Spock’s Hand Gesture/Vulcan Greeting and its Religious Origin

In the second-season premiere episode of Star Trek (Amok Time), actor Leonard Nimoy debuted the hand gesture known to many now as 'Spock's Vulcan Salute'.

What a lot of people may not know, is that the hand gesture has Jewish roots, with Leonard Nimoy first learning of the symbol while attending a Jewish ceremony with his father, grandfather and brother. Nimoy witnessed "5 or 6 guys" with their hands held out in front of them, with the thumb spaced from the index and middle fingers, and the index and middle fingers spaced from the ring and baby fingers, the resulting shape is the letter Shin - (ש) from the Hebrew alphabet.

It wasn't until the filming of Amok Time that Nimoy thought of introducing the gesture as "a special greeting that Vulcans do", as humans have greetings in the form of a handshake, bowing, and saluting, Nimoy wanted a special greeting ritual for the Vulcans, and thought the Shin hand-symbol a perfect gesture. Within days of airing in Amok Time, the hand gesture "took off", and has since become the legendary Vulcan Salute we know so well today.

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom, who runs the website "TrekJews.com", and has written a book on “Jewish Themes in Star Trek” has said the following about the gesture:

Part of the 2014 Leonard Nimoy interview with the Yiddish Book Center, where he explains the Jewish story behind the hand gesture/greeting he made famous through his role as Spock: