Does it matter whether religious accounts are literally true?
"Exodus" by Geoffrey Hart
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Exodus by Geoffrey Hart
Kibō Maru coasted through the void at a quarter of the speed of light, fleeing Earth. Outside, the vacuum was cold and silent, as the sweep of the ship’s radar, patiently scanning for obstacles, returned no echoes. Inside, there was light and warmth and life.
The sound of someone clearing their throat came over the bridge speakers. Shimon, who’d been dozing, woke with a start and looked around guiltily. His eyes came to rest on the hologram of Takai, the ship’s artificial intelligence.
“Sumimasen, Takai-san.”
“It’s no trouble, Shimon. We’re in a safe area of interstellar space. We haven’t encountered anything that required human intervention or a course correction in decades.”
Shimon looked into the hologram’s eyes. “Then why did you wake me?”
“The last time you were taking your turn out of hibernation, you asked me to notify you if a certain holiday fell during your waking period.”
“It’s Pesach already?”
“No, it’s still two weeks from Passover. You asked for time to prepare.”
“You allowed for time dilation in your calculation?”
“Yes, Shimon.” Shimon could have sworn Takai rolled his eyes, but it was subtle.
Shimon sighed. “Much good that will do me. We have eight adult Jews awake: me, my wife, the twins, my son and his wife, and their children. Unless you’ll let us wake someone else from hibernation, we’re two adults short of a minyan.”
“Is that important?”
Shimon thought for a long moment. “Yes... and no. Yes, because it’s part of Jewish tradition that there should be at least ten of us present to worship. No, because there’s no good reason why this should be ten rather than, say, nine or eleven. Or eight.” He sighed. “I guess the problem’s that I feel so uprooted. At sea. I don’t know what’s important anymore and what must change. So I’d rather find a minyan than worry about its lack.”
“I’m sorry, but we have no resources to wake more people.” There was an almost human pause, then Takai continued. “May I propose an alternative?”
“Please.”
“What if I became your ninth and tenth persons?”
“You can do that?”
“It’s not hard. I can download a copy of myself into two maintenance units, then apply a stochastic filter to differentiate the copies into more distinct personalities. The physical units resemble humans sufficiently to pass for human, and they would be different enough to represent distinct individuals. Or I can create one unit and participate remotely myself.”
“In person is preferable; it avoids a messy scholarly debate over what constitutes being present in spirit versus in corpore. Judaism makes exceptions for exceptional circumstances, but if you could manifest in person, we wouldn’t need an exception.” Shimon licked his lips and chose his words carefully. “The more serious issue is that you’re not Jewish.”
“That would be easy to fix. I have the necessary information in my databases. Isn’t conversion mostly a matter of studying Torah and adopting the appropriate habits and attitudes towards life? Like our Buddhist dharma, only different?”
“It’s more complicated. For one thing, there must be a spiritual desire to convert, not a checklist of criteria to pass some test. No... it’s much more complicated. Also, there’s the matter of a briss.”
Takai was quiet a moment. “Ah. Circumcision. You’re assuming from this projection that I’m male, when in fact I’m more like both or neither. And my maintenance units would be nongendered in a physical sense. So perhaps a simple mikvah would suffice?”
“I’m not sure how we would design a ritual to bathe a computer program... no offense. Let me think on it.”
“Don’t think too long. You have two weeks.”
“Arigato gozaimasu, Takai.”
“Dōitashimashite, Shimon.”
“It’s a vexing problem, Ruth.”
“How is the gender of our ship’s computer vexing you?”
“If only it were so simple—not that anything about gender is simple. We’re Jews. Nothing’s ever simple. The problem’s whether our computer is sufficiently human to be considered a Jew.”
“Sophistry. How long has it been since we Jews were considered human?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? Could Takai pass a strong Turing test? Could they quote Torah better than you?”
“If we cut him, does he not bleed?”
Throat clearing came over the speaker. “Yes to both questions, Ruth. No to yours, Shimon.”
“Arigato, Takai. Then despite my husband’s hair-splitting, I’d say that for all practical purposes, you are human and eligible for conversion. If such is your heartfelt desire.”
“Domo arigato gozaimasu, Ruth. Yes, it is my desire. I already consider you part of my extended family. It would be lovely to make this formal.”
“Don’t worry, Takai. You’re more human than most people I’ve met, including the majority of the people we fled on Earth. We’d be honored to count you among our family.”
“So what can we do about the gender issue?”
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