- Amen. - [Continues praying in Hebrew]
Amen.
Get the tape. Get it. It's in the back.
Come on!
It's all right. You don't have to do this.
No, I want to.
Why are you doing this?
[Thunderclap]
Come.
[Thunder Rumbling]
[Thunderclap]
[Scully] His name was Isaac Luria.
He lived in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Home to a sect of Hasidic Jews who've lived there since the late 19th century.
It's an area also known for its history of racial tension and hate crimes—
- Yankel Rosenbaum, Tawana Brawley— - 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.
Police ruled out robbery 'cause the only thing missing was this videotape...
from the surveillance camera.
- Police found it early this morning. - Where?
In the V.C.R. of a 16 year old named Tony Oliver.
- [Turns On TV] - That's him on the upper right.
Has he been arrested?
No, because he's dead.
Apparently he'd been watching this tape when he was strangled to death.
- Very Old Testament. - Yeah, but with a new twist.
The Brooklyn homicide detectives contacted the F.B.I.'s civil rights branch...
with an interesting set of fingerprints that they pulled off of the boy's body.
- Interesting how? - Interesting in that they belonged to Isaac Luria.
Risen from the grave to avenge his own death?
Some people might assume that. It's probably what someone would like us to think.
- But you have your own idea. - I think this is a crime of hatred,
like the crime that spawned it.
A hatred that goes back 4,000years.
But masquerading as something else here...
and a callow attempt at murderous retribution...
disguised as spectral justice.
- A resurrection hoax? - And not a very good one.
Spectral figures are not often known to leave fingerprints. Casper never did.
Somehow the killer got a hold of Isaac Luria's fingerprints.
And we have been asked to prove how.
[Knocking]
Excuse me, sir. We're with the F.B.I.
We'd like to speak with Ariel Luria.
- Is she home? - I'm Ariel's father, Jacob Weiss.
Why are you bothering her again? She's already spoken with the police.
[Woman] It's all right. Let them in.
Please, come in.
Thank you.
We can talk in the study.
This is why you are here?
This is what you come to ask in this house of mourning?
- What is this? - We would like your permission to reopen Isaac's grave.
No! The answer's no!
[Ariel] Why does this have to be done?
We're looking for evidence in the murder of this man. His name is Tony Oliver.
He is one of three suspects in the murder of your husband.
We believe it was an act of retaliation and the other two suspects are targets.
- He's just a boy. - He's an animal.
A monster, just like the others who killed Isaac—
whose grave you're asking us to desecrate so you can now protect them.
- Tata, please. - But where were you when Isaac needed your protection?
When we called the police, they said that we were paranoid.
That there was nothing to worry about.
They always say that when someone threatens the Jews.
So there was a specific threat of violence?
The threat is always there.
Just this morning... this is what I found under our door.
And now you've come here not to help us,
but to ask our help so you can impose your justice...
on the only man who's taken justice into his own hands.
We would be happy not to disturb the grave site if you could tell us who that man is.
Even if I knew, why would I tell you?
Because this is a homicide investigation, sir,
and you are required by law to assist us.
I know all about your laws.
Sir, I'm afraid that even without your consent,
we can get a court order to exhume Isaac's grave.
Do what you feel is necessary.
But leave us alone. Let us mourn in peace.
I have a feeling he knows who killed Tony Oliver, Mulder.
I think he doesn't want us disturbing Luria's grave because he knows what we'll find.
Maybe. But it's hard to fault his attitude when you see something like that.
And anybody delivering justice to a people who have known that kind of persecution and hatred,
- why wouldn't they protect them? - Justice or revenge?
I'm not saying those kids don't warrant full prosecution under the law,
but the hate mongering goes both ways.
But the right to free expression doesn't extend to murder.
I bet whoever published that knows the boys who killed Isaac Luria...
and probably has a good idea who killed Tony Oliver too.
Sure I knew him. The man owned the store right across the street.
- But I'd be lying if I said I was surprised it happened. - Why is that?
Well, you know how they are.
They're always trying to find ways to make money off of honest folk who work for a living.
Can you think of anyone who might have held a grudge?
- I can't think of anyone who didn't. - Did you?
Why? I'm not under any kind of suspicion, am I?
No, not directly, but these young men are.
We have reason to believe you know them.
Their names are Derek Banks and Clinton MacGuire.
I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with them.
Well, are you familiar with this?
We think those kids are familiar with it.
Enough to incite them to the murder of Isaac Luria.
- You work for them too, don't you? - Who?
You know who. You look like you might be one yourself.
We work for the F.B.I., sir.
Who's the F.B.I. work for? That's right.
You call me paranoid, 'cause that's exactly what they want you to do.
But there is one thing you can't call me and that is a Zionist collaborator.
You take along look at these photos.
It may be your last chance to save their lives.
One of their accomplices, a young man named Tony Oliver, was found murdered this morning.
- Why are you telling me this? - You haven't heard the rumors?
- What rumors? - That Luria is back from the dead.
That he's risen from his grave.
What kind of Jew trick is this?
A Jew pulled it off 2,000 years ago.
We're just relating the evidence, sir. You can draw your own conclusions.
But I know you wouldn't want to be responsible for...
endangering these young men's lives.
Bless you.
Derek?
Are you sure about this?
I heard them, man. I'm not waiting around to find out if it's true.
- [ Grunts ] Damn! - What's wrong?
- It's nailed shut. - There's some tools in the trunk.
- [ Gasping ] - [ Grunting ]
I got it open, man! Get down here.
Hey, Clinton. Check it out.
Clinton.
Hey, Clinton. Check it out.
Clinton?
You trying to mess with me?
[ Gasping ] Oh, man.
The ligature marks on the victim's neck are consistent with our vigilante's M.O.
Forensics come up with anything?
Yeah, a second set of footprints, but the mud was too soft to take a mold.
- My guess is Clinton was here with Derek Banks. - Looking for what?
Maybe they came to desecrate the corpse as retribution for Tony Oliver's death.
That seems pretty redundant, doesn't it? Messing up somebody you've already killed?
- I think they came here because they were afraid. - Afraid?
Afraid that the man they hated enough to kill wasn't really dead.
Look.
There goes your theory of how Luria's fingerprints found their way onto the victim's body.
What does that look like to you?
Well, the body wasn't embalmed, as according to custom.
Maybe it's postmortem lividity or some kind of tattooing.
It's hard to tell at this stage of decomposition.
What's this?
A little bedtime reading?
- [Derek] You owe me for two weeks. - Where have you been?
Is it true? You and your friends killed the Jew?
- Just give me my money. - What the hell were you thinking?
I never told you to kill anyone. I never said to do that.
No? What did you expect me to do?
Hide back here like you,
licking envelopes in the dark, calling them names?
- We're working to spread the truth. - The truth?
Man, you're as pathetic as they are.
What? I am exposing their lies.
Man, those are just words.
You think they killed my friends with words?
That's right. Clinton's dead too.
Now I'd like my money.
It's called the Sefer Yezirah, the Book of Creation.
The earliest known Hebrew text on man's mystical communion with the Divine.
- Is it ever buried with the dead? - No.
In observance with Jewish belief that with death comes equality,
the corpse is buried only in its shroud.
No personal symbols of class or worldly position are allowed.
Has it ever been known to spontaneously combust?
Uh, no. No, it hasn't.
It's a book on mysticism, not mysticism itself.
Is it printed on any special paper or with any special ink?
No, it's just a book. Leather and paper.
Now, I suspect somebody might be trying to play a trick on you.
There is possibility that moisture may have leeched into the coffin,
into the binding and the pages of the book.
If the ground water was contaminated,
arsenic or arsine gas could have created a combustible mixture.
Is there anything that distinguishes this particular Sefer Yezirah from other books?
Yes, but it's barely legible because of the burning.
It's a name engraved in the leather, or stamped into the leather.
- A name? - Yes, a Hebrew name. Weiss.
Jacob Weiss.
- Why do you want to see him? - There's been another murder.
Another suspect in your husband's death has been found dead last night.
- Where was this? - It was next to your husband's grave.
How does this concern my father?
Yesterday he expressed some strong feelings towards this latest victim.
He was angry. They were just angry words.
And we found evidence placing him at the crime scene.
This is escalating into something else, Ariel.
Something that has to stop.
My marriage to Isaac,
you have to understand how much it would have meant to my father.
What do you mean, "would have meant" ?
We got our marriage license a few weeks ago, but the wedding wasn't until today.
I'm sorry.
I'd like to show you something.
It was a communal wedding ring made in Kolin,
a village near Prague.
My father was an apprentice to the man who designed it.
- It's beautiful. - Mm-hmm.
Everywoman who got married in the synagogue wore this ring as a symbol that...
she was a queen,
her husband a king,
and the 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 thespringof1943.
Nine thousand Jews were massacred after digging their own graves.
But your father survived.
Because he was ten years old, and he was a jeweler's apprentice.
He had small fingers to make bullets at a munitions factory.
And through all this he hid the ring?
Even after the war, he hid it. Even from my mother.
Why?
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 50 years, he took out this ring.
He said he felt his village was born again.
He knew how much I loved Isaac.
Ariel, tell us where your father is.
I know my father. He would never kill anyone.
What if you're wrong?
####[Man Chanting in Hebrew]
####[Congregation Chanting Along]
Do you see him?
- I'm sorry. We don't mean any disrespect. - Who are you?
We're with the F.B.I. We're looking for Jacob Weiss.
Why?
Mulder.
Don't move! Federal agent!
- You okay, Mulder? - Yeah.
Put your hands in the air where I can see them.
And turn around slowly.
We got him, Scully.
Mr. Weiss, we're placing you under arrest.
[Locking Handcuffs]
Come on. Let's go.
Where is he? Where's my father?
We've arrested him, Ariel, under suspicion of murder.
I don't believe you. It can't be him.
Did he— Did he tell you he killed this person?
I think that's the direction it's going. Agent Mulder's in there with him now.
- I need to see him. - Ariel, I suggest that you get him an attorney.
He's refusing legal representation.
I need to see him.
[ Sighs ] Okay.
You can ask Detective Bartley down the hall.
He'll give you a place to wait until your father's been processed.
Ariel.
I'm sorry.
Why'd you kill him, Jacob?
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.
- Hanging a man in self-defense? - Is it any worse than what they did to Isaac?
Is it any better?
They found your book, your Sefer Yezirah in Isaac Luria's grave.
- So? - That puts you at a second crime scene.
- I'm guilty. What more do you want from me? - The truth.
I have given you the truth.
There was someone else in that attic with you. Who was it?
- There was no one else. - Then you're a liar.
And you know nothing about nothing. And I have no more to say about this.
I would like to see my daughter.
You wanna see the background check I ran on him?
He emigrated to Israel after World War Il where he joined the lrgun—
the Jewish military underground.
He was arrested in 1959 by the British for a bombing that killed seven civilians.
He was a terrorist, Mulder. A killer.
He's not our killer, though.
What do you mean? l— He just gave a confession. I stood here and listened.
I think there might have been a second person in that attic, Scully.
Weiss knows it too. And he's protecting whoever it is.
- Well, who? His daughter? - It was somebody big enough and strong enough to knock me down.
- Well, who do you think it was? - [Door Opens]
- You should stick around. This could be interesting. - Where are you going?
To see a man about a burning book.
They say you confessed.
- Why are you doing this? - To protect you.
- From what? - I think you know.
They found my book in Isaac's grave.
- It can't be true. - No?
[Door Closes]
- [Door Closes] - [Shuts Off printing press]
[Mulder] There's something you didn't tell me...
about the contents of this Sefer Yezirah.
- What is you want to know? - I want to know about the myth of the golem.
I told you, Mr. Mulder. This is a mystical text.
These pages are filled with golems and dybbuks and demons of every size and shape.
It's the golem that I'm interested in.
I'm interested in why an F.B.I. agent would be so interested in such a thing.
That's what I was hoping you could tell me.
The early Kabbalists,
they believed that a righteous man could actually...
create a living being from the earth itself.
Fashioned from mud or clay.
But this creature could only be brought to life by the power of the Word.
In-In-In practical terms,
by a direct application of certain secret letter combinations.
Combinations found in that book?
Look, look. See? See?
These pages. They're basically instructions...
for animating the inanimate.
You see, and this—
Yeah, and this passage here...
talks about inscribing a single word on the golem itself.
- On the back of his hand? - I'm impressed.
- What is the magic word? - Emet.
See, these three letters,
"alef, men, tav, " creates the word emet.
I don't speak Hebrew. I don't know what that means.
Truth. Emet means "truth."
But you 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."
So the golem is an imperfect creation.
A kind of monster, really. Unable to speak or feel anything...
but the most primitive emotions.
In the legends, it runs amok...
and has to be destroyed by its creator.
Destroyed how?
By erasing the first letter,
"alef,"emet" becomes "met, "
which means "dead."
Again, Mr. Mulder, the power of letters.
Not just to create, but to kill.
- [Cell phone Ringing] - Yeah?
Mulder, it's me. There's been another homicide.
- Who? - Curt Brunjes. I'm on my way to the print shop right now.
Okay, I can be there in ten minutes.
He was a man on a mission. Look at all the energy he spent spreading his hatred.
He certainly wasn't toiling in obscurity.
This mailing list has hundreds of names, including our three murder victims.
At least we know Jacob Weiss didn't kill them.
Yeah, I'll call the precinct and have him released.
[Man] Agent Scully?
The image is fuzzy, but I think we've got a hit.
- There. - Oh, my God.
It's Isaac Luria. He's still alive.
I'm not so sure about that.
No, thank you. That won't be necessary.
Well, the coroner matched Luria's dental records.
It was definitely his corpse that was in that grave.
You know, Mulder, this videotape, it must have been altered somehow.
Planted by whoever is staging this hoax.
- It's not a hoax, Scully. It never was. - But if Luria is dead, Mulder—
This is not Luria. Not really.
Well, who do you think it is? Do you think it's some kind of a ghost?
No, a ghost is spirit without form.
But I believe what we're looking for and what we're seeing here is form without spirit.
- Something called a golem. - A golem?
Yeah, it's— it's a kind of a manmade monster described in Jewish folklore.
It's fashioned from mud and then animated through mystical incantation.
Mud? Mulder, what are you talking about?
And for what purpose? Exacting revenge?
I don't think it was hate that created this golem, Scully. I think it was love.
[Knocking]
Ariel, it's Agent Mulder. Open the door.
It's not locked.
[Scully] Ariel?
- She's not here, Scully. - How do you know?
'Cause it's her wedding day.
Ariel?
I know you're here. I know you can hear me.
Ariel?
Leave us alone, Tata. You don't belong here.
- I'm your father. - Please go.
Not without you. I'm not leaving without you.
- I want to see him. - He's dead.
- Isaac is dead. - No.
The boys that killed him, their hate took him from you,
and you tried bringing him back with your love.
But what you brought back—
You have to understand, Ariel,
it isn't him.
It's an abomination.
It has no place among the living.
He said he'd call me back, Tata.
We were talking on the phone...
about the wedding.
Isaac said he had to go.
That a customer 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.
I was just wanted to say good-bye, Tata.
I know.
I didn't think—
It was just a wish.
They were just... words.
[Floorboards Creak]
- Stay here. - I want to go with you.
- No. No! - Tata.
[Banging]
Wait, I got a knife.
- His pulse is thready. - Will he be all right?
- If we get him to a hospital. - Call the paramedics.
- Where are you going? - To find Ariel.
Ariel?
We found your father.
He's alive. He's gonna be okay.
I know about Isaac.
Where is he?
I don't know.
- Okay. All right, come on. We've got to get out of here. - No.
- Come on, Ariel. Let's go. - No.
- We have to go. - No.
Come on, Ariel. Come on.
- [Floorboards Creak] - Isaac?
- Stop or I'll fire! - No! No!
No!
Stop! No.
Isaac.
[ Speaking in Hebrew ]
I am to my beloved as my beloved is to me.
I loved you.
Mulder?
- Are you okay? - I think so.
I heard shots fired.
What happened?
- What is she doing? - Saying good-bye.