Golems are suggestion territory. But as for the original Myth there is a fragmented text from 12th century as commentary to the "Book of Creation" - which is a text of he kabbala. Said Commentary mentions the 10
Sepirot and the 22 Letters of the Hebraic Alphabet in combination with a ritual to create life.
The most known legend is the Myth of Judah Löw a Rabi from Prague which lived in the 16th century so outside dfs timeframe. Actually Löw is just one of many Rabis that get associated with Golem(s) but because he was the adviser of emperor Rudolf the 2nd (which in turn was very interested in alchemy) he became the most known.
The criation of this particular Golem needed the representation of the 4 Classical Elements. The Golem itself represented earth while Judah considered himself the Wind element and his son in Law and his apprentice represented Fire and Water respectively.
The ritual was held in a clay-pit near Prague and started with the creation of the golems body. After that the apprentice circled the Golem 7 times while reciting a incantation uppon which the Golem glowed as if it was fired. Then the Son in law circled the Golem and did an incantation upon which the Golem took Human form (Hair and nail growing etc.). The Rabi circled the golem 7 times and after that all three, the Rabi his Son and the apprentice, standing at the Feet of the Golem Spoke an the sentence from the genesis where "god" gave adam his breath. As this was done the Golem came to life and followed easy commands like "Stand up".
For more complex behaviours the golem needed, depending on the variants of the myths, either a paper with Gods name under his tongue (which had to be removed each Sabbat) or a Seal with the hebraic word for Truth which could be deactivated by removing the first letter which lead the word to spell "Dead" instead. Today an educated person would use "import soul" instead.