21st Century Bogatyr: January 2023

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

The Beginning of the Telling of the Planet Birobidzhan Tale

This is the new introduction to the Planet Birobidzhan story, which has been published in installments on this blog. The story is now the length of a short novel. There is a final editing in process and then I intend to publish this as a book. In the meantime, the story can be read by following the links.

The links to all the earlier posted installments in the order that they were posted are below. (This essentially replaces #17 on that list.) There is also a link to a Glossary.

The Author's Disclaimer & Note

This story is a work of fiction. The setting for this tale is in the distant future, primarily on the far away Planet Birobidzhan.

This is not an exclusively 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.

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.

Link to the Glossary:

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

פּלאַנעט ביראָבידזשאַן

The Beginning of the Telling of the Planet Birobidzhan Tale

An Introduction & Explanation of Sorts

by Zvi Baranoff

This is the story of how the Planet Birobidzhan came to be settled.

It is a tale of displacement, exile and a sense of entrapment by fate. This is also the saga of the few that strive to break free from the entanglement of their fate.

Planet Birobidzhan 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. The people there have developed their own unique culture, traditions and linguistics. The language spoken on Planet Birobidzhan is primarily Yiddish.

To tell the story of the Yidden of Planet Birobidzhan, and the story of that world where they live, we rely on multiple sources that relay their perspectives. From that vantage point we hope to present a broader understanding of the people of that world. The tale that we tell spans hundreds of years.

However, to comprehend the mentshn that are described in this tale, one needs to consider their origin, their source, their wellspring.

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, our bashert 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 bear 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.

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.

"When God began to create heaven and earth - the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water - God said 'Let there be light' and there was light." (Jewish Publication Society translation from 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 story about Jews might be the reason for the rambling, a continuation on a trajectory that reaches back to the very beginning of time itself…or, at least to the earliest days of the Jewish People. 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.

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.

Do you want to read more about Planet Birobidzhan? Here are all the 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

7 Chickens, Jews Harps & Cronyism

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/07/cronyism.html

8 Dovid's Neshumeh

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/07/dovids-neshumeh.html

9 The Octogenarian and the Youngster

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-octogenarian-and-youngster.html

10 An Otherworldly Havdalah

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/an-otherworldly-havdalah.html

11 The Courtship & Marriage of Bathseba

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-courtship-marriage-of-bathseba.html

12 A Job, an Apartment & Two Honeymoons

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-job-apartment-two-honeymoons.html

13 The Pathway Into the Stars

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-pathway-into-stars.html

14 Abi Guzunt

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/08/abi-guzunt.html

15 A Dozen or So…

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/10/a-dozen-or-so.html

16 Tamar's Sketchbook

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/11/tamars-sketchbook.html?m=1

17 An Apologetic Interlude in the Galactic Tale

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/11/an-apologetic-interlude-in-galactic-tale.html?m=1

18 Tamar's Mushrooms

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/11/tamars-mushrooms.html?m=1

19 Intergalactic Travel Can Not Be Done on the Cheap

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/intergalactic-travel-can-not-be-done-on.html?m=1

20 Unauthorized Fire on Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/unauthorized-fire-on-planet-birobidzhan.html?m=1

21 Tamar and the Klezmorim of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/tamar-and-klezmorim-of-planet.html

22 Heresy, Flimflam and Death

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/12/heresy-flimflam-and-death.html?m=1

23 On a Distant Planet, An Apartment in the City by the Sea

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/on-distant-planet-apartment-in-city-by.html?m=1

24 The Girl with a Fiddle on Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-girl-with-fiddle-on-planet.html

25 Tamar and the Scholars of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/tamar-and-scholars-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

26 The Tropics of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-tropics-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

27 The Beaches and Coastal Shtetls of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-beaches-and-coastal-shtetls-of.html

28 A Pre-launch Reunion

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-pre-launch-reunion.html

29 The Launch Was Imminent

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-launch-was-imminent.html

30 Liftoff Into the Unknown

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/liftoff-into-unknown.html

31 Across the Void, Down a Wormhole & Into the Snow

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/across-void-down-wormhole-into-snow.html

32 Flourishing on Planet Shney

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/flourishing-on-planet-shney.html

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Flourishing on Planet Shney

by Zvi Baranoff

If the Hatikvah had orbited that planet in the winter, it is likely that it never would have landed. However, in very early summer, much of that world looked quite appealing.

The air is good. The soil is fertile. There are extensive mineral deposits. There is an abundance of creatures similar to the beavers of Planet Earth with pelts that make excellent fur. There are large docile herds of a bovine sort whose flesh provides a high quality kosher meat. Wide swaths of this world are forests that offer up an abundance of lumber.

There is much to love about this place. The first few months were enjoyable for everyone.

The emigrants appreciated disembarking, having a change of scenery, and becoming pioneer settlers. The Hatikvah had the potential to shelter the emigrants but to become settlers required moving beyond the ship.

A small shtot was designed and the first houses were built. Extensive gardens were planted. Chicken coops were built. The sheep and goats were allowed to graze and seemed very happy to do so.

Tamar had been self absorbed and socially awkward when she was aboard the Hatikvah. After the landing, however, she came out of her shell, for a while.

Tamar offered a new design for the mushroom cultivation facility and she oversaw the construction. This was built with hinged doors that made access easier. The transfer was made from the Hatikvah to the spacious structure that was built on the outer edge of the planned shtot.

Once the facility was completed, Tamar kept a close observation of the growing until the first full cycle was completed. When the first harvest was done, Tamar packed her rucksack and her violin and headed off, tsufus and alone, into the uncharted wilderness of Planet Shney.

When winter set in, the fortitude of the settlers was sorely tested. The first year was very difficult. It was very hard for the Yidden from the temperate Planet Birobidzhan to adapt to the physical conditions of Planet Shney.

But for the vastness of the void stretching outwards in all directions, these Yidden may have been inclined to reboard the Hatikvah and seek out a more comfortable place. Facing such a Hobson's choice of perhaps an endless search of space or making do, the emigrants from Planet Birobidzhan built for themselves and their children a flourishing existence from what was available on Planet Shney.

All told, the trip from Planet Birobidzhan to Planet Shney took just under a decade, which is around half the traveling time of the Hatikvah's initial voyage two centuries earlier from Planet Earth to Planet Birobidzhan.

During the decade of transit, Dovid tinkered with calculations and perfected designs to improve space travel. He came up with several innovations that could significantly reduce transit time and cut production costs, with certain caveats and considerations.

The first winter, when Dovid was essentially snowed in on Planet Shney, he fine tuned his design to a point where he believed it was worthy of sharing.

Dovid determined that a much smaller vehicle could be built that would need far less fuel for liftoff. Assuming that the vehicle could be refueled at its destination, far less fuel carrying capacity would be required.

Dovid also calculated that food production and preparation space could be significantly reduced if passengers would rely on prepared vacuum sealed and dried meals.

A smaller vehicle would travel quicker and more efficiently than a lumbering ship such as the Hatikvah. The vehicle that he envisioned would carry no more than one hundred passengers and ideally less. With a predetermined route, such a vehicle could be fully automated and need no pilot or technicians.

According to Dovid's calculations, such a vehicle could be built on Planet Birobidzhan and the travel time to Planet Shney could be reduced to under five years. Of course, this presumed that there was interest on Planet Birobidzhan for travel to Planet Shney.

The passengers would be charged for their transportation with the profits going towards reimbursement of the investors on Planet Birobidzhan. On the return voyage, the ship would carry trade goods, initially furs, to be sold on Planet Birobidzhan with those profits also returned to the earlier investors.

Dovid prepared a drone ship for an unmanned excursion. The drone was programmed to land at the First Landing airport with a signal that would alert the Planet Birobidzhan Pilot Association on arrival.

Dovid packed into the tiny vehicle an extensive description of Planet Shney, his completed design for the pared down transit vehicle, and his business proposal. He also included samples of the fine furs made from Planet Shney's beaver-like creatures. The drone was launched in early spring.

Neither Perez nor Zerah showed much interest in academic pursuits. Both of the boys did seem to have an affinity and aptitude for caring for the sheep.

Perez and Zerah liked being outdoors and were quite willing to sleep under the stars for days on end. The boys also had certain volatile and violent tendencies that could be channeled into protecting the sheep from the predators of Planet Shney. Being shepherds fit their temperament.

Sometimes at night, while camping under the stars, the boys would hear soulful violin music wafting from a distance. On occasion, Tamar would approach their encampment and sit with her sons.

When Tamar was inclined to talk, she would tell the boys about Baruch and Shmuli. Tamar would assure Perez and Zerah that their fathers were now learned rabbis on Planet Birobidzhan. Tamar would say that someday soon the rabbis Baruch and Shmuli will come to be with their sons.

The Mushrooms of Planet Birobidzhan thrived on Planet Shney. The hinged doors of Tamar's newly designed growing facility gave the mushrooms a vector to the outside and the Mushrooms of Planet Birobidzhan took full advantage of the opportunity.

The Mushrooms of Planet Birobidzhan were soon growing and rapidly reproducing in the woods on the edge of the shtot near the growing facility. The wind carried the spores and the mushrooms spread for many kilometers that first year on Planet Shney and much further in subsequent years. They grew very well in the dark moisture of the forests that cover much of Planet Shney.

Almost twelve years to the day after the Hatikvah had landed on Planet Shney, the first of the ships built to Dovid's specifications arrived on Planet Shney from Planet Birobidzhan.

The door of the ship opened automatically and a gangplank lowered to allow the weary travelers to disembark.

The first people off the ship were a pair of rabbis in their forties. They were immersed in a Halachic debate and apparently oblivious of their surroundings. They gesticulated wildly as they argued and their payos blew about in the wind.

The rabbis paid scarce attention to this new world that they had landed on until the soulful sounds of a violin playing interrupted their Halachic argument. Baruch and Shmuli each stopped speaking in mid sentence as they looked about for the girl with the violin.

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.