What I want is to run and hope it falls away

[sovay]

The majority of my day so far has been emotionally and physically excruciating, but I want to appreciate spatch for listening to me speculate this morning on the subject of whether Voyager's Doctor is Jewish. Obviously the question itself presumes some biographical facts on the part of his creator-template, but I feel the odds are better than not in the case of an AI designer named Lewis Zimmerman who does most of his communicating via sarcasm: "Congratulations. The first trans-galactic phone call." So how does patrilineal descent work when it's photons? Fortunately, since I do not have the space in my life to explore the argument seriously, I am confident the answer is covered by either golem minhag or the same kind of fannishness that runs with the halachah of descent from Magneto. I did check rabbinical opinions on the Jewishness of robots and was entertained that professional-type people also think of Star Trek and whether a golem counts in a minyan. Personally I think that in the era of Zoom shivas and services, a sentient hologram would at least know how to dial in on time. Did this train of thought cross my mind in time to exploit it for Purimgifts? Nope. But it's one of the few things I did with my brain today that didn't make me miserable. And a package from minoanmiss arrived for my niece, who I will be seeing tomorrow. And that's really nice.

Comments

[naraht]

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...

[sovay]

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!

I would much rather think about your novel than my pain, so please don't apologize!

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.

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!

Both anthologies of Wandering Stars are worth checking out just for the overview of Jewish speculative fiction at the time; Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace's People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy (2010) would give you a more recent cross-section and I don't say that just because I have a story reprinted in it. (I didn't italicize all the Hebrew and Yiddish; that's house style. It's preferredly less othering in my own collection.) I tend to feel that Phyllis Gotlieb is always a good choice no matter what. I'd start with either of the collections or the novel A Judgment of Dragons (1980). Her last novel Birthstones (2007) is also crunchy about gender in a way I enjoy, where focusing a narrative on a planet's reproductive crisis does not automatically make everyone straight.

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.

Unless it's a very small colony to begin with, I'm just worrying about their Jewish community!

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.

It goes by souls: we've ended up discussing upthread why it is that zombies don't count in a minyan. Agency and intent are essential.

[naraht]

Unless it's a very small colony to begin with, I'm just worrying about their Jewish community!

Sorry I realized I never answered this! Small and new - humanity is still in its first expansion out from the solar system. So I think there isn't anything to worry about, for this colony at least.

[sovay]

So I think there isn't anything to worry about, for this colony at least.

Oh, good!

I just saw this event and thought of you. I hope it works with your time zone.