Michael Devlin, with his innocence, courage, resourcefulness, and pristine intelligence, is the young knight of this initiation rite. Because of his good heart and his purity, he is able to raise the Golem from the mud, something that rabbi Hirsch himself was unable to do when the Nazis came to Prague. There is a kind of a Celtic aura to this Galahad figure, whose purity comes both from faith and from charity—love, not only of God, but of his fellow humans, as the rabbi says at the end of the novel. Because of these qualities he brings about not only justice—the punishment of Frankie and the Falcons—but also healing, when Michael and his mythical alterego, the Golem, restore even Rabbi Hirsch's broken teeth. However, Michael is no goody-two-shoes model boy, as he struggles with his own fears, especially his fear of humiliation...