Hi Jethro. Yup, I get your drift. And on second thoughts, maybe the Golem doesn't personify "feet of clay" terribly well either. Good, I've learned something!I read the kids' version of the Golem story that you linked to, but either it's been Bowdlerised, or looses a lot in the editing.
The version I was familiar with (from Robinson & Wilson's "Encycloaedia of Myths & Legends of all Nations") tells a very different tale:
'From the thirteenth century Hebrew mystics comes the legend of the Golem (literally "shapeless or lifeless matter"), designating a homunculus created by the magical invocation of a name. Rabbi Elijah of Chelm, tradition had it, created such a Golem from clay, inscribing upon its forehead the Shemhamforash, or secret name of God. He thus gave it the power of life, but witheld from it the power of speech.
When the creature attained giant size and strength, the rabbi, appaled by its destructive potentialities, tore the life-giving name from its forehead, and it crumbled into dust. In some versions of the legend, not the word of God, but the word "emet", or "truth", was cut into the forehead of the Golem. The destruction of the creature was effected by erasing the initial letter of "emet", leaving "met" ("dead").'
