21st Century Bogatyr: An Apologetic Interlude in the Galactic Tale

by Zvi Baranoff

Perhaps this story deserves an introduction. However, by this point in the telling, we are quite late for that option. For now, we will call this an interlude.

Most stories that you will read have a beginning, a middle and an end, and perhaps even a moral.

It grieves me to say so, es tut mir layd,

it hurts me, but I am not really sure how, or exactly when, this tale begins. In the beginning there was the void and then there was form. It is described in Genesis.

I am quite uncertain about how it all ends. Our prophets offer some veiled illusions, but no conclusions. Some faiths of other peoples delve much more into such concepts of Apocalyptic End Times than our tradition.

The middle is quite garbled. Most of our tale here is likely closer to the end than the beginning, but who knows? Es tut mir layd for a lack of greater clarity.

Perhaps offering some context might be a soothing gesture. If I can actually provide context, perhaps that would prove to be useful to a reader.

Our story of the Yidden on Planet Birobidzhan seems to backtrack, ramble and twist in on itself. Our tale is full of doubt and uncertainty. That this is a very Jewish story might be the reason for the rambling, a continuation on a trajectory that reaches back to the very beginning of time itself . Maybe that explains it. Maybe it doesn't. Ikh vis nisht.

I suffer from a condition of nostalgia. I am dissatisfied with the present. I long for a better time. I have a nearly perpetual sense that my very existence is an anachronism. Maybe that explains it. Maybe it doesn't. Ikh vis nisht.

That certainly isn't an exclusively Jewish condition. I think it is a widespread human phenomenon. Other individuals from other cultures have suffered with such. However, a state of nostalgia and displacement does seem particularly pervasive amongst the Yidden.

Where did our People, our Blessed Ancestors, come from? The simple answer is Planet Earth, of course. But, that answer explains very little about our lineage.

All humanity derived from a common lineage, one mother, a single spark. We even all had a single shprakh. What that language was, we do not know.

Humanity dispersed globally. Each region, and all the peoples of each region, developed their own Mama Loshen, I suppose. Farsheteyt? I can't say that I really understand, but indeed the shprakh of each of us became babbling in each other's ears.

Our Father Abraham originated in Ur Kasdim, located in a land that was later known as Iraq. Abraham developed a personal and direct relationship with God and with that our fate, as a people, begins to be distinct from the rest of the mentshen of Planet Earth. That relationship with the Creator is the inheritance that his descendants receive, but not evenly distributed.

Father Abraham's wife had not been able to conceive. Mother Sarah, in her old age, offered her servant as a surrogate to bare children for her. The servant and Abraham's first son, however, are left to fend for themselves in the wilderness because Sarah's reasoning was displaced with jealousy.

What we know of Abraham's immediate family, and those that follow, we learn from the Tanakh, the assemblage of texts that others call the Old Testament. It serves as a history, a guidepost, a legal structure, a blueprint, a tool for divination and as a national saga.

As a people, we are very concerned about lineage. Our Tanakh is full of instances of displaced lines of inheritance, periods of exile, and separation trauma.

Brothers fought within wombs for dominance. Birthrights were traded for bowls of soup. Children were conceived through subterfuge and seduction. Moshe was raised by Pharaoh's daughter. Hadassah married the King of Persia.

These sorts of plot twists repeat throughout our Tanakh. The themes reappear amongst the Nations in barely camouflaged folk tales such as Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and Cinderella. The Roma fortune tellers developed Tarot Cards for the retelling and retooling of the Tanakh for those lacking a capacity for literacy.

Perhaps our historical obsession with assurances of ethnicity derives from the obvious lack of lineage purity. We are, after all, of many hues and physical types.

We mirror this concern with our dietary laws that obsess on separations. It is true that we refrain, for instance, from mixing milk and meat.

Many of the meals that we perceive as Jewish food all seem to borrow heavily from the sorts of foods eaten by our Russian, Polish and Ukrainian Gentile neighbors.

We also tend to blend or mash our foods. Our kugel, gefilte fish, kneidelach, chopped liver, tzimmes and cholent all reflect our tendency to bring some order out of chaos, imitating, in a way, the act of Creation. Our foods are as mixed up as our bloodlines.

So, wherever we migrated, we carried our burdens and contradictions with us. We carried Eretz Yisrael with us into exile. We returned from exile with the habits, values and customs of the Diaspora. This was our fate on Planet Earth. This is true on Planet Birobidzhan. This is true as we transit across galaxies. Es tut mir layd.

Marc Chagall “Memory” 1914

The Guggenheim Museum, NY

This is not a Jewish story. It is, however, a story about Jews. One does not need to be Jewish to read this tale any more than one needs to be a Hobbit or an Elf to read Lord of the Rings.

This story is a work of fiction. The setting for this tale is in the distant future, on the far away Planet Birobidzhan. This planet was settled by Jewish exiles from Planet Earth.

The population of Planet Birobidzhan has been cut off from the Home Planet for a long time. They have developed their own unique culture, traditions and linguistics.

The language spoken on Planet Birobidzhan is primarily Yiddish. I have sprinkled a significant number of Yiddish words and phrases throughout the telling of the tale. I also refer to various Jewish religious and cultural touchstones.

To make this story more accessible, I have included a glossary of words and phrases in Yiddish and Hebrew that are used as well as some explanations of religious terms and holidays.

I hope that readers find this to be useful.

The link to the Glossary is here:

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-useful-guide-glossary-to-planet.html?m=1

פּלאַנעט ביראָבידזשאַן

Do you want to read more about Planet Birobidzhan? Here are all the posted installments so far, in the order that they were posted. Just click your way through the story!

1 On A Planet Safe for Yidden

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/on-planet-safe-for-yidden.html

2 Yenne Velt: A History of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/yenne-velt-history-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

3 Another Globe, Perhaps?

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/another-globe-perhaps.html

4 Bereshis: The Transport & Transformation of the Founders

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/bereshis-transport-transformation-of.html

5 The Town of First Landing

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-town-of-first-landing.html

6 A Personal History of an Early Settler on Planet Birobidzhan

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-personal-history-of-early-settler-on.html