Television
A Haunting Love Story
A Jewish folk to comes to life on this Sunday's episode
of "The X-Files,"9p.m. on Fox.
H
JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR STAFF WRITER
oward Gordon was looking
for the right thread.
A veritable weaver of
tales, Gordon, co-executive
producer of the hot television
show "The X-Files," is charged
with writing and producing sev-
eral scripts a season, blending to-
gether science and metaphysical
components into realistic story
lines.
While he has produced stories
about alien abduction and other
oddities in the show's four sea-
sons, Gordon always had designs
on producing a script about the
golem, a monster from Jewish
folklore he first heard about in
a Jewish studies class in college.
According to the ancient leg-
end, the golem is a body of a hu-
man being minus the soul that
can be created from soil by ut-
tering in a certain sequence holy
names from the Sefer Yezirah
("The Book of Creation").
In modern literature, the
golem is portrayed as a revenge-
seeking creation of a wronged
man; in fact, during World War
II the legend is credited with sav-
ing a Prague synagogue from de-
struction by the Nazis who feared
the wrath of the monster.
"I wanted to avoid the revenge
thing," said Gordon, a Reform
Jew raised in Long Island, N.Y.
"It was an obvious retelling of it
in a not very interesting way."
But, somehow, tying the age-
old myth into a hot, hip story line
just wasn't coming to him. Un-
able to find a good mix, Gordon
put the golem on the back burn-
er, waiting for the right inspira-
tion.
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In the meantime, he flew to a
friend's marriage ceremony at
• Increased
Temple Shir Shalom in West
The episode begins in a Crown
Bloomfield. As the bride and Heights-type neighborhood with
groom stood beneath the chup- the murder of Isaac Luria, a
pah, Rabbi Dannel Schwartz told young Chasidic Jew on the eve of
the story of the wedding ring of his marriage. Soon, his murder-
Kolin, a Czechoslovakian town. ers begin surfacing as corpses as
Years ago, the Jews of Kohn, _ well, but evidence found at their
in an act of unity, used the same murder scenes implicate Luria,
ring during wedding ceremonies. now in his grave. _
Set atop the Kolin ring is a small Special Agents Dana Scully
gold sculpture of a castle that tips and Fox Mulder from the Feder-
back to expose the bride's own al Bureau of Investigation are
wedding ring. The communal called in for their expertise in the
ring was said to symbolize the paranormal. Thinking the case is
richness that would come from a resurrection hoax and that the
the union of the bride and the real killers are related to Luria's
groom. betrothed, they set out to discov-
The ring was used in nearly er a truth for which they are not
every wedding ceremony for cen- prepared.
turies. Then, during the Holo-
A golem, it seems, has been
caust, 90 percent of the Jewish created from the earth but not to
population of Kolin was killed. fulfill a mission of revenge.
The ring and any other symbol of
"The idea is that a woman is
celebration seemed out of place deeply in love with this guy and
to the remaining Jews.
wants to bring him back," said
Rabbi Schwartz heard the tale Gordon.
when he went to Prague to bring
"I am very proud of 'Kaddish.'
back a Holocaust Torah for his It came out very well. I hope peo-
congregation. He also heard that ple watch it; I think they will," he
the wedding ring, no longer used, said. "It is a nice departure. It is
was for sale. Without much prod- not a typical It has a more
ding, he bought it and now uses lyrical feel to it."
it for weddings in his temple.
Gordon said he would like to
`The use of the communal ring incorporate other Jewish themes
is special because it ties us to the into the show and has even toyed
Jews who used it in the past," with the ideas of the dybbuk and
Rabbi Schwartz said. black anti-Semitism.
After hearing the story of the
"In the course of my research
ring, Gordon found his
[for `Kaddish'], I did a
Rabbi Dannel great deal of research
thread.
"Sometimes you have Schwartz holds about black anti-Semi-
communal
notions and ideas and
notions
'X-
ddinolig nr ing tism. That is its own 'X-
sometimes you don't have we of K ,
File.' It is so complicated
a story to attach to an idea Czechoslovakia. and understandable but
for years," he said. "And
at the same time corn-
then it will just hit you."
pletely senseless," Gordon said,
This Sunday, the tale will be joking that the episode could be
told in an episode titled "Kaddish" called 'The Malcolm X-File."
at 9 p.m. on Fox.
He also looks forward to in-
eluding more religion
in the show, saying the
subject is ripe with
some of "the coolest
stuff."
"There is so much
that is unknown and
so much that faith
needs to account for
that science doesn't ac-
count for," he said. "Re-
ligious lore is just ripe
with miracles and
claims of miraculous
things."
"The irony is that
many of the great sci-
entists are in fact reli-
gious," he said. "They
know just how little we
know, how much there
is to know." ❑
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