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

[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.