ATD p. 237

[Joe Allonby]

Our posts just crossed in the aether.

On 11/24/06, Anville Azote <anville.azote at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
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