21st Century Bogatyr: The Shiluchim Face Uncertainty as they Approached the Home Planet

Long ago, on the Home Planet, it was common amongst the Yidden to say mensch planirt aun got lakht, that is, that much in life does not turn out as we might hope. Probably such sentiment was not limited to the Yidden. On Planet Birobidzhan, this was a common sentiment amongst mentshn in the early days. After a few years, the general sense was that God was no longer laughing at us. He had, most likely, forgotten about us.

Not much evident change took place on Planet Birobidzhan over the centuries. Most changes that one could recognize evolved slowly and incrementally. The rhythms of life on Planet Birobidzhan were generally driven by necessity and determined by traditions as well as ingrained habits.

What brought about a monumental change can best be understood as a mutation. This cultural mutation began when Dovid, then a young boy living in a modest shtetl, ingested a fungus that he had encountered on a walk. Whether Dovid had chosen the mushrooms or the mushrooms had chosen him is, I suppose, a matter of perspective.

The Mushrooms of Planet Birobidzhan transformed Dovid, but he kept his newfound bond with the Mushrooms a guarded secret. It was certainly this chance encounter that ultimately led to the mentshn of Planet Birobidzhan to seek out worlds beyond their own.

However, very few of the mentshn of Planet Birobidzhan knew of the driving force behind the transformation that had taken hold.

It can be said that life on the Home Planet also proceeded haphazardly and with little discernable planning. It is true that the Home Planet was certainly much more heavily populated than Planet Birobidzhan. It is also quite accurate that the Home Planet was embroiled in an ongoing endless crises and that significant planning and coordination would possibly have been helpful. Nonetheless, planning and collective action seems to be largely counter to human nature.

For the Yidden of the Home Planet, life went on, more or less, as it had always been. Sometimes a bit better and sometimes a little worse. That is to say that the Yidden might survive or even thrive for decades, hundreds of years, or even millennia in one place and then either over time or overnight no longer be welcomed or safe.

How Jews responded to perceived threats hadn't changed much over the centuries. The sorts of responses varied according to temperament. I suppose one can say that it comes down to fight or flight for those that left a clear trail. More often flight was the preferred course. First, a few and then hoards of Yidden would relocate in waves to other, more inviting or less hostile shores.

When the project to relocate the Yidden of Earth off-Planet was initiated, this reflected one more wave of an historical tendency. By the time the flights to Planet Birobidzhan came to a sudden unexpected end, those transports were understood as an initial wave of a grand emigration flow that took on a new direction out of necessity. Leaving Planet Earth was no longer an option but going somewhere still very much seemed to be, quite often, necessary.

However, there is another form of flight that has been a Jewish tradition since the beginning of time. That is, a willingness and desire to disappear. Invisibility is, of course, the ultimate tool for self preservation. Sometimes this was practiced by whole communities. At other times, it was the handiwork of individual magicians.

Millennia ago, after the passing of King Solomon, the land where we lived was divided into two competing kingdoms. The northern kingdom became known as Israel and the southern as Judah. Of course, a divided land is inherently unstable and insecure. When the Kingdom of Israel fell to the mighty Assyrian Empire, the population was scattered, dispersed, and absorbed into surrounding lands and people. This was the first, but surely not the last, disappearing act. Periodically, whole communities followed into the same abyss as that which had absorbed the Lost Tribes.

The best guess that anyone traveling on the Shliach could venture is that Yidden would still populate the regions where they were most plentiful when their ancestors had chosen to emigrate centuries before. At that time of the initial exodus from the Home Planet, most Yidden lived in close proximity to New York City. There was also a sizable population of Jews living in the Levant between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The rest of the Yidden of the Home Planet were thinly scattered about the globe.

But, the question that dogged those that traversed the void on the Shliach as they headed towards the Home Planet was not only where they might find the Yidden of Planet Earth, but also if there were indeed recognizable communities of Yidden still on the Home Planet. After all, centuries had passed. When the Shliach eventually came into orbit, they were no closer to solving that riddle than they were on the day they began the long shlep.

This story about the mentshn of Planet Birobidzhan and Planet Shney is the continuation of the tale that evolved into a novel, The Luftmenschen of Planet Birobidzhan.

The Luftmenschen of Planet Birobidzhan is in print and available wherever books are sold!

The novel can also be bought, at a discount, through this direct purchase link:

https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=6TtjgjBTrFtcK4tvxeCbUN4hTvy9rOoAq8aeNsNXURN