WRITTEN BY
Howard Gordon
DIRECTED BY
Kim Manners
AIRED ON
February 16, 1997
RUNTIME
44 minutes
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448
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2024-08-13 08:30:06
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Version 3
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BEHIND THE SCENES
- Howard Gordon, about this episode: "My story ideas on X-Files came mostly from desperation. I always found it difficult to settle on an idea. But one I carried with me from almost the beginning (though I only figured out a way to tell the story in the fourth season) was Kaddish. I knew the golem myth from my own longstanding interest in Jewish mysticism."
- Kaddish (Aramaic: "holy") refers to an important and central prayer in the Jewish prayer service. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name.
- The term "Kaddish" is often used to refer specifically to "The Mourners' Kaddish," said as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in all prayer services as well as at funerals and memorials. When mention is made of "saying Kaddish", this unambiguously denotes the rituals of mourning.
- The opening words of this prayer are inspired by Ezekiel 38:23, a vision of God becoming great in the eyes of all the nations. The central line of the kaddish in Jewish tradition is the congregation's response "May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity", a public declaration of God's greatness and eternality.
- The Mourners', Rabbis' and Complete Kaddish end with a supplication for peace, which is in Hebrew, and comes from the Bible.
- Along with the Shema and Amidah, the Kaddish is one of the most important and central prayers in the Jewish liturgy.
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TRANSCRIPT
SCENE 1
BEN ZION CEMETERY BROOKLYN NEW YORK - DAY
(In a Jewish cemetery, a funeral is taking place. A rabbi is reading. Leaves and wind rustling around the head stones as the camera zooms closer to the grave site. People dressed in black are gathered, men with beards and sideburn ringlets, women with veiled hats... We see Jacob Weiss and his daughter, Arial, looking down at the casket in the ground. She is startled when a clump of dirt is thrown on it. Men are taking handfuls of dirt and throwing them in the hole to cover the grave. We see Arial again, having flashes of what must have happened to Issac Luria.)
SCENE 2
GROCERY STORE
(Scenes of Isaac in a grocery store, a hard kick heard, Isaac falls to the ground, clutching his stomach. Three teenagers are standing above him.)
TONY OLIVER: Get it. It's in the back.
(One of the teens steps over Isaac and walks to the back of the store.)
TONY OLIVER: Come on!
(Another teen goes with the first to the back of the store. Isaac has blood on his face. He is still on the ground looking up at Tony. Tony raises a gun and cocks it.)
SCENE 3
CEMETERY
(Scene flashes back to Arial, who inhales quickly and she realizes she's back at the funeral. Her father leans to her ear.)
JACOB WEISS: It's all right. You don't have to do this.
ARIAL: No. I want to.
(She walks forward and takes a clump of dirt. She holds it up and looks at it as she thinks again of the store.)
SCENE 4
GROCERY STORE
(Isaac looks up at Tony.)
ISAAC: Why are you doing this?
(Tony Oliver only answers with two shots.)
SCENE 5
CEMETERY
(Arial back at the funeral still holding the clump of dirt. Jacob puts his hand on her wrist.)
JACOB WEISS: Come.
(The dirt falls from her hand into the grave. They walk away as she looks back one more time. There's a distant rumbling in the sky.)
SCENE 6
CEMETERY - NIGHT
(A full fledged thunderstorm is raging in the cemetery. Lightening flashes. Hands are in the mud forming a head on the ground. A figure in black is forming a body out of mud on the ground. Lightening flashes again. The person in black stands and walks away. The figure's chest starts going up and down with breath. It's alive...)
[OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS]
SCENE 7
X-FILES OFFICE
(We see a close up of a driver's license. Isaac Luria's. Scully talks as we see Scully and Mulder standing, looking at the license.)
SCULLY: His name was Isaac Luria. He lived in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, home to a sect of Hasidic Jews who have lived there since the late 19th Century.
MULDER: It's an area also known for its history of racial tensions and hate crimes. Rosenbaum, Tawana Brawley..
SCULLY: And now Isaac Luria. He was murdered two days ago in the market that he owned. Severely beaten and shot five times at point blank range. The police ruled out robbery because the only thing that was missing was a video tape from the surveillance camera. The police found it early this morning.
(She takes the tape and puts it into the VCR.)
MULDER: Where?
SCULLY: In the VCR of a 16 year old named Tony Oliver. That's him on the upper right.
(We see the surveillance camera from the store. The two teens hold Isaac as Tony Oliver punches him in the face.)
MULDER: Has he been arrested?
SCULLY: No, because he's dead. Apparently he was watching this tape when he was strangled to death.
MULDER: Very Old Testament.
SCULLY: Yeah. But with a new twist. The Brooklyn Homicide detectives contacted the FBI Civil Rights branch with an interesting set of fingerprints that they pulled off of the boy's body.
MULDER: Interesting how?
SCULLY: They belonged to Isaac Luria.
MULDER: Risen from the grave to avenge his own death?
SCULLY: Some people might assume that. It's probably what someone would like us to think.
MULDER: But you have your own idea.
SCULLY: I think this is a crime of hatred like the crime that spawned it. A hatred that goes back 4000 years but masquerading as something else here. A callow attempt at murderous retribution disguised as spectral justice.
MULDER: A resurrection hoax.
SCULLY: And not a very good one.
MULDER: Yes, spectral figures are not often known to leave fingerprints. Casper never did.
SCULLY: Somehow the killer got a hold of Isaac Luria's fingerprints and we have been asked to prove how.
SCENE 8
WEISS RESIDENCE WILLIAMSBURG, NEW YORK
(There's a knock on a door. Then we see the wood door of the Weiss'. Jacob answers it. He just looks at Scully and Mulder.)
SCULLY: Excuse me, sir. We're with the FBI. We'd like to speak with Arial Luria.
(No answer.)
SCULLY: Is she home?
JACOB WEISS: I'm Arial's father, Jacob Weiss. Why are you bothering her again? She's already spoken with the police.
(Arial appears from behind her father.)
ARIAL: It's all right. Let them in. (She opens the door wider.) Please, come in.
(Scully and Mulder enter. There are a bunch of people, men, in the room.)
ARIAL: We can talk in the study.
SCENE 9
STUDY
(We see a letter, Consent for Exhumation, Jacob is holding. He hands it to Arial.)
JACOB WEISS: This is why you are here? This is what you come to ask? Here, in this house of mourning?
ARIAL: What is this?
SCULLY: We would like your permission to reopen Isaac's grave.
JACOB WEISS: No! The answer's NO!
ARIAL: Why does this have to be done?
SCULLY: We're looking for evidence in the murder of this young man. His name is Tony Oliver.
(She hands Arial Tony Oliver's mug shot.)
SCULLY: He's one of three suspects in the murder of your husband. We believe it was an act of retaliation and that the other two suspects are targets.
ARIAL: He's just a boy.
JACOB WEISS: He's an animal. A monster, like the others animals that killed Isaac. Whose grave you're now asking us to desecrate so you can now protect them.
ARIAL: Papa, please.
JACOB WEISS: Where were you when Isaac needed your protection? When we called the police, they said we were paranoid, that there was nothing to worry about. They always say that when someone threatens the Jews.
MULDER: So there was a specific threat of violence?
JACOB WEISS: The threat is always there. Just this morning, this is what I found under our door.
(He hands Mulder a pamphlet. It reads "How AIDS was created by the Jew" with a caricature picture of a Jewish man with a money bag.)
JACOB WEISS: And now you come here not to help us, but to ask our help so you can impose justice to the only man who has taken justice into his own hands.
MULDER: We would be happy not to disturb the grave site if you can tell us who that man is.
JACOB WEISS: Even if I knew, why would I tell you?
SCULLY: Because this is a homicide investigation, sir, and you are required by law to assist us.
JACOB WEISS: I know all about your laws.
SCULLY: Sir, I'm afraid that even without your consent, we can get a court order to exhume Isaac's grave.
ARIAL: Do what you feel is necessary. But leave us alone. Let us mourn in peace.
SCENE 10
OUTSIDE
(Mulder and Scully exit the house, rush through the rain to their car. )
SCENE 11
CAR
(Mulder, of course, is in the driver's seat. They put on their seat belts.)
SCULLY: I'm afraid he knows who killed Tony Oliver, Mulder, and he doesn't want us disturbing Isaac Luria's grave because he knows what we'll find.
MULDER: Maybe...
(He pulls the pamphlet out of the breast pocket of his coat.)
MULDER: ...but it's hard to fault his attitude when you see something like that. (He hands it to Scully.) Anybody delivering justice to a people who have known that kind of persecution and hatred, why wouldn't they protect him?
SCULLY: Justice or revenge?
MULDER: I'm not saying those kids deserve full prosecution under the law, but the hate mongering goes both ways.
SCULLY: Yes, but the right to free expression doesn't extend to murder.
MULDER: I bet whoever published that knows the boys who murdered Isaac Luria. They might have a guess at who killed Tony Oliver, too.
(He starts the car.)
SCENE 12
STREET
(Their car pulls away. There is a wet, muddy man standing by a construction area watching them drive off. We don't see much more of him than a leg, arm, and hand with writing on it. Sorry, but I can't tell what's written on it. It will be explained, sort of, later. Arial is looking out of the upstairs window.)
SCENE 13
BJUNES COPY SHOP 1525 AVENUE J
(We hear his voice before we see the close up of Bjunes.)
BJUNES: Oh, sure I knew him. He's the man who owned the store right across the street. But I'd be lying to say I was surprised it happened.
(Mulder and Scully stand on the other side of the counter from him.)
MULDER: Why is that?
BJUNES: You know how they are. Always trying to find ways to make money off of honest folks who work for a living.
(Scully is a little shocked.)
MULDER: Can you think of anyone who held a grudge?
BJUNES: I can't think of anyone who didn't.
MULDER: Did you?
BJUNES: Why? I'm not under any kind of suspicion, am I?
(He laughs uncomfortably.)
SCULLY: No, not directly, but these young men are and we have reason to believe that you know them. (She gives him two mug shots to look at.) Their names are Derrick Banks and Clinton Maguire.
BJUNES: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with them.
(He couldn't be more pleasant.)
MULDER: Are you familiar with this? (He shows Bjunes the pamphlet.) We think those kids are familiar with it, enough to incite them to the murder of Isaac Luria.
(Bjunes' smile fades. He glares at Mulder.)
BJUNES: You work for them too, don't you?
MULDER: Who?
BJUNES: You know who, you look like you might be one yourself.
(Mulder chuckles.)
SCULLY: We work for the FBI, Sir.
BJUNES: Who does the FBI work for?
(She smiles back at Mulder as if to say, Who is this d***head.)
BJUNES: You call me paranoid because that's exactly what they want you to do. But there's one thing you can't call me, and that's a Zionist collaborator.
SCULLY: You take a long look at these photos. It may be your last chance to save their lives.
(The scene continues on surveillance camera.)
SCENE 14
BACKROOM BJUNES COPY SHOP
(The TV and tape of Mulder and Scully is playing. )
SCULLY: One of their accomplices, a man named Tony Oliver, was found murdered this morning.
BJUNES: Why are you telling me this?
SCULLY: You haven't heard the rumors?
BJUNES: What rumors?
(One of the teenagers is in the room watching the TV.)
SCULLY: That Luria is back from the dead? That he's risen from his grave?
SCENE 15
COPY SHOP
(Back to the front of the store.)
BJUNES: What kind of Jew trick is this?
MULDER: A Jew pulled it off 2000 years ago.
(Bjunes looks at Mulder. Mulder nods.)
SCULLY: We're just relaying the evidence, sir. You can draw your own conclusions. But I'm sure you wouldn't want to be endangering these young men's lives.
MULDER: Bless you.
(They leave. Bjunes goes into the back room.)
BACK ROOM COPY SHOP (Bjunes enters the back room. He looks around.)
BJUNES: Derrick?
(No answer. )
SCENE 16
CEMETERY - NIGHT
(Two shovels dig into the dirt. Clinton and Derrick are digging up Isaac's grave.)
CLINTON: Are you sure about this?
DEREK: I heard them, man. I'm not waiting around to find out if it's true.
(There is someone watching from behind a tree, then walking up behind them. There is a car backed up to the grave. They're quite deep now. The figure stops and rests his written hand on a tombstone. The boys get to the coffin.)
CLINTON: What's wrong?
DEREK: It's nailed shut.
CLINTON: There's some tools in the trunk.
(Clinton climbs out of the grave. He opens the trunk and looks through it. The figure approaches. Clinton turns and gasps. There's a thud. Then it's louder as we're in the grave. DEREK is whacking the shovel on the coffin. It splinters. He bashes the shovel in again. It's giving way. He kneels down and pulls at the boards by hand.)
DEREK: I got it open, man. Get down here.
(He busts open the grave. His hand flies to his face. It reeks. )
DEREK: Hey Clinton, check it out.
(Isaac is in the grave.)
DEREK: Hey, Clinton, check it out. Clinton? Don't mess with me.
(Having gotten no answer, he raises to him feet and looks around. He is surprised by something he sees.)
DEREK: Oh... oh, man.
(Clinton is face down in the dirt pile.)
SCENE 17
LATER
(Cops and Mulder and Scully are there. Scully puts on her latex gloves and raises the body bag flap from Clinton's face. She rubs the choke marks on his neck. She puts the body bag back. The coroner's office workers take the body away. She walks up to Mulder, crouched by the grave, putting on latex gloves.)
SCULLY: Ligature marks on the victim's neck are consistent with the vigilante's MO. Forensics come up with anything?
MULDER: Yeah, second set of footprints, but the mud is too soft to take a mold.
SCULLY: I guess Clinton was here with Derek Banks.
MULDER: Looking for what?
(They get into the grave. )
SCULLY: Maybe they came to desecrate the corpse as retribution for Tony Oliver's death.
MULDER: That seems kind of redundant, doesn't it? Messing up somebody you already killed? I think they came here because they were afraid.
(He crouches to the coffin.)
SCULLY: Afraid?
(Mulder lifts a sheet of plastic. They both cover their noses. )
MULDER: Afraid that man they hated enough to kill wasn't really dead.
(We see the corpse's hands.)
MULDER: Look, there goes your theory of how Isaac's fingerprints got onto the victim's body. What's that look like to you?
(There's a tattooing or something on his hand, like the figure's.)
SCULLY: The body wasn't embalmed according to custom. Maybe it's postmortem lividity or some sort of tattooing. It's hard to tell with this stage of decomposition.
(Mulder reaches down by the corpse's head.)
MULDER: What's this? (He pulls out a book.) A little bedtime reading?
(He's going to open the book when it bursts into flames.)
MULDER: FIRE!
SCENE 18
STREET
(Bjunes walks along the street and comes to his storefront. He unlocks the gate and door and enters.)
SCENE 19
COPY SHOP
(Bjunes enters and locks the door behind him. We hear Derek.)
DEREK: You owe me for two weeks.
(Bjunes turns and sees Derek.)
BJUNES: Where have you been? Is it true? You and your friends killed the Jew?
DEREK: Just give me my money.
BJUNES: What the hell were you thinking? I never told you to kill anyone. I never said to do that.
DEREK: No? What did you expect me to do? Hide back here like you? Licking envelopes in the dark, calling them names?
BJUNES: We're working to spread the truth.
DEREK: The truth? Man, you're as pathetic as they are.
BJUNES: I am exposing their lies.
DEREK: Those are just words. You think they killed my friends with just words?
(He emerges from the shadow. Bjunes is surprised.)
DEREK: That's right. Clinton's dead, too. Now I'd like my money.
SCENE 20
JUDAIC LIBRARY
(Close up of a magnifying glass on the burnt symbol on the burnt book from Isaac's grave.)
KENNETH UNGAR: It's called the Sepher Vetzirah. The Book of Creation. The earliest known Hebrew text of man's mystical communion with the divine.
(Mulder and Scully are sitting with Kenneth Ungar, scholar with the Judaic Archives.)
SCULLY: Is it ever buried with the dead?
KENNETH UNGAR: No. In observance with the Jewish belief, the corpse is buried only in its shroud. No other worldly possession is allowed.
MULDER: Have they ever been known to spontaneously combust?
(He finds it slightly humorous.)
KENNETH UNGAR: No. It's a book on mysticism, not mysticism itself.
MULDER: Is it printed on any special paper or any special ink?
KENNETH UNGAR: No, it's just a book. Leather and paper. I suspect somebody might be trying to play a trick on you.
SCULLY: There may be a possibility that moisture leaked its way into the coffin, into the binding and pages of the book. If the ground water was contaminated with arsenic or arson gas could have created a combustible mixture.
(She shrugs.)
MULDER: Is there anything that distinguishes the particular Sepher Vetzirah from any other such books?
KENNETH UNGAR: There's a name imprinted or stamped on to the leather.
SCULLY: A name?
KENNETH UNGAR: Yes, a Hebrew name. Weiss. Jacob Weiss.
(Scully looks at Mulder. Mulder nods.)
SCULLY: Jacob Weiss.
SCENE 21
WEISS RESIDENCE
(Arial is face-to-face with Mulder and Scully.)
ARIAL: Why do you want to see him?
SCULLY: There's been another murder. Another suspect in your husband's death has been found dead last night.
ARIAL: Where was this?
MULDER: Next to your husband's grave.
ARIAL: How does this concern my father?
SCULLY: Yesterday he expressed strong feelings towards this latest victim.
ARIAL: Those were just angry words.
SCULLY: And we found evidence placing him at the crime scene. This is escalating into something else Arial. Something that has to stop.
ARIAL: My marriage to Isaac... you have to understand how much it would have meant to my father.
MULDER: What do you mean, would have meant?
ARIAL: We got our marriage license a few weeks ago, but the wedding wasn't until today.
SCULLY: I'm sorry.
ARIAL: I'd like to show you something.
(We see an elaborate ring with a steeple or building decoration in a glass domed case.)
ARIAL: It's a communal wedding ring made in Colon, a village near Prague. My father was an apprentice to the man who designed it.
SCULLY: It's beautiful.
ARIAL: Uh hum. Every woman who got married in the synagogue wore this ring as a symbol that she was a queen, her husband a king. And a home... They made a castle... not only on their wedding day, but for the rest of their lives together. But most of those lives ended in one day in the spring of 1943. 9000 Jews were massacred after digging their own graves.
SCULLY: But your father survived.
ARIAL: Because he was 10 years old. He had small fingers to make bullets at a munitions factory.
SCULLY: And through all this, he hid the ring?
ARIAL: Even after the war he hid it, even from my mother.
SCULLY: Why?
ARIAL: Because to him, it was a dead relic from a forgotten place. Until the day that I told him I was getting married, and for the first time in fifty years, he took out this ring. He said it was like his village was born again. He knew how much I loved Isaac.
SCULLY: Arial, tell us where your father is.
ARIAL: I know my father. He would never kill anyone.
SCULLY: What if you're wrong?
SCENE 22
PARK STREET SYNAGOGUE
(Men are praying in Hebrew. Mulder and Scully enter and look around.)
SCULLY: Do you see him?
(Some of the men look at Scully. Three men walk to Mulder and Scully.)
SCULLY: I'm sorry. We don't mean any disrespect.
MAN: Who are you?
(Scully takes out her badge.)
SCULLY: We're with the FBI. We're looking for Jacob Weiss.
MAN: Why?
(Mulder points. Jacob is with the men in the pews. He sees them and walks away. Mulder and Scully walk through the men after him. He's gone. They go through an open door to a dark hallway. Scully looks into another room as Mulder goes up the stairs. Scully follows him. At the top of the stairs, they take out flashlights and separate. Scully stops.)
SCULLY: Mulder...
(They see a man hanging by a rope from the rafters. They go to the body. It's Derek Banks. There's a man who tiptoes past a light. Scully and Mulder both follow him with guns and flashlights drawn. A figure body slams Mulder to the ground. Scully turns and she's plummeted to the floor also. She rights herself still laying on the floor. Her gun pointed out. She shoots the rafter above the man's head.)
SCULLY: Don't move! Federal agent!
(The man stops. She gets up. She steadies the gun and flashlight on the man.)
SCULLY: You okay, Mulder?
(Mulder is still stunned on the ground, but turns over and picks himself up. )
MULDER: Yeah.
SCULLY: Put your hands in the air where I can see them. Turn around slowly.
(The figure complies. It's Jacob Weiss.)
MULDER: I got him, Scully.
(Scully walks to Jacob with handcuffs.)
SCULLY: Mr. Weiss, we're placing you under arrest.
(As Scully handcuffs him, Jacob looks past her into the shadows.)
SCULLY: Come on. Let's go.
(Scully leads Jacob away. Mulder stops and looks at where Jacob was looking. Seeing nothing, he follows. The figure with the hand tattoo is looking at the swinging corpse of Derek Banks.)
SCENE 23
TWENTY-FIRST PRECINCT HOLDING AREA
(Scully walks down the hallway looking at a file. We hear Arial.)
ARIAL: Where is he? Where's my father?
(Scully looks up and sees Arial.)
SCULLY: We've arrested him, Arial, under suspicion of murder.
ARIAL: I don't believe you. It can't be him. Did he tell you he killed this person?
SCULLY: I think that's the direction it's going. Agent Mulder is in with him now.
ARIAL: I need to see him.
SCULLY: Arial, I think you'd better get him an attorney, he's refusing legal representation.
ARIAL: I need to see him!
SCULLY: Okay. You ask Detective Barley down the hall. He'll give you a place to wait while your father is been processed.
(Arial starts off. )
SCULLY: Arial? (Arial turns to Scully.) I'm sorry.
(She doesn't answer and walks down the hallway.)
SCENE 24
INTERROGATION ROOM
(Mulder sits in a chair across the table from Jacob.)
MULDER: Who killed them, Jacob?
JACOB WEISS: Our synagogue has been vandalized 13 times in the last year. I heard a noise in the attic. I went up to see what it was and he attacked me. It was self-defense.
MULDER: Hanging a man in self defense?
JACOB WEISS: Is it any worse than what they did to Isaac?
MULDER: Is it any better? They found your book, your Sepher Vetzirah in Isaac's grave.
(Pause)
JACOB WEISS: (quietly) So?
MULDER: So, that puts you at a second crime scene.
JACOB WEISS: I'm guilty! What more do you want from me?
MULDER: The truth.
JACOB WEISS: I have given you the truth!
MULDER: There was someone else in that attic with you. Who was it?
JACOB WEISS: There was no one else.
MULDER: Then you're a liar.
JACOB WEISS: You don't know nothing about nothing and I have no more to say about this. I would like to see my daughter.
(Mulder leaves the room. )
SCENE 25
OTHER ROOM
(On the other side of the two way mirror, Scully has watched the interrogation. Mulder enters.)
SCULLY: You want to see the background check I ran? He immigrated to Israel after World War II where he joined the Irgun, Jewish military underground. He was arrested in 1959 by the British for a bombing that killed 7 civilians. He's a terrorist, Mulder. A killer.
MULDER: He's not our killer though.
SCULLY: What do you mean? He gave a confession, I just stood here and listened to him.
MULDER: I think there was a second person in that attic, Scully. Weiss knows it too and he's protecting whoever it is.
SCULLY: Well, who? His daughter?
MULDER: No. Somebody big enough and strong enough to knock me down.
SCULLY: Who do you think it was?
(Through the glass, we see Arial enter the room and hug her father.)
MULDER: Stick around, this could get interesting.
SCULLY: Where are you going?
MULDER: To see a man about a burning book.
(Scully turns and watches through the window.)
SCENE 26
INTERROGATION ROOM
(Arial looks at her father, still holding him.)
ARIAL: Daddy. They say you confessed. Why are you doing this?
JACOB WEISS: To protect you.
ARIAL: From what?
JACOB WEISS: I think you know. They found my book in Isaac's grave.
ARIAL: That can't be true.
JACOB WEISS: No?
(Arial looks away.)
SCENE 27
BJUNES COPY STORE
(More pamphlets are being run on the machines. This one says "How your tax dollars support Zionist Imperial something". Bjunes hears a noise. He lets it go and watches the run of pamphlets. There's a Swastika on the wall. There's another noise. He gets his gun. As he's fumbling, trying to see if it's loaded, a figure grabs him by the throat. The figure lifts him off the floor. Bjunes is choking.)
SCENE 28
JUDAICA ARCHIVES UPPER EAST SIDE MANHATTAN
(Kenneth Ungar is sitting at a table reading. We hear Mulder.)
MULDER: There's something you didn't tell me... (Kenneth looks up. ) About the contents of this Sepher Vetzirah.
KENNETH: What is it you want to know?
MULDER: I want to know about the myth of the Golem.
KENNETH UNGAR: This is a mystical text. These pages are filled with Golems and vivics and demons of every size and shape.
(Kenneth puts on his glasses.)
MULDER: It's the Golem that I'm interested in.
KENNETH UNGAR: And I'm interested in why an FBI agent would be so interested in such a thing.
(Mulder sits at the table with him.)
MULDER: That's what I was hoping you could tell me.
KENNETH UNGAR: The early Cabolists... they believed that a righteous man could actually create a living being from the Earth itself. Fashioned from mud or clay... This creature could only be brought to life by the power of the word. In practical terms... (Kenneth opens the Sepher Vetzirah) ... by the direct application of certain secret letter combinations.
MULDER: Combinations found in that book?
KENNETH UNGAR: See... (He shows a page to Mulder) ...these pages, they're basically instructions for animating the inanimate. (He turns the page.) And this... this passage here talks about inscribing a single word on the Golem itself.
MULDER: On the back of his hand?
KENNETH UNGAR: I'm impressed.
MULDER: What's the secret word?
KENNETH UNGAR: Emet. See... (He points to three symbols of the text.) Aleph, Mem, Tau... Creates the word, Emet.
MULDER: I don't speak Hebrew, I don't know what that means.
KENNETH UNGAR: Truth. Emet means truth. (Kenneth sits back down.) See, Mr. Mulder, therein lies the paradox... because the danger of the truth is contained in the word Golem itself. Which means matter without form, body without soul.
MULDER: So the Golem is an imperfect creation.
KENNETH UNGAR: Oh, kind of a monster, really. Unable to speak or feel anything but the most primitive of emotions. It runs amok. It has to be destroyed by its creator.
MULDER: Destroyed, how?
(Kenneth stands again and flips through the book to find the page.)
KENNETH UNGAR: By erasing the first letter, Aleph. (Kenneth puts his finger over the first symbol, on the right.) Emet becomes met... which means dead. Again, Mr. Mulder... the power of letters, not just to create, but to kill.
(Mulder's cell phone rings. He answers it.)
MULDER: Yeah...
(Scully is driving.)
SCULLY: Mulder, it's me. There's been another homicide.
MULDER: Who?
SCULLY: Herb Bjunes. I'm on my way to the print shop right now.
MULDER: Okay, I can be there in ten minutes.
(They hang up. )
SCENE 29
COPY SHOP
(Outside there is police tape cordoning off the area. Cop cars all over.)
SCENE 30
INSIDE
(Bjunes lays on the floor. Glasses on the floor next to him. A hand holds a pamphlet that reads, "Only through blood can the Jewish scourge be cleansed". Mulder crumples it up.)
MULDER: A man with a mission. Look at all the energy he spent spewing his hatred.
(He throws it on the floor. Scully looks at a stack of papers. )
SCULLY: Well, he wasn't toiling in obscurity. This manifest lists hundreds of names, including our three murder victims.
MULDER: Well, there's no way Weiss could have killed him.
SCULLY: Yeah, I'll call the precinct and have him released.
(A voice from behind them.)
MAN: Agent Scully?
(They walk to a desk where a detective sits.)
DETECTIVE: The image is fuzzy, but I think we've got a hit. (He is playing the surveillance tape from the store. Isaac Weiss is on the tape.) There.
(He freeze frames. )
SCULLY: Oh, my God. It's Isaac Luria. He's still alive.
MULDER: I'm not so sure about that.
SCENE 31
LATER
(Bjunes body is zipped into a body bag and carried away. Scully is on her cell phone.)
SCULLY: No. That won't be necessary. (She hangs up.) Well, the coroner matched Luria's dental records.
(She walks to Mulder, who is sitting at the desk looking at the surveillance tape.)
SCULLY: It was definitely his corpse in the grave. This video tape... it must have been altered some how. Planted by whoever is staging this hoax.
MULDER: It's not a hoax, Scully. It never was.
SCULLY: But if Luria is dead, Mulder...
MULDER: This is not Luria. Not really.
SCULLY: Well, who do you think it is? Some kind of a ghost?
MULDER: A ghost is spirit without form. I believe what we're looking for and what we're seeing here, is... is form without spirit. Something called a Golem.
SCULLY: A Golem?
MULDER: It's kind of a man made monster described in Jewish folklore. It's fashioned through mud and then animated through mystical incantation.
(He walks away.)
SCULLY: Mud! (She follows him.) Mulder, what are you talking about? And... for what purpose? Exacting revenge?
MULDER: I don't think it was hate that created this, Scully. I think it was love.
SCENE 32
WEISS RESIDENCE
(Mulder and Scully are in the hallway. Mulder knocks on the door.)
MULDER: Arial, it's Agent Mulder. Open the door.
(No answer. He knocks again. Scully tries the knob.)
SCULLY: It's not locked.
(They go in.)
SCENE 33
INSIDE
(No lights are on. Scully walks into the room as Mulder turns on a lamp.)
SCULLY: Arial?
MULDER: She's not here, Scully.
SCULLY: How do you know?
(The glass dome that held the ring is empty.)
MULDER: Because it's her wedding day.
SCENE 34
SYNAGOGUE
(Candles are lit. No one is there. Jacob walks in. He walks up the aisle. He takes a candle from a stand by a pew and walks through the door to the stairs.)
SCENE 35
UPSTAIRS
(Jacob walks up the stairs with the candle.)
JACOB WEISS: Arial? I know you're here. I know you can hear me.
(He continues walking through the attic. A hand grabs his shoulder. He turns in surprise. It's Arial in a wedding dress.)
ARIAL: Leave us alone, Tata. You don't belong here.
JACOB WEISS: I'm your father.
ARIAL: Please go.
JACOB WEISS: Not without you. I'm not leaving without you.
ARIAL: I want to see him.
JACOB WEISS: He's dead. Isaac is dead.
ARIAL: No.
JACOB WEISS: The boys... they killed him. Their hate took him from you and you tried bringing him back with your love. (Arial is crying.) But what you brought back, you have to understand, Arial... It isn't him. It's an abomination. He has no place among the living.
ARIAL: He said he'd call me back, Tata. We were talking on the phone about the wedding. Isaac said he had to go. There was a customer who needed him. And that he would call me back. But when I heard the phone ring later... something told me not to pick it up. A woman's voice was on the line. I didn't hear what she was saying... I didn't have to. I knew Isaac wasn't calling me back. (Jacob is crying too.) I just wanted to say goodbye, Tata.
JACOB WEISS: I know. (They hug. ) I know...
ARIAL: I didn't think. It was just a wish. They were just... words.
(There a noise and a shadow.)
JACOB WEISS: Stay here.
ARIAL: I want to go with you.
JACOB WEISS: No.
ARIAL: Tata.
JACOB WEISS: No.
(He goes to the shadow. She stays.)
SCENE 36
OUTSIDE
(Mulder and Scully drive up. They get out and go into the building. )
SCENE 37
INSIDE
(They walk in with guns. They see Jacob hanging from a rope, still alive. Scully goes and holds on to his legs and lifts.)
MULDER: Hang on, I've got a knife.
(He begins to cut the rope. The Golem is seen in shadow against the wall. Mulder hurries. The rope is cut and they set Jacob on the floor and loosen the rope from around his neck.)
SCULLY: His pulse is thready.
MULDER: Will he be all right?
SCULLY: If we get him to a hospital. (Mulder stands.) Where are you going?
MULDER: To find Arial.
(Scully continues working on Jacob. Mulder goes up the stairs with his gun and flashlight. He looks around. He sees Arial sitting on the floor, crying. )
MULDER: Arial?
(He puts his gun in his holster and goes to her. )
MULDER: We found your father. He's alive. He's going to be okay. I know about Isaac. Where is he?
ARIAL: I don't know.
MULDER: All right. Come on. We gotta get outta here.
ARIAL: No.
MULDER: Come on, Arial.
(Mulder lifts her to her feet.)
ARIAL: No... (They hear a noise and turn. The Golem is standing there.) Isaac?
(Arial goes to him. Mulder pulls her back and behind him. He pulls his gun.)
MULDER: Stop or I'll fire.
ARIAL: No!
(She pulls on his arm. The figure keeps walking toward them. Mulder shoots twice.)
ARIAL: No! Stop...
SCENE 38
DOWNSTAIRS
(Police are there. Scully is still with Jacob. They hear gunfire. )
SCENE 39
UPSTAIRS
(Mulder continues firing as the Golem gets closer. The Golem lashes out at Mulder and Mulder is flung to the floor. The Golem is choking Mulder. )
ARIAL: Isaac!
(She has the ring in her hand. The Golem stops choking Mulder and looks at her. He goes to Arial. As he gets closer and out of the shadow, she sees his face and cries out. He takes the ring and holds it at the end of her ring finger.)
ARIAL: (Hebrew) I am to my beloved... as my beloved is to me.
(He puts the ring on her finger. She smiles to him. They curtsy. She kisses his hand tattoo and then erases the Aleph symbol.)
ARIAL: I loved you.
(They look at each other as she cries and his face deteriorates, turning back to mud. Scully comes.)
SCULLY: Mulder...
(She goes to him. He's still laying on the ground catching his breath.)
SCULLY: Are you okay? I heard shots fired. (She helps him up. ) What happened?
(He can't talk. They look over at Arial. She's kneeling over Isaac's body, which has slumped to the floor. She is caressing his shoulder and arm.)
SCULLY: What is she doing?
MULDER: Saying goodbye.
(He had turned to dirt. She picks up a handful and lets it spray over the body as she continues to pray and caress him.)
(A translation of the prayer was kindly provided by Shlomi Catz:)
"Itgadal ve-itkadash shemei raba (will be greated and hollied his big name)
Be-alma di-vra chi-r'utei (in a world that [he] created as his wish)
Ve-yamlich malchutei (and "kinging" his kingdom)
Ve-yatzmah purkanei (and make-appearing his rescueness)
Vi-karev meshihei (and will get close his Mashiah)
Be-hayechon u-v-yomechon u-v-hayei de-chol beit Israel, Ba-agala u-vi-zman kariv ve-imru amen (in your life[time], and in your days[time], and in life[time] of all Israel nation, quickly and as soon as, and say amen)
[THE END]
In Memory of Lillian Katz.
No history.
