Golem, Moshe Feiglin and the Deathless Child

Readers of my recent essays about Israel in The Hill might be interested in the essay below, Rebbe's Farewell: Steven Spielberg's Final Vision which I wrote about Golem back in 2005 in my Quigley in Exile series. This might be considered Jungian analysis or Tibetan Buddhist or zen history or whatever. I don’t care what it is called. I follow symbols and archetypes through history over long lengths of time through my own system which I’ve built through reading Spengler, Toynbee, Jung and D.T. Suzuki. I’ve long thought that Rabbi Loeb’s conjuring of the Golem was one of the most important landmarks in western history. Golem is an exclusively Jewish symbol going back to the Old Testament. It suddenly appeared in Prague in the 1600s when Rabbi Loeb conjured a protector. It has since been with us. Frankenstein is a Golem, every homunculus – a failed attempt to conjure God – is a Golem. In Jungian terms, Golem is the Shadow of Rabbi Loeb. The quest for the True Child or the Deathless Child; that which awakens in the Unconscious and begins the world again is the quest for God. Failed attempt finds Golem instead. In our times we substitute artists, etc, for rebbes, and sometimes, just anybody. Steven Spielberg, of my generation, has been the most representative artist of the vast Americanized global world in my lifetime. He comes closest to what we consider a genius, perhaps. One of his last movies, A.I. was a Golem conjuring movie. I felt it was significant that in Spielberg’s quest for God – and every real artist's quest is a quest to find God – failed, and he found Golem. My suggestion, in writing about Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit is that with Feiglin and his group, Israel is today beginning to find itself on the path of the True Child and a spiritual awakening. As in my essay at The Hill my point is that since 1600s and Rabbi Loeb, the choice has always been New York (and its twisted sister, LA) or Jerusalem; the path of Golem or the path of God.