ATD p. 237

[Anville Azote]

TRP re-uses an old joke and links Star Trek with the Kabbalah:

"This person greeted the Cohen by raising his left hand, then
spreading the fingers two and two away from the thumb so as to form
the Hebrew letter shin, signifying the initial letter of one of the
pre-Mosaic (that is, plural) names of God, which may never be spoken.

"'Basically wishing long life and prosperity,' explained the Cohen,
answering with the same gesture."

This first appeared in Ch. 50, p. 485 of M&D, and as Dave Monroe
pointed out, Leonard Nimoy actually invented the Vulcan hand salute
based on the gesture he had seen rabbis perform in the synagogue (the
young Leonard had peeked when he wasn't supposed to be looking).  I
vaguely recall seeing a documentary several years ago in which Nimoy
explained that as a boy, he had seen several rabbis standing in a
circle around the altar, their hands raised in shin-formation, making
a chain of touching fingertips.

Clearly, this repetition of an old M&D joke, plus its combination of
VL's Star Trek allusions and GR's Kabbalah themes, points to a deep
thread in the unknowable author's mind.  Discuss.

-A. A.