Sunday evening is the beginning of Hanukkah and soon will be Christmas. Both have been celebrated in outer space.
At 12:40 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2022, the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a 25.5-day mission to the Moon.
Watching Artemis 1 spacecraft go around the moon and return this week off the Baja California coast sent shivers of excitement and reminded us of the spiritual-like experience that many of us got during the landing on the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts.
On various flights, the astronauts themselves discovered that the religious discourses of Hanukkah and Christmas fit well with the momentous scientific exploration.
On Christmas eve in 1968, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman read through Genesis 1 -10 as they circled the globe. Later in order to capture the true meaning of their incredible experiences, other astronauts reached for their Bibles.
Then, after the Apollo 11 Lunar Module landed on the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969, Buzz Aldrin asked the worldwide radio and television audience to contemplate and give thanks in their own way for the events that were unfolding.
Privately, so as to allow the audience to commemorate the event in light of their own faiths, the astronaut took Christian communion, being the first to pour liquid into a cup (a silver chalice) in outer space. He silently read from John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.”
Aldrin recalled later, “I could think of no better way to acknowledge the enormity of the Apollo 11 experience than by giving thanks to God.”
Neil Armstrong then climbed down the ladder of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module and set his left foot on the surface of the moon . “That’s one step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind,” he declared. It was walking and leaping and praising God.
On Apollo 14 in 1971, astronaut Edgar Mitchell took 100 tiny microform “lunar Bibles” that were created by the Apollo Prayer League, a group of NASA employees who prayed for the astronauts’ safety.
In December 1993, American Jeffrey Hoffman became the first Jew to celebrate Hanukkah in space, and three years later he read from a small Torah he brought with him on the shuttle Columbia. It is now known as the Space Torah and resides permanently at Houston’s Congregation Or Hadash.
Hoffman bookended the reading of Genesis on Christmas eve by the crew of Apollo 8 by reading the same verses in Hebrew. Hoffman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that reading the Torah on a journey is traditional Jewish practice. He said, “Wherever Jews have wandered, they have taken the Torah with them. Astronauts are human beings and when we travel, we take with us our culture and heritage. It is important to me to take my Jewish heritage with me as well.”
Similarly, we now believe that our Journey explorations have revealed a new vision of New York City, the world’s largest postsecular city. And, who knows, maybe we can inspire the Artemis astronauts on their journey through religions in outer space.
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