The Fellowship of the Golem (article preview)

Here’s my article for this week, building on my article last week, Who Fashioned a Golem? (paywalled Substack, Jewish Link website). Yes, I haven’t written a summary post for that one yet, but it is coming, as there should be for this one soon. Stay tuned.

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In last week’s article, Who Fashioned a Golem, we discussed Sanhedrin 65b, and how Rava (or perhaps Rabba or Rabbi Abba) fashioned a golem and sent him to Rabbi Zeira (I or II). Rabbi Zeira attempted to engage the golem in conversation. It didn’t reply, so Rabbi Zeira said מִן חַבְרַיָּא אַתְּ, הֲדַר לְעַפְרָיךְ, perhaps to be translated as “You are from the fellows; return to your dust!” Separately, Rav Chanina and Rav Oshaya, who might be Rabba’s brothers, would study sefer Yetzira each erev Shabbat and create a calf which they would eat on Shabbat. It wasn’t entirely clear which Amoraim were involved, but we explored different identifications and how they related to one another.

The word חבריא strikes me as ambiguous. It is the plural of חבר, but this could mean (a) friend; (b) colleague; (c) member of the fellowship who is trustworthy regarding maaser; (d) a member of the fellowship of Torah scholars, thus a Torah scholar / halachically educated person; (e) an unordained Torah scholar; (f) pietist (g) vocalized חַבָּר / Aramaic plural חַבָּרַיָּא, a charmer / magician.

The Fellowship of the Golem

Maharsha (Chiddushei Aggadot) quotes some who propose (f)I wouldn’t discount this possibility. Recall that the preceding brayta on Sanhedrin 65a discussed חוֹבֵר חָבֵר, as a magician. It doesn’t entirely work because we’d expect a charmer to charm snakes and scorpions (and that’s why Maharsha rejects it), but perhaps it can be used in a more general sense. See e.g. how Abaye assumes that חוֹבֵר חָבֵר includes gathering demons via incense, in order to accomplish his magic. If so, Rabbi Zeira might disapprove of the golem because he mistakenly believes it is the result of black magic.

Assuming that Rabbi Zeira means to say it is of the fellowship (of Torah scholars), why should he express his displeasure as “Return to your dust”? I don’t know that this utterance supernaturally caused the golem to disintegrate. This might just be his way of saying that he didn’t see a value in it. The inability to respond in words effectively revealed that this gavra was a golem. And, maybe any human-created gavra / “man” / automaton would not have the full intellect as a human being, as indicated by its inability to speak.

Candidates for Chaver

Running with colleagues / friends / Torah scholars / fellowship, who might Rabbi Zeira (I or II) have referred to? The brothers who regularly fashioned the calf, Rav Oshaya and Rav Chanina, were known as chavreihon derabbanan, “colleagues of the Sages”, because they lacked semicha (see Yerushalmi Shabbat 3:1). Rabba, perhaps their brother, also lacked semicha and might have sent the golem to Rabbi Zeira.

There was also a chavura, a fellowship of Sages, to which Rabbi Zeira (I or II) belonged.