A Wall Street Journal article reports that the startup Preventive has launched an ambitious project: to create genetically modified human beings to prevent hereditary diseases and, perhaps, to select traits such as intelligence, height, or eye colour. But this challenge is not new. It echoes an ancient desire, one that resonates in myths and fairy tales: to shape life according to one’s own will.
The Golem: Protection, Power and Peril
The Golem is a figure from Jewish mythology, born from the Kabbalah and the Talmud. The term comes from the Hebrew gōlem, meaning “raw material” or “embryo.” The most famous legend is that of Rabbi Jehuda Löw of Prague, who in the 16th century is said to have created a giant of clay to defend the Jewish community from persecution.
The Golem is mute and lacks free will, but possesses superhuman strength. It is animated by mystical formulas, combinations of letters often written on its forehead or placed in its mouth. Once its task is complete, it must be deactivated—otherwise, it risks growing uncontrollably. The Golem has been revisited in German Romantic literature, cinema, and even contemporary philosophy as a symbol of artificial creation that escapes human control.
Sugar Bread: The Fairy Tale of Perfection That Melts Away
Less known but equally powerful is the Italian fairy tale of Sugar Bread, Pan di Zucchero, the Italian version of the more famous Gingerbread Man. A young woman, dissatisfied with real men, decides to create the perfect boyfriend by mixing sugar and water, and placing candied fruit in place of his eyes. The creature is beautiful, kind, ideal. But at the first rainfall, he melts.
This tale, spread orally across various Italian regions, is a metaphor for the fragility of artificial perfection. Pan di Zucchero represents the romantic dream of a tailor-made love, but also the limits of human creation: what is too sweet, too perfect, cannot withstand reality.
Preventive: the genetic Golem
Preventive’s challenge fits squarely within this narrative. Like the rabbi of Prague, scientists seek to shape life in order to protect it. Like the young woman in the fairy tale, they want to create the ideal being. But the risk is the same: that the creature rebels—or melts away.
Polygenic screening technology promises to predict cognitive and physical traits, but raises profound ethical questions. Where does care end and selection begin? Who decides what is “better”? And what happens if the perfect embryo turns out to be imperfect?
The Eternal Dream of the Creator
The Golem, Pan di Zucchero, and Preventive all speak to the same impulse: man playing God. But they also remind us that life is not just a project, nor sugar—it is mystery, unpredictability, imperfection. And perhaps, that is precisely what makes it human, beautiful, and interesting.
#myths #legends #communication #storytelling