The Tenth Man

Paddy Chayefsky’s The Tenth Man leads us to discover that the scholars, who studied the laws of the Torah, also believed in ghosts, and recited secret incantations passed on from generation to generation. A group of elderly Jewish men, displaced from the terror in Europe, cling to the old ways in secular America. Their faith is challenged when they are confronted by a dybbuk, a wandering spirit with a terrible secret, which has possessed a young woman. In order to help her, they need a minyan, a prayer group of ten Jewish men. The problem is, they need a tenth man. A troubled man is pulled off the street to serve in a ceremony to cast a demon out of a pretty girl, and in the process learns to cope with his own inner demons.