As we march further into space, Jews have, not surprisingly, been among the many proud ambassadors of our species.

Earlier this year Greg Chamitoff became the first Jew in space to hang mezuzot aboard the International Space Station. Ilan Ramon was the first to bring kosher food into the earth’s orbit. He later died in the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy on February 1, 2003.

But these are only a few of the Jewish explorers who have scratched the surface of how to entwine earth-based religions in space.

“Now that they discovered other systems and other planets that could support life, we need to rethink all the issues,” said Jeremy Alk, a Jewish lecturer in Seattle.

And many religious institutions have.

In May, the pope’s astronomers were speculating on life in outer space and framing it in a religious context, saying life forms could be free from original sin.

“Even the pope himself had some comment about how we treat beings if they are aliens from outer space,” Alk said. “And that is why I got back into it.”

Alk is currently leading a weekly class at Congregation Beth Shalom on the implications of space exploration on Judaism. It’s a topic he’s been teaching on and off for 30 years, but recently decided to reintroduce the concepts to a younger audience. Everything from celebrating Shabbat in space to greeting extra terrestrials is discussed. It raises questions about identity and religion that would never surface without posing the question, “What if?”

According to Alk, intelligent entities have to be treated like humans, based on rules outlined in the Torah on how to treat strangers. Other writings and rabbinical theories on the observation of holy days in outer space indicate that Jews would have to observe as if they were on earth — meticulously keeping track of a seven-day week, even in places where time is impossible to measure by the rise and fall of the sun.

“For a long time there was a concentration on an earth-centric existence,” Alk said. “Rabbis did not want Jewish people to speculate about other worlds because it would lead to despair. If they saw [God] created other worlds and destroyed them, it might discourage them about the world they live in.”

However, some concepts breach the timid steps made by rabbinical scholars. Many of those tough questions can be found in writings of science and speculative fiction, in which Jewish culture and myth have player a large part in developing.

From Golem stories, which are closely mimicked in robot-based fiction, to Spock’s hand gesture in Star Trek (a holy gesture signaled by the Cohanim, the high priests, during Yom Kippur) taken from the synagogue Leonard Nimoy attended), Jewish influences are constant in the speculative world.

Jack Dann, an Australia-based Jewish author who has complied anthologies of Jewish-based science fiction stories, believes the medium is one of the few places that can safely mix theoretical and theological thought.

“Science fiction and fantasy lend themselves especially well to thought-experiment,” Dann said. “Science fiction, for me, is a means of exploring the impossible, the incomprehensible.”

Even much-lauded Jewish sci-fi author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about a colony of aliens becoming more strict observers of Jewish tradition than earth-based Jews, raising questions about who, or what, could be Jewish, Alk noted.

“All creatures who have the ability to reason and make ethical decisions can become Jewish and could choose to observe and they would have free will,” he said.

Speculative science fiction has also raised question about the limits and dangers of future space exploration. What are the implications of going into deep sleep to traverse vast distances? According to Alk, it could be considered a disregard for sofek sakanah, which forbids Jews from putting their life in danger.

Also looking at the social implications of religion in space, Dann believes reaching further into the universe will heighten fundamentalism and disparity between religions.

“[Those] who interpret scripture in whatever form as being literally true will probably become even more Orthodox and convinced of their way as the only true way,” he said. “I could easily conceive of jihad in space. Radicalism allows no room for doubt or ‘the other.’ Anything that contradicts it is either wrong…or ignored.”

Then there are also abstract concepts of light speed, which (in layman’s terms) bends time in different locations when the speed of light is achieved. How would you keep up with an earth-based religion, when earth days can pass in a matter of seconds according to light speed theories?

“The nature of time has to be reviewed,” Alk said. “Just like the first six days of creation, before the sun and moon was created, how do you measure time? Some people think it was a day, or it could have been millions of years.”

These kinds of speculations don’t always sit well those adhering to more traditional interpretations of Jewish texts, however.

Rabbi Natan Slifkin has written books negating traditional views of the universe’s age and scientific knowledge of the Talmud sages — and were met with a ban by Haredi Jews.

Slifkin quotes Genesis in his argument that the biblical writings encourage the exploration of space: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the land and conquer it”; and Isaiah: “He did not create it [the universe] for nothing; He formed it to be inhabited.”

Other biblical scholars claim Jacob’s Ladder, the staircase to heaven, is a metaphor for bodies being lifted into space, perhaps by extraterrestrials.

Jewish author Zecharia Sitchen also claims the Bible and ancient Sumerian texts lend to the existence of other planets within our solar system and alien visitations to Earth.

Sitchen believes that a rapid rise in the intelligence of humans thousands of years ago can be attributed to alien bioengineering of our species.

“There was a huge rise in human intelligence and there is no explanation for it,” Alk said. “Whether this is because of visits from outer space or not is controversial, but there in no doubt that there was an unusual rise in intelligence.”

While Alk believes that aliens exist, he says it is part of Jewish culture to raise questions that fly in the face of traditional views, whether religious or not.

“I see this as part of our nature of asking profound questions about our faith and world,” Alk said. “Since Jewish tradition deals with every aspect of life, we all have to expand our understanding of what life and our world is.”