🖖
The origins of the "Live Long and Prosper" gesture.
"it's the shape of the letter ש (shin) which is the Hebrew letter that begins the word Shaddai (Hebrew for 'ALmighty'). "¹
—Leonard Nimoy
Most of us are familiar with the gesture 🖖, made famous by Leonard Nimoy's character Spock from the Star Trek franchise. The gesture is, as far as I know, first used in the Amok Time episode in the second season of the original Star Trek series. Nimoy states in an interview that at age eight or nine, after being taken to an Orthodox Jewish service by his grandfather, he observed the Kohanim while they were blessing the congregation, and noticed one particular gesture they used during the benediction. He was evidently taken with the moment. The interview is well worth a listen, and is linked below.
The Unicode symbol, U+1F596 decribes the gesture as "Raised Hand With Part Between Middle And Ring Fingers" but neglects to mention the separation of the thumb. this gesture is trickier for some than others. William Shatner famously struggled with it, and many cast members had to use their other hand to manipulate their fingers into place off camera, before raising the gesture on camera.
The phrase "Live long and prosper (in Vulcan "dif-tor heh smusma") was scripted by Theodore Sturgeon, according to Wikipedia ².
For
weroland, hoping
he does live long and prosper =]
Chabad article
¹ in interview with Leonard Nimoy
² wikipedia article
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