"Have I Got a Monster for You!": Some Thoughts on the Golem, The X-Files and the Jewish Horror Movie

   ... the story is not about religion. The underlying story is all about
   Mulder and the essence of the show--his quest for the truth. Although
   Scully's faith and religion have been openly discussed, we know very little
   about Mulder's. Entertainment Weekly reported David Duchovny [Duchovny
   himself is half-Jewish, patralinearly] assumes his character is Jewish
   until otherwise informed, but the show will never directly address the
   question (Goldstein).

Goldstein continues: "This [the Ariel/Isaac relationship] is a really interesting parallel to Mulder. Since his sister's abduction, he too has been looking for closure [like Ariel wanting closure in her relationship with Isaac]. He won't rest until he knows what really happened to her" (ibid.).

Rather than meditating on God and creation, as the legends imply one should, fans' discussions of the "Kaddish" episode become a diegetic meditation on the nature of truth for the character of Fox Mulder. In the discussions about overall character development, fans fill in the blanks by developing connections between episodes, even those not within the "mytharc" of the entire series. [3] They move towards a kind of plenitude in seeing the entire "macroflow" (term used by Bacon-Smith [1992] to refer to the diegesis of the entire series as a self-contained universe) as consistent and meaningful. The golem acts as a literal metaphor for the series' ultimate theme "the truth is out there." As one fan observed: "The Golem was also an apt choice considering the show's themes that revolve around `truth,' the word that brings the creature to life. Not only was the truth `out there' [in] this episode, it was walking around killing people!" (Paulito).

But beyond the desire of "X-Philes" for plenitude, the "Kaddish" episode also presents a metatextual meditation for us on the power of words:

   TRUTH or "EMET" in Hebrew can be easily changed to the word DEATH by
   removing the Aleph or the first letter. Aleph [sic.] being the first letter
   in the Hebrew alphabet is mystical in that it represents the essential
   beginning of all life known as the Aleph of creation (the world's) [sic.].
   Without ALEPH (creation), you get DEATH (Cramer). [4]

Parallels are drawn not only between the use of words within this episode and in the entire series, but also between the many different kinds of "living words" used within the episode, as the "X-Philes" also recognised:

   The X-Files' use of legend and folk myth is most effective when used
   metaphorically. It takes more than a monster in makeup to shed our
   protective armor of materialism. The idea of a clay figure taking life from
   a Sacred Word ... affords us many interesting meditations on how humans are
   motivated to kill by words, by propaganda, by lies (Stegall).

In particular, "Kaddish" draws parallels between the words used to animate Isaac-Golem and the words used by Brunjes to create hatred against the Jews. Just as the golem kills those who threaten the Jewish community (in both "Kaddish" and Ashkenazi legends), the words Brunjes disseminates create monsters that also kill: