From the Chicago Jewish News

Star (of David) Trek 

by Pauline Dubkin Yearwood

1/28/2014  A small, struggling Conservative congregation in mostly non-Jewish Lake County, a new rabbi who wants to draw his congregants together and instill a strong sense of Judaism in their collective soul – how to do it?

For Rabbi Jonathan Kohn, part of the answer involves “Star Trek.”

Not just any episode of the iconic science fiction series, but a particular one that at first doesn’t seem to have any relation to Judaism nor any Jews in it. But Kohn says that’s not the point.

Here’s what he wrote in a piece promoting a program he gave at his synagogue, Congregation Or Tikvah: “Imagine that a non-Jewish friend has trouble understanding why Jews are different: why we pray in Hebrew, why we care so much about who is Jewish and who isn’t, and why we’re ‘a people’ instead of just being ‘people’ like anyone else.

“’It’s hard to explain,’ we answer.

“Well, now it isn’t. Show him this episode of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ and he’ll understand why we are different. Visit the planet where Peoplehood, ritual, faith, values, and liturgy combine to form a way of life.

“Most people see nothing Jewish in this episode, but rabbis say, ‘Every Jew should see this!’

“How can we explain Jewish values to modern Americans? … Here are answers that even a Klingon will understand.”

The episode, which aired on May 4, 1991, is from the “Next Generation” series of the wildly popular franchise and is called “Half A Life.”

That name, Kohn says, is one of the most Jewish things about it.

Or Tikvah, founded in 1997 as an offshoot of a Waukegan synagogue and now located in Grayslake, is the northernmost synagogue in Lake County. With about 35 member families, the congregation struggles to stay afloat in an area that also has a Reform, Conservative and Orthodox/Chabad synagogue, according to President Howard Rood.

“I call us ‘the little synagogue that could,’” he says. “We don’t have endowments, we don’t have a lot of money but we continue to survive. We cater to the people versus the pocketbook. Everyone knows everyone else. We’re very family-oriented, friendly and inviting.”

While there are numerous Jewish families within about a 12-mile radius of nearby Gurnee, Rood says, in Grayslake itself “we are very much a minority. A lot of our kids, if you explain to someone you are Jewish, sometimes people haven’t met anyone who is Jewish.”

So when Kohn came to Or Tikvah, where he serves part time, Rood thought the “Star Trek” program, which the rabbi had mentioned in his initial interview for the position, would be a good way to hold congregants’ interest and draw them together.

“He described this as something that would help people explain to others what it is like to be Jewish, what our traditions are like, an interesting, creative way for people to relate to it,” Rood says.

That turned out to be the case. Rood estimates that 30 to 40 percent of the membership, along with others from outside the Jewish community, attended Kohn’s December “Star Trek” program and participated in a lively discussion afterwards.

Kohn says he discovered the “Half A Life” episode by accident from watching many “Star Trek” episodes, although he doesn’t label himself a Trekkie – an avid fan of the show who might go to “Star Trek” conventions, dress up as a favorite character or otherwise display his or her love for the franchise, which includes six series (726 episodes, according to Wikipedia) and 12 feature films over 30 years.

When he first saw “Half A Life,” Kohn immediately felt the episode demonstrated Jewish values, although not in the conventional way.

“Those values were hidden. I had seen episodes where it was clear that one species stood for the Jews, but here it was not clear at all,” he says.

Rood, the synagogue president, agrees. “When I first saw the episode, I said, I don’t get it,” he says.

It’s true that “Half A Life” doesn’t seem to have anything Jewish about it. In it, the U.S.S. Enterprise brings aboard a scientist, Dr. Timicin (played by “M*A*S*H’s” David Ogden Stiers) to conduct an experiment that he hopes will save his threatened home plant, Kaelon, whose people are in jeopardy as the sun their planet orbits has begun to collapse.

The experiment on a proxy sun fails and, after some back-and-forth with other characters on the ship, Timicin returns to his home planet, where, about to turn 60, he must soon die during an event known as “the Resolution.”

Kohn explains that the values and customs of those who live on the fictional planet of Kaelon, which include all inhabitants killing themselves at age 60 so others won’t have to care for the elderly, aren’t the “Jewish” part.

Instead, he says, “they were the values of community, peoplehood, what it means to be a people. It was something I wanted to bring out for my congregants. The Jewish people have been described as many things – a nation, a civilization, a religion, an ethnicity. None comes perfectly close to what we are, although maybe civilization comes the closest.”

What he primarily wanted to explore, he says, was the often-used phrase “a people.”

“People is usually used in the plural,” he says. “What does it mean, ‘a people?”

That, Kohn says, is what “Half A Life” defines.

“It shows a civilization very different from Jewish values. The similarity is only in their determination to remain a people. They live on an endangered planet. Someone in all innocence asks why don’t they evacuate. But they say that planet defines who they are as a people. The interlocutor is entirely perplexed and doesn’t understand that answer, but we can.”

He notes that “at the end of the episode, the captain (of the Starship Enterprise) says, ‘I wish you and your people well.’ The captain has no people.”

Kohn focuses on this idea in his presentation, he says, because “I wanted my congregants to be proud of having a people. The episode shows how peoplehood is linked with a land, a history, values, faith and liturgy.” The words “faith” and “liturgy” are used in the episode, he says.

“People have to see in this what I see. It not only explains peoplehood but gets individuals to explain peoplehood to others and makes it a point of pride,” he says.

But was “Half a Life” written with the Jewish people in mind? Kohn says he’s certain it was. (Writers Peter Allan Fields and Ted Roberts and director Les Landau were Jewish, he says.)

The title is one clue, Kohn says.

“On (the planet) Kaelon, they deliberately limit the human lifespan to 60 years. It is part of what they stand for. People have a curtailed life, but the title is ‘Half A Life,’ not ‘a curtailed life.’ Sixty years is half of 120” – the age at which Moses died, according to the Torah, and a common phrase Jews still use in wishing each other a long life.

“The only reason the episode could have the title is the reference to Moses,” Kohn says.

Rood, the congregation president, agrees and says he reached out to the writers, who are now in their 90s, but was not able to make contact.

Looking for hidden or not-so-hidden Jewish content and themes in the “Star Trek” franchise has long been a popular pastime among Jewish Trekkies. Rabbi Yonassan Gershom, a Minnesota Chasidic rabbi who was originally associated with the Jewish Renewal movement, has even written a book on the topic, “Jewish Themes in Star Trek” (Lulu Press, Inc., 2009).

One of the most obvious is the famous Vulcan salute, Mr. Spock’s greeting to fellow Vulcans. It was introduced back in 1967 during the series’ second season.

Leonard Nimoy, the Jewish actor who played Spock, noted in his autobiography, “I Am Not Spock,” that he based the gesture on the priestly blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim, which represents the Hebrew letter Shin. The position of the thumb and fingers in the salute represents the three upward strokes in the letter.

Nimoy wrote that when he was a child his grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue where he saw the blessing performed. In it, Shin stands for Shaddai, or G-d.

Kohn (and others online) also point out that a “Next Generation” episode called “Darmok” “could be taught in a Jewish studies class,” Kohn says.

“It concerns an untranslatable language, and the reason is that the entire language is a commentary on (a people’s) mythology, and no one else can understand the language,” he says. “Traditional Jewish literature is exactly that.”

He says the original “Star Trek” had many Jewish actors (Nimoy and William Shatner among them) but generally non-Jewish themes. The “Next Generation” episodes “had non-Jewish actors and Jewish themes,” he says.

For instance, that series often focused on how different various civilizations were from each other and that “making peace was difficult, that peace-making is a skill and art that requires patience, perseverance and empathy,” Kohn says, noting that that message is quite different from the theme of the original “Star Trek,” that many civilizations were similar to each other even if their inhabitants didn’t recognize it.

Kohn has given the “Star Trek” program (which also includes clips from other episodes and from the Steven Spielberg movie “E.T.”) a half dozen times and has mostly found sympathetic and understanding audiences.

“One class out of half a dozen had no sympathy for the alien culture’s attempt to preserve its peoplehood,” he says. “They saw it as this is a show about what fanaticism can lead to. But most others saw it as I do, as an attempt to preserve your culture as a matter of pride. The attempt to preserve a culture is often done at great cost, although there is a foundation for the other point of view too.”

If you’re hoping to view “Half A Life,” Kohn says, better do it through Netflix, as the episode doesn’t air often in reruns. He wondered why.

“I was told it’s because it’s not an action episode. There’s not enough adrenaline, testosterone. It’s very philosophical but absolutely brilliant from beginning to end.”

He hopes others see it that way, too. “I want (congregants) to understand what links the Jewish people together, how our identity is entwined with our values, our history and our land. I want them to be proud of that,” he says.

“People say, gee I never thought of this,” he adds. “I never would have seen this in (the episode), but now I have to think about it. There’s where I hope (people) would be at this point.”

As for using “Star Trek” as a teaching tool, he says, “the most exciting study makes the familiar unfamiliar and makes the old new.”

For Rood, the synagogue president, the episode’s value lies in “the way it talks about Judaism as a culture, a way of life, a theme. It’s not just a religion to Jews, it’s a culture, a land, a way of life we identify with. When you talk about other religions, they don’t have those same things. That is unique.”

Characters referring to their people’s ties to their home planet is especially significant for Rood. “That is very thematic to Jews – our ties to a land. Without Israel as a land we would not be a people. That’s very similar to this episode as well.”

The title, he says, “wasn’t (referring to) a half life, like with a drug. It was ‘half a life.’ That was one of those ‘aha moments’ for me.”

There were other such moments, he says, and while he didn’t get some of them at first, “a rabbi or clergy (person) would get the nuances. It was intriguing for me to find out what was hidden, to have an explanation of what we saw. A whole bunch of ‘aha moments’ in the episode were not coincidental. It was intriguing on a deeper level.”

Both Kohn and Rood are convinced the writers had the Jewish people in mind in the episode, but since attempts to contact them were unsuccessful, they admit they’ll never hear it first-hand.

No matter, though. Kohn says, “I’m very glad I could bring this to my congregation. The congregants are so eager for Jewish experience. The heart of this congregation is in the right place, and I hope I have the chance to carry out their ambitions toward Jewish learning and experience.”

And he recalls when he was just starting at Or Tikvah and announced that he was doing a program on “Star Trek”: “Somebody heard about it and raised a hand in the Vulcan salute and said, live well (instead of “long”) and prosper. I thought that was wonderful. Long life to Vulcans, a good life to us.

  The Rabbi as Captain