Angels and Astronauts: The Extraterrestrial Extinction of Jewish Law

Following the lunar landing on 20 July 1969, Rabbi Benzion Firer (1914-1988) addressed the following question:

“In the last days, after man has succeeded in setting foot on the Moon, no longer do people laugh at the possibility of creating conditions for human life there. It will no longer seem absurd, therefore, if someone attempts to examine what the status of this new world will be from the perspective of Halakha, once we have conquered it. The question, then, is this: Would a Jew who reached the Moon be obligated to observe Torah and commandments, or not?”

It is not clear whether anyone other than the respondent himself posed the question. It is likely that Rabbi Firer used the responsa form as a vehicle for initiating an innovative halakhic discussion. The wording of the text suggested that the question had been raised – and indeed it had! – but until Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon’s surface, it seems that people had thought that the theoretical discussion was futile.

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From Siberian Snow to Moshav Soil

Rabbi Benzion Firer was born in Galicia (today Poland). At the age of nineteen, he married his cousin Frida Goldman. In lieu of a traditional dowry, Firer requested funds to publish his first book: Hemdat Tzion (Kraków 1936) – collected analyses of Talmudic passages.

After his father passed away, Firer briefly served as the rabbi of Rymanów until the outbreak of the Second World War. He survived the war in Siberian exile after being deported by the Soviets. After the war, he spent time in a Displaced Persons camp in Ulm, Germany, where he contributed to the reconstitution of Jewish life by opening a Yeshiva.

Following the establishment of the State of Israel, he immigrated to Israel in 1949. He initially lived in an immigrant transit camp in Pardes Hanna and subsequently moved to Ramat Gan and then to Bnei Brak. In 1957, he was appointed rabbi of Moshav Nir Galim, a post he held for 32 years until his death.

In addition to his local rabbinic duties, Firer taught at various Torah institutions, including Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh – the first hesder yeshiva that combined advanced Talmudic studies and army service. Rabbi Firer was also a prolific writer, publishing many volumes of Torah insights, as well as works of fiction.

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Fetching Torah

In 1969, keeping Halakha in Space was no fiction, and Rabbi Firer approached the question with all seriousness. He began his responsum by pointing out that the Sages had considered the possibility of humans landing on other planets. The biblical verse declares that the Torah “is not in the heavens” (Deuteronomy 30:12), and one of the Talmudic sages added that if indeed Torah was in the heavens, we would need to retrieve it (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 55a). Here, suggested Rabbi Firer, the Sages had acknowledged the possibility of reaching other planets to fetch the Torah.

While this argument is not entirely convincing – indeed, this reading had not been advanced before the lunar landing! – it did not impact the question as to whether there was extraterrestrial Halakha. Firer was quick to point this out, and he went looking elsewhere to find a source for halakhic observance in Space. As could be expected, there were no legal sources that dealt with the question directly, so Firer needed to expand the parameters of his search.

In order to guide readers, Firer stated his conclusion before presenting his creative argument:

“It may indeed be said that there is no obligation to observe Torah and commandments on the Moon. After examining the sources, this is the impression one receives.”

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Angelic Arguments

In his quest for sources, Rabbi Firer identified a non-halakhic narrative that could underpin his ruling (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 88b-89a). The Talmud relates that when Moses went up to the heavens to receive the Torah, the angels remonstrated that it was inappropriate to give the treasured Torah to flesh-and-blood humans. God instructed Moses to respond, and after he overcame his fear of the angels, he pointed out how the Ten Commandments were not relevant to heavenly angels. Citing the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2), Moses challenged the angels: “Did you go down to Egypt? Were you enslaved to Pharaoh? What do you need the Torah for?” In this manner, Moses went through each of the Ten Commandments and pointed out that it was farcical for the angels to lay claim to the Torah. “Honour your father and your mother” (ibid., v. 12) – “Do you have a father and a mother?” By the end of this exchange, the angels agreed that indeed the Torah belonged on Earth.

After recounting this colourful Talmudic passage, Firer wondered why this was a zero-sum game: Perhaps the Torah could remain in heaven with the angels and be given to terrestrial-bound humans? Firer dismissed the possibility:

“Location is determinative. The same Torah cannot be binding both in heaven and on earth. Why? Because all those commandments that are dependent on location, such as the Temple with its sacrifices, can only exist in one place and not in two places.”

Similarly – explained Rabbi Firer – laws tied to a specific time can only be observed in places that have the same concept of time; namely, places on planet Earth, but not elsewhere in the universe. Once Moses bested the angels, it was decided that Torah would be given on Earth and according to Earth’s reality. Thus, Jewish law is not relevant in Space.

Rabbi Firer was aware that he was on shaky ground: non-halakhic, narrative passages like the story of Moses in heaven are hardly cited for legal determination. Firer therefore explained that he cited the tale to explain the legal reality, not as a source for Jewish law:

“For this assertion that there are many commandments which, in the form as we have them, have no place on the Moon – requires no proof. It speaks for itself.”

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The Indivisible Whole

Rabbi Firer had dismissed commandments linked to location or time, but there are many Jewish laws with no such limitations. According to Halakha, a person must always love their neighbour, return lost articles, save someone who is in danger, assist an animal in distress, never eat pork, and more. Would such laws be binding on the Moon?

Here Firer offered an innovative reading of a famous Talmudic narrative declaring that 613 commandments were given to Moses at Sinai (Babylonian Talmud, Makkot 23b-24a):

“There is no Torah in halves … These 613 commandments are a single whole. Fewer than this number or more than it is no longer Torah. … For the Torah exists only in its completeness. When it is not complete, it loses all its value.”

This is a striking theological claim that is not the obvious reading of the Talmudic narrative. Once again, Rabbi Firer offered an original reading of a classic rabbinic text to support his conclusion that Torah, in its entirety, is inseparable from life on Earth. There is no Torah in Space.

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Lunar Emigration and Down-to-Earth Law

Rabbi Firer took his conclusion one step further:

“A Jewish person who relocates from planet Earth to the Moon with no intention of returning shall be governed by the laws of his new place, and he is exempt from the commandments. This follows the established rule regarding one who moves from place to place without intending to return – that the laws and customs of the destination apply to him, both in stringency and in leniency. All the more so would this be the ruling for a Jewish person born in this new world.”

After Apollo 11, it was not difficult for the rabbi of Nir Galim to imagine a human settlement on the Moon.

Perhaps Firer felt that he had taken his conclusions too far, so he signed off his responsum by acknowledging the unripe nature of the discussion:

“It goes without saying that the matters discussed in this essay represent only a first reflection, a modest beginning of a discussion on a question that, before long, will reverberate through the expanse of two worlds.”

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Rabbi Firer’s striking attitude to Jewish law in Space was an outlier. Most rabbis – like Rabbi David Shloush in 1962 and Rabbi Shlomo Goren in 1969 – rejected the possibility that there was somewhere in the universe where Jewish law did not apply.

Perhaps Firer’s message was more nuanced: Halakha is about living in this world. It is about applying age-old Jewish tradition to the realities of life on Earth.

Upon his appointment as the rabbi of Nir Galim in 1957, Firer stood up at his installation ceremony and declared that he had two demands from the locals (Hatzofe, 3 April 1957). First, that he would be the final authority on halakhic matters concerning the agricultural operations of the cooperative farm. Second, that the farmers would be fastidious about praying in a quorum and studying Torah together. For Rabbi Firer, keeping Halakha was intrinsically connected to the physical world on planet Earth: the fields and the cowsheds needed to operate according to Jewish law, and after a tiring day the farmers were to pray and study together. It is no wonder that Rabbi Firer could not imagine Torah beyond planet Earth.