Can Aliens Be Jewish?

This short piece was originally written to inspire a discussion at Shavuot.

When the aliens first arrived, there was total chaos. We’d all woken up that morning, secure that we were the only sentient species in the galaxy, and by noon there was a ship the size of Texas hovering over the southern hemisphere. By dinner time, they had sent a message to every radio station, in a dozen different languages. They were refugees, their star was long-gone, and they needed a home. They breathed oxygen, you see, and it was in short supply on every planet but ours. We argued endlessly over what to call them, and there were plenty of good suggestions, but the only thing that ever stuck was “alien,” so that’s what I’m going to call them here. 

Human beings are excellent at coping, so over the next five years, we coped. The aliens moved in, but mostly in the very big cities. Life carried on, especially in little communities like this. We have our own ways of doing things, and not even visitors from space are going to change that.

So there I was, five years after aliens had landed, the office admin for a normal Temple just like this one. I was emailing back-and-forth with a potential convert, trying to organize a time to meet up and discuss what was calling her to Judaism. We’d just arranged the where and when, and her last email ended with – like it was nothing – “By the way, I’m an Alien.” 

The Alien arrived right on time, and I let her into the office to sit with me. She was eight feet tall. She had four arms. Her body was like white roots twisted together. Her head was a ball of burning blue plasma, with one great big eye visible in the center. Her name was Ufa-fsh-kiki, reminiscent of flashes of fire and puffs of smoke, but she charitably told me that I could call her Ufa. 

“Ufa, can you tell me why you’re here?”

Ufa said, “I want to be Jewish. Some days I feel like I am already Jewish, but that it isn’t fully realized.” When she talked, the fire engulfing her face moved back and forth. “I went to another synagogue six months ago, but they wouldn’t teach me.”

“They didn’t do conversions?” I asked.

“They said that I was not made in the likeness of God!”

I was a little afraid that her licking flames might reach out and start devouring the books on the shelf behind her. “We’ll teach you, but some people will still think that. What are you going to say to them?” 

“I will say, has God not appeared as a burning bush?” She drew herself up proudly. 

I liked Ufa already, from our emails, but I knew that if she was going to make it as the only Alien at our Temple she was going to have to argue her case. “Well, Genesis said that humankind was made from earth, and that God breathed life into it. Were you made from the same stuff?”

“Yes, precisely. Dirt is full of nitrogen, and what is breath, if it isn’t oxygen and carbon dioxide? So what is fire, if it isn’t dirt with life breathed into it? Weren’t the elements present at the revelation on Mt. Sinai?”

“I suppose they must have been,” I said, amused.

Ufa continued. “I am just a stranger in your land. I am coming to you to join your people, exactly as the other Aliens have joined the human people… what I need from you is not logical, but conversion rarely is. Maybe it is the way of intelligent life to make choices that are illogical but good.” 

I had to admit that Ufa had made her case well. She struck me as someone who was definitely making her own choices, even if I couldn’t entirely understand. “OK,” I said, getting to my feet. “Let’s sign you up for some classes. The Rabbi is going to like this.” 

“One last thing,” the alien objected. I looked at her, afraid that whatever she had to ask was very serious. 

“Does it still break Shabbat if I can’t help kindling a flame?” She gestured to her own head with two of her four arms.

“Well, Ufa, you’ll have to talk it over, but I bet God will understand.”