Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha brilliant

With all due respect, Rabbi,
you killed me 🙂

His Honor hinted criticism at me. Well then, I examined my deeds and found the following sins: 1) my belief that the Maharal and others created a golem; 2) how do I know enough to declare that the golem will not rise; 3) if it seems strange to me that it would not rise, then I should simply assume that it will rise; 4) either way: if the golem is not a human, then just as it is commonly thought that animals will not rise, so too the golem will not rise; and if the golem is a human, then it will rise.
But with Heaven’s help my words can be clarified: 1) my assumption that the Maharal created one is not the issue, because the question is about any life created in a laboratory or by way of a miracle, and the golem is only there as an illustration (to distinguish between miracle and laboratory with respect to the soul, even if to the eye no difference appears — this requires grounding); 2) how do I know that it will not rise? I mean that it seems obvious that a being created miraculously does not have a soul like a human, although that is not necessary, but it would be very novel to say that God stipulated with creation from the outset that in a machine of a certain type a soul would arrive and enter the machine; 3) since it has no soul, but outwardly it behaves in every way like a human, even if with limitations, then why is it not a full human being, and why should being human, according to our moral judgment, depend on some ontic thing rather than on behavior and certain feelings that it experiences and the like. So all the sins are removed, because what I asked and requested was this: if life were created in a laboratory and passed every possible Turing test and could not be distinguished from human beings, would that still not be enough for it to be considered human morally and halakhically / in terms of Jewish law, and would we need to assume that it contains some additional spiritual element emanated from on high? And I hope thereby for His Honor’s forgiveness; let him answer and say with his mouth three times, “I have forgiven,” and I and all the people of God will be cleared, and may we merit our righteous Messiah speedily in our days, amen, to behold the pleasantness of God and to visit His sanctuary.

To Lish and Lavi — greetings,

The Maharal created the golem to help save people from libels and decrees, and when it finished its mission the golem would return to an “inactive” state. It seems that after the resurrection of the dead the world will be repaired. There will be no decrees or libels, and therefore there will be no need to wake the golem from its sweet sleep.

Best regards, Li Shon Ish Le-Wing

And in any case, at the resurrection of the dead the Maharal too will rise. We’ll leave the decision in his hands whether to raise the golem or not 🙂

But I already explained at length that the question is based on the commonly accepted assumption in the world and in religions that in a human being there is some special “something” that gives unique value to his life.
And now the question arises whether completely human behavior is possible even without that soul — that is, whether the soul is just some additional thing residing somewhere, but even without it the same behavior can be produced, including free choice, or whether human behavior has unique aspects and those are the exclusive product of the soul.
For the sake of illustration, the question is about the golem as a living being created not in the regular way a person is created, and therefore those who assume the existence of a soul may perhaps (and probably) assume that it has no soul. If so, they are not going by observable behavior: two people behave identically before our eyes, but one is a human and one is a machine. That seems a bit surprising.
And I came to probe the assumption of human uniqueness, that is, the soul.

The story of the Golem of Prague is complete nonsense invented hundreds of years after the Maharal.

With Heaven’s help, 4 Shevat 5782

To Yishai — greetings,

There is indeed serious reason to doubt the existence of the Golem of Prague, because written reports about it appear only in the 19th century, more than two hundred years after the Maharal’s passing.

However, around that same period there became known the golem created by Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem of Chelm, whose grandson, the Chacham Tzvi, discusses in his responsa whether he can be counted for a prayer quorum, and his son Rabbi Yaakov Emden recounts in his father’s name the golem’s creation and deactivation.

It seems that the story of the golem of Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem, which was not widely known, rolled through the generations and was mistakenly attached to his famous contemporary, the Maharal of Prague.

Best regards, Ron Gil Blashovitz

Instead of understanding the question, everyone is joking around and dealing with side issues. Apparently this site is shallower than people told me.

With Heaven’s help, 4 Shevat 5782

On the face of it, this is exactly the discussion in Chacham Tzvi: whether the golem can be counted for a prayer quorum. The one who says it can be counted holds that even though it does not speak, the golem is still considered a human being, and so there are ten men here; whereas the one who says it cannot be counted holds that it is not considered a human being.

Best regards, Ron Gil Blashovitz

With Heaven’s help

Lish, I didn’t understand what the problem is. If you assume that a lab-created human or a golem does not receive a soul, then presumably it will not rise (what sin it committed is irrelevant. An animal also did not sin, and neither did a bicycle. But the resurrection of the dead perhaps applies only to one who has a soul). If you assume they do receive one, then what’s the question?

It seems to me that the reaction to your question comes either from the fact that I and perhaps others don’t understand it, or from the fact that it deals with questions that cannot be answered clearly and concern realities we don’t know how to verify.

Let me phrase it differently: you assume the possibility that a golem behaves like a human and has no soul, and then ask what a soul is. I don’t know. If your assumption is correct, then it is certainly not the cause of uniquely human behavior, because that contradicts what you assumed. Beyond that, it’s not clear to me — and perhaps not to others here either — what exactly you’re asking.

To Yosef Gur Lish Yehuda,
I don’t know what I think, which is why I came to ask. Maybe it really is a topic that one can’t know or speak about.
I assume that even without a human soul there could be outward human behavior completely identical to that of people. Animals also have mental activity, and I see no reason that this activity couldn’t become more and more complex while the creature would still remain a monkey. In my estimation, free choice too could make do with the consciousness of an animal.
Of course one can disagree with that assumption.
The golem is an illustration of a creature that outwardly behaves like a human (say, like an 8-year-old child) but was not created naturally, rather in a laboratory. Someone who assumes a soul will, I estimate, not assume that this golem has one.
And then the question is this: if it behaves like a human on some level, and that is the product of some mental process active within it, then is what defines a human being simply some soulful thing with no practical implications? If God were to come and pull that soul out of someone, and outwardly we would feel no difference at all, would he then be like an animal in our eyes morally? That seems a bit strange to me.

For some reason I get the impression that this wasn’t trolling. Surprising.
Do you mean to ask why a golem is not a human? Then ask that, and explain exactly what the question is. It has nothing to do with the resurrection of the dead and the rest of the trolling.

Woe to us that we are so used to trolling that it’s already hard to tell the difference.

And to the Rabbi — if I understood correctly, he is asking whether the concept of a soul has any practical difference beyond its mere existence. The difficulty with that is that this is the definition of what a human being is (according to his assumption at least), and it’s hard to believe that this is empty of implications. The owner of the question is welcome to correct me if I’m mistaken…

Woe to us that we are so used to trolling that it’s already hard to tell the difference.

And to the Rabbi — if I understood correctly, he is asking whether the concept of a soul has any practical difference beyond its mere existence. The difficulty with that is that this is the definition of what a human being is (according to his assumption at least), and it’s hard to believe that this is empty of implications. The owner of the question is welcome to correct me if I’m mistaken…

You are right that in the question I used wording that was both barbed and unclear, and the goal really was to create some interest around the question and answer.

After the analyses here and after I thought some more, you are also right about this: the question doesn’t seem especially interesting.

Thanks to Yosef Gur Lish Yehuda for the precise summary.
Be well.

I don’t understand the question. If you’re expecting an answer, please formulate the question clearly and/or lay out the sides of the doubt.