First of all, I felt a little bit guilty after writing this that you had been posting about having had an excruciating day and I immediately leapt in with a discussion of my novel! So I want to say that I have been thinking of you and I hope that you're able to find more diverting things to do with your brain.
Thank you for the book recommendations. I've read a couple of stories from Wandering Stars, the ones that are available online, and had been wondering whether to buy the whole collection. Or maybe just some Phyllis Gotlieb!
Is the far-off space colony having trouble finding enough people for a minyan?
Yes, it's a bit of a lazy trope but it allows me to play with the questions of the nature of the link and do a bit more about diaspora, both of which are major themes of the novel. My protagonists are just stopping by this settlement on their way back from an interstellar survey trip. (And there will be at least one of the locals saying "look, the Enlightenment was eight centuries ago now, can we not just pray without having to go through all of this?")
...although I would think that their semi-shared consciousness would count without question, and I really like your idea of treating the link analogously to a consensual form of possession.
Consensual possession for the purposes of making a minyan seems like the best approach. I did wonder whether a minyan counts the number of Jewish bodies or number of Jewish souls (in which case there are still not enough) but perhaps it's justifiable. I might post at some point in my own journal to gather further thoughts...
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Thank you for the book recommendations. I've read a couple of stories from Wandering Stars, the ones that are available online, and had been wondering whether to buy the whole collection. Or maybe just some Phyllis Gotlieb!
Is the far-off space colony having trouble finding enough people for a minyan?
Yes, it's a bit of a lazy trope but it allows me to play with the questions of the nature of the link and do a bit more about diaspora, both of which are major themes of the novel. My protagonists are just stopping by this settlement on their way back from an interstellar survey trip. (And there will be at least one of the locals saying "look, the Enlightenment was eight centuries ago now, can we not just pray without having to go through all of this?")
...although I would think that their semi-shared consciousness would count without question, and I really like your idea of treating the link analogously to a consensual form of possession.
Consensual possession for the purposes of making a minyan seems like the best approach. I did wonder whether a minyan counts the number of Jewish bodies or number of Jewish souls (in which case there are still not enough) but perhaps it's justifiable. I might post at some point in my own journal to gather further thoughts...