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

[selkie]

I'm trying to figure out why I feel reluctant about zombies when the idea of a dybbuk counting in a minyan gives me no pause at all. Does it really just come down to the neshome? Or would a zombie as conventionally defined be too impaired to be eligible, in the same way that I believe that being sufficiently shitfaced can disqualify a person under normal circumstances?

Basically, iIrc, the zombie is both impaired/inebriated by its core desires and cannot elect to pray and have it mean something, whereas a golem is alive and can choose (or follow an order? Slightly sketchy) and a dybbuk would have to choose to come back closely enough to join a minyan. Prayer is a free-will act and requires intent. Zombies just require high-cholesterol, easily masticated protein sources.

[julian]

I appreciate you guys.

"b'tzelem elohim"

There is apparently a contextual meaning to this other than "in gd's image," yes? From context you seem to be meaning it as sort of 'living and thinking and being part of the universe.' Especially if neshome is soul, so, OK, thank you.)

(I'm Unitarian Universalist but generally curious. Just also very *very* WASP.)

[selkie]

Hi! Yes, there's the literal meaning you mention, but I was indeed dragging in the conceptual because this discussion involved three rabbis and a couple of hours and we hit the figurative heights with it. You've encapsulated it extremely well! A being in God's image has agency, power, means of reasoning, and choice. A zombie just has... drive for nomnoms. (I do have an excellent plushie zombie at work. His name is Throckmorton and the religious school kids like to rip his velcro brain out.)

Neshome is Yiddish for soul, yes. Hebrew would be nefesh.
Edited because you're a UU so I will freely spell out God, since attenuating a word in English is a piece of frumheyt I will abide by for the comfort of others -- who the hell am I to tell you what to spell out about your deity -- but do not hold to myself.

[julian]

On your edit: I'm never sure who's conservative (in my definition of conservative) about that and who isn't, so in other people's spaces, I try to lean on the side of conservative until there's evidence otherwise, because it's polite. (Well, actually and more accurately, I often forget, but I try not to.) So, I shall take that into account and thank you.

I, alas, don't have a plush zombie, but I do have a plush Wild Thing. (With a tie.)

Anyway: Thank you, that did seem clear from your subsequent discussion but I like to make sure my understanding of nuance didn't stray from what's meant.

[selkie]

Thank you for not taking it as a personal reprimand or something! I am a very reactionary human who leans away from erring conservative, because orthopraxists and I often have many, many other things to hiss and bite about; but I mean well and it was clear you did, too. Always happy to run my mouth for others' benefit.

(The pandemic has, alas, cut way down on my antagonizing of my frum, male co-religionists when they ask me at the subway station if I'm Jewish. I don't know what I'll take up for sport if we can't use public transit when we go back...)

[julian]

You're entirely welcome. (I like working from the assumption a conversation is happening, not a series of corrections. That sometimes works out better than others.)

And -- Hah. Yes. My relationship with Judaism and both its orthopraxy and its orthodoxy is (obviously) *way* different than yours, and like, what's antagonistic-but-participatory from you would be a very different thing coming from me, and I don't have the history you do with your co-religionists, etc etc etc.

[sovay]

and a dybbuk would have to choose to come back closely enough to join a minyan. Prayer is a free-will act and requires intent.

I feel vindicated in telling spatch about the importance of sentience!

(I seem to have a strong image of a dybbuk counting in a minyan—and disappearing afterward—and I don't know where it comes from. I didn't write it. It pointedly does not happen in Demon (2015), where there are not enough Jews left on the ground for the +1 of the dybbuk to make a difference. Are there dybbuks in Peter S. Beagle beyond "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel," which isn't this situation, either? Jane Yolen? You?)

[selkie]

Imagine a whole countryside full of dybbuks wanting their land back, demanding to know what became of their families, slipping beneath the skins of their Polish successors to live out the lives they were untimely torn from. I do, actually, all the time, some times of year worse than others.

To be relevant:
I have the same image and I thought it was yours. It was not Beagle unless it's somewhere in A Fine and Private Place that I missed. Maybe it really, really wants to be written out into the world and we should cautiously attempt it.

[julian]

You guys don't read Patricia Briggs, right? She did have a thing with Prague and various legends of same, couple years ago. Don't think it was that good, but it was better than her average. but I don't imagine the images/snippets came from that.

Anyway, _Silence Fallen_, the Mercy Thompson series, 2017.

[sovay]

You guys don't read Patricia Briggs, right? She did have a thing with Prague and various legends of same, couple years ago.

A couple of short stories according to her bibliography, but nothing that I recall by name. Just to be clear, are we talking about golems or dybbuks here?

[julian]

Golem, in fact.

[sovay]

I do, actually, all the time, some times of year worse than others.

*hugs*

It was not Beagle unless it's somewhere in A Fine and Private Place that I missed.

Not that I recall. The ghosts in that one are conspicuously goyish. And it's not in any of his three collections for Tachyon Press and A Dance for Emilia is a cat.

Maybe it really, really wants to be written out into the world and we should cautiously attempt it.

If we accidentally plagiarize someone from the '30's, it will be thematically appropriate!