Live Long and Prosper

I once received an email from a wedding couple days after the ceremony.  After thanking me for the ceremony, she wrote, “I thought you might like to see this…” Attached to the email was a picture taken by one of her guests of me, arms outstretched, with my fingers held like the priests, while offering the priestly blessing over the couple.  A caption read, “The rabbi must be a trekkie!”

I was reminded of this story after fielding questions from members on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur eager to know if I borrowed my hand gesture from Star Trek.  While I know the difference between Captain Kirk and Captain Picard, my knowledge of warp drives and the Borg has nothing to do with the hand sign that Cantor Schechtman and I use when pronouncing the priestly blessing.  Along with Rabbis and Cantors everywhere, let me take this moment to thank Leonard Nimoy for borrowing from his Jewish roots to play the half-Vulcan character of Mr. Spock.

In his autobiography I Am Not Spock, Nimoy wrote that he based it on the priestly blessing performed by kohanim, the priests descended from Aaron.  When he was a child, Nimoy’s grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue, where he was impressed by the performance of the ritual blessing.  The shape of the fingers represents the Hebrew letter shin (ש), which has three upward strokes similar to the position of the thumb and fingers in the salute. Shin represents both Shaddai, one name used for God which translates as "Almighty (God)", and is also symbolic of shalom (peace) which one of the blessings invoked in the traditional priestly blessing. 

The priestly blessing is one of the oldest blessings and rituals in our Jewish tradition.  The words of the blessing derive directly from Torah, Numbers 6:23-27.  In fact, if you were to open up a Torah scroll to that portion, you would see that the sofer, the Torah scribe, wrote the text of the blessing in such a way that the spaces around the letters form the shape of the priests’ hands – the same shin shape made popular by Mr. Spock.

While the ritual is best known for its hand gesture, I believe that the powerful message of the blessing itself is the reason that we continue to use it today.  The blessing asks for God to watch over us, to protect us, to be compassionate to us, and to bless us with peace.  Those words, which brought comfort to countless generations of Jews, speak to our needs as well.  We, too, pray that God is there as our protector and shield, watching over us, and guiding us.

May this blessing, which has sustained our people for generations, continue to be a source of strength and hope for each one of us.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Adam F. Miller