Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 28, 2017

Astronomy involves the study of planets and it is a lot easier to pursue when you know the planets names. The Torah does not offer individual monikers for each of the celestial bodies that comprise our solar system.

Planetary names, however, were created many moons ago by certain cultures based on Roman and Greek mythology. After thousands of years, such planetary names have become accepted universally.

Of course, the commonly used names for the planets are not Jewish names. (In fact, the only space-related term that is remotely Jewish is supernova, which refers to an exploding star but sounds more like a gigantic piece of lox). So, the question is: how would the Jews of today name the planets?

For the record, the Talmud actually offers alternative names for some of the planets. The Babylonian Talmud, at Shabbat 156a, indicates that Mercury is Kokhav, (star), Venus is Nogah, (light), Mars is Maadim (red), Jupiter is Tzedek (justice) and Saturn is Shabbtai, (the Sabbath, i.e., the seventh day of the week, because in Talmudic times Saturn was considered the seventh planet). The Talmud does not specifically refer to Uranus, Neptune or Pluto because they were not discovered until after the Talmudic era. Naturally, there are other things in life that were not discovered until after the Talmudic era and thus are not mentioned in the Talmud, including Titanium, Pterodactyls and Teletubbies.

There are other ways of naming the planets with a bit more of a Jewish flavor. For example, Mercury is the planet closest to the sun, which necessarily means that its average temperature is even hotter than summertime in Phoenix or Miami. Jews in these blazing cities seem to enjoy living in a perpetual sauna or steam room so if they were living on ridiculously hot Mercury, they probably would name it Planet Shvitz.

Lets try renaming another planet. How about Jupiter? Wait, thats way too easy. The answer, of course, is Jewpiter. Next!

Venus is a planet associated with beauty so we can keep it simple by calling it Planet Sheyna Punim.

Mars is known for its reddish hue and, based on Roman and Greek mythology, is associated with war and strife. Guess what? There is a Yiddish word that literally means fuss or disturbance and also refers to a stew with a somewhat reddish hue. Thus, the ideal Yiddish name for Mars is Planet Tsimmes.

Saturn is arguably the blingiest planet because of all of its rings. Indeed, Saturn has more rings than Michael Jordan (but fewer than the phones at a successful telethon.) Given the amount of jewelry that Saturn is constantly wearing, an appropriate name for the planet would be Planet Tsatskeleh, i.e., Planet Fancy Schmancy.

Neptune typically is associated with the sea because it is blue. Of course, when a person is blue, it means that the individual is feeling sad due to some troubles, aggravation or other unpleasant events. Based on this interpretation of blueness, a possibly proper name for Neptune is Planet Tzuris.

Diminutive Pluto, as noted above, was demoted to a dwarf planet so perhaps it should be referred to as Planet Bisele, i.e., Planet Pipsqueak.

Finally, there are those who refer to our lovely planet as Mother Earth, which is appropriate because her bountiful natural resources have sustained her inhabitants for thousands of years. It therefore might make sense to refer to Earth as Planet Balebusta.

Bottom line: When secretive astronomers refuse to answer questions about new astronomical sightings, they need to respond very carefully because no comment could easily sound like no comet which, in this context, is a comment.

Jon Kranz is an attorney living in Englewood, N.J., and a weekly humor columnist for the Jewish Link of New Jersey. Send your comments, questions or insults tojkranz285@gmail.com.

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Excerpt from:

Astronomical appellations - Cleveland Jewish News

Category: Talmud
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