Star Trek's Famous Vulcan Salute Has A Deeper Meaning That Truly Pleased Leonard Nimoy
If one visits the legendary Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California (now called the TCL Chinese), one can see the handprints of the cast and creator of "Star Trek." On the event of the franchise's 25th anniversary in 1991, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, William Shatner, George Takei, James Doohan, and DeForest Kelley all put their handprints on the cement next to their respective signatures. According to a story Takei told at a "Star Trek" convention (that this author personally attended), the cast were instructed to sign their names but not to put their hands in the cement. Takei, hating the restriction, plopped in his handprint anyway, and his fellow cast members immediately followed suit.
Leonard Nimoy, as visiting Trekkies will see, slapped his hand into the cement with his middle and ring fingers parted and his thumb out, arranged in the traditional Vulcan salute seen so often throughout "Star Trek."
That salute first appeared in the "Star Trek" episode "Amok Time" (September 15, 1967) and was accompanied by a notable Vulcan slogan, "Live long and prosper," initially penned by teleplay writer Theodore Sturgeon. In a 1968 interview with the New York Times, Nimoy noted that he was allowed to invent a lot of the idiosyncrasies of the Vulcan species, saying that they would be hand- and gesture-oriented. Nimoy couldn't have predicted how immensely popular "Star Trek" would become, nor that so many other actors would play Vulcans — and adopt his salute — in the years that followed.
An insightful 2015 article in the Washington Post quoted Nimoy as having invented the salute as an expression of his Jewish heritage. The hand shape, he said, was meant to evoke a particular letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
The divine hug
One can see the Vulcan salute in all manner of Judaica. The website Chabad.org explains the gesture of Priestly Blessing in detail:
"The Hebrew term for the Priestly Blessing, administered by the descendants of Aaron, is Birkat Kohanim, also known as Nesi'at Kapayim, the 'lifting of the hands,' because of the priests' uplifted hands, through which the divine blessings flow. Performed in the synagogue, the Priestly Blessing is one of the most spiritually uplifting moments in Jewish life, as the entire congregation is embraced in a 'divine hug.'"
Two open hands pushed away from the body form a diamond shape, allowing the Divine through.
In a 2013 interview, Nimoy said that his fingers, when in the Vulcan salute, resemble the letter shin, the first letter in Shalom, in Shaddai (one of the many names of God), and also in Shekhinah, part of a kabbalistic veneration of divine feminine energies, but a word that had several meanings overall. Nimoy recalled reciting Shekhinah prayers as a child, and it was from those days in temple that he was inspired to form the Vulcan hand salute. The Post cited a StarTrek.com interview wherein Nimoy recalled its function, saying, "The light from this Deity could be very damaging. So we are told to protect ourselves by closing our eyes." He continued:
"They get their tallits over their heads, and they start this chanting. And my father said to me, 'Don't look'. At first he obliged, but what he could hear intrigued him. I thought, 'Something major is happening here.' So I peeked. And I saw them with their hands stuck out from beneath the tallit like this."
There it was.
Trek yourself before you wreck yourself
Nimoy recalled wanting to invent something notable for the scene in "Amok Time" when Spock was on screen with other Vulcans for the first time. He didn't necessarily brainstorm the above prayers but clearly took inspiration from them. It was a simple gesture he invented on set. Surprisingly, it stuck. It helped that Trekkies watching at home could recreate it in an instant. Nimoy added:
"Boy, that just took off. It just touched a magic chord. [...] [M]ost people to this day still don't know [the history] [...] People don't realize they're blessing each other with this!"
When you flash a "Live long and prosper" salute, you are actually evoking divine energies. Trekkies may be passing winking pop culture references to one another on the floor of "Star Trek" conventions, but they are also giving each other holy blessings. There's something beautiful about that. When President Obama — a self-professed Trekkie — met Nichelle Nichols in 2012, they posed for a picture wherein both flashed the salute. Talk about cultural penetration. As far as I have been able to determine, Obama is the only president to have given a Vulcan salute.
Of course, the salute has become so common in "Star Trek" that it can be thrown around without any sense of nobility or wonderment. In an episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," Ensign Becket Mariner (Tawny Newsome) waggles Vulcan salutes sarcastically around in front of her mother, being generally caustic and dismissive. Any "sacred" qualities attached to the gesture have apparently been prodded and mocked by the young hotshot.