Golem

In Jewish folklore, a golem (גולם, sometimes [as in Yiddish] pronounced goilem) is an animated being which is crafted from inanimate material. The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means "raw material". Adam is described in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b) as initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless hunk". In many tales the Golem is inscribed with magic or religious words that keep it animated. Some sources say that once the golem had been physically made one needed to write the letters aleph, mem, tav, which is emet and means "truth," on the golem's forehead and the golem would come alive. Erase the aleph and you are left with mem and tav, which is met, meaning "death."