However, a golem is unable to speak so it cannot say the words that could banish a dysbuk.

The question was raised by rabbinical students group chats and drew fierce debate. There were also no simple answers.

When I asked my father, he told me he’s a firm believer in the dybbuk’s victory, for the same reasons he believes Superman would defeat Batman. “I always think those who have the … metaphysical powers win,” he said. “It’s not about raw strength – but the dybbuk has to enter the bodies of people. Whereas, what’s the golem supposed to do, hit the dybbuk over the head?”

Shoshana Gottlieb, prolific Jewish meme creator, disagrees — and says that the golem’s physical strength, with a little help, might be the key to banishing the dybbuk from this world.

“My first thoughts are that a golem would win, simply because a dybbuk is a spirit, right? Exorcism and words are what defeats the Dybbuk. But a golem can hold down a person … while the rabbi performs the exorcism. They aren’t physically fighting, themselves, but the golem, I think, is the key to the dybbuk’s defeat.”

“There’s no soul for it to attach to;” ergo, a dybbuk couldn’t possess the golem itself.

In the end, it’s not the strength or weakness of each creature that wins the day, but their cultural relevance. As it has proliferated mimetically in our consciousness, with our souls compensating for any lack thereof; our words giving it life, I must call it the golem.