The officers of the Starship Judaea had gathered in the Transporter Room, waiting in anticipation. It wasn't every day that the starship had a new chaplain assigned to it.

"No offense, Woof," said Captain Menachem Mendel Cohen, "but I'm happy that Starfleet reassigned His Holiness Kargon to the Chaplaincy Office. I really think most of the crew just couldn't relate to a Klingon High Priest as their chaplain."

Woof, the Klingon Security Officer glared at the captain and growled. But he couldn't argue. Kargon's idea of religious ritual was more like an Earthling's idea of hand-to-hand combat. At this very moment Woof's son was in Sickbay having several lacerations, sprains, and contusions treated, a result of participation in the holy ritual of Kqvatung, or "Klingon Bar Mitzva."

"It will be a change to see a Chaplain from one of the Old-Style Earth religions," commented Commander Reichman, the first officer. This new guy is supposed to be an Orthodox Rabbi, just graduated from that new Yeshiva on the Planet Litvak."

"I'm not so sure that's so great," said the Captain. He was a Schlitzer chasid, a follower and direct descendant of the legendary 20th century Rabbi Noah A. Kohol. In addition to having gone through the rigourous program at Starfleet Academy, Captain Cohen had spent 10 years learning at the Schlitzer Purim Torah Institute, "the Yeshiva that made Milwaulkee famous." He was an ordained rabbi in his own right.

"You are, of course, referring to the well-known schism between Chassidim and Mitnagdim," this came from Commander Makhshav, the android science officer. Captain Cohen had felt that the study of secular science for its own sake was a violation of Jewish Law, and so he always insisted on having an android assigned to serve as science officer. Commander Makhshav was very logical, but his neuronic simulator was built around a defective Pentium chip, and so he tended to make minor arithmetic errors. "As the Yeshiva on the Planet Litvak is a Mitnagedic institution, I suppose you are concerned about the way our new rabbi will pasken."

Before the captian could answer, the communications circuit beeped.

"Captain, Rabbi Rappaport is ready to beam aboard."

"Very well, Number One, make it so."

"Engergize."

A column of flickering light beamed from the top of the transporter unit to the floor of the transporter chamber. The light soon resolved itself into a vaguely human form, and then into an attractive young woman wearing a Starfleet uniform with a long skirt. She had curly black hair and green eyes. Captain Cohen stared, and then hastily averted his eyes.

Counsellor Tamar, a telepath from the Planet Mishugass quickly scanned the rapidly developing tension in the room. I sense lust in the captain's heart, she thought. That's rediculous. This woman is dressed in all proper modesty. I know, the captain has been a bachelor for too lomg, Maybe it's time to make a shidduch.

"Ahem, " said the Captain, "Young lady, where is Rabbi R. Rappaport? Are you his assistant?"

"I am Rabbi Rochel Rappaport," said the woman. I sense anger and annoyance, thought Counsellor Tamar. I don't blame her. "Assistant", indeed! But what's going on? Whoever heard of a lady Orthodox Rabbi?

"What kind of nonsense is this?" demanded the Captain, "There's no such thing as a lady Orthodox Rabbi! Even those heretics at the Litvak Yeshiva wouldn't..."

"I'm afraid," interrupted Commander Makhshav, "that they did. If you had checked your e-mail, you would have seen the announcement of the teshuva by the Litvak Council of Most Frum Torah Sages that allowed women to be rabbis.."

"If it's any consolation to you," said Rabbi Rappaport, "I still need a male secretary to countersign any witnessing I do."

"No!, NO!," shouted the captain. "Oy, I can't believe that the Litvak Council of Most Frum Torah Sages would ever do such a thing.. This will make them no better than Reform rabbis."

"Watch what you say," said the rabbi, "My father is a Reform rabbi." The rabbi and the captain glared at each other. Counsellor Tamar softly hummed the tune to "Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a Match." She was going to have her job cut out for her.

"Uh, I'm really hungry." Rabbi Rappaport broke the uncomfortable silence. "Do you have any kosher food here?"

"Yes, we use replicators that run on FoodStar-K."

"Which version of FoodStar-K?"

"Version 3.0. It has a Kosher module in it."

"Well, I guess it will have to do. I don't usually trust software releases that end in zero..."

They all trooped across the ship to the recreation and dining module. Built into a recess in the far wall was a bank of what looked like late 20th century automatic teller machines. A large open space in the center of the machine took the place of the slot that dispensed paper currency, and, of course, users of the device did not have to insert a plastic card with and encoded number and countersign with a secret password. These were the famous replicators developed and made by Mun Research Corporation. At a simple verbal command, the machine generated food from interstellar dust and the ship's waste materials, food that would taste like whatever the user wanted it to taste like. One machine could feed 100 adult humans, yet the Judaea had scores of them scattered across the ships. Officers and guests had individual replicators in their cabins. The Judaea had a kitchen as well, for those eccentric hobbyists who liked to cook with fresh food.

Captain Cohen led Rabbi Rapapaport over to one of the machines that had a placard bolted on consisting of a large yellow five-pointed star with the letter "K" inside.

"This is one of the Kosher machines," the captain explained, "Approved by the Va'ad Hakashrus of Baltimore."

"Hmmm," Rabbi Rappaport looked at it skeptically, "OK, Computer!" Now she was speaking in a commanding tone,"Give me the kosher special!"

With that, the mechanism hummed, lights flashed on the console, and then accompained by an electronic whine, the open area in the middle was filled with a flickering light that soon resolved itself into a dinner platter. On the platter was a suckling pig perfectly roasted to a golden brown. The pig was surrounded with a creamy white sauce in which chunks of shrimp could easily be seen.

"Oh my G-d!!" exclaimed Rabbi Rappaport, "I can't believe this!! This is terrible."

"It sure is," agreed the captain, "whoever heard of serving a white shrimp sauce with a roast suckling pig? You'd want pan drippings, or maybe a Cumberland sauce. And besides, with the shrimp sauce, do you serve a red wine or a white wine with this concoction? The whole thing doesn't make culinary sense. It must have been programmed by dieticians..."

He was interrupted by the new chaplain.

"Y-Y-You actually EAT this treif garbage?!!!!!" she sputtered, "And you call yourself frum!!!! Some big-shot Schlitzer Hassidic starship captain YOU are! How can you do this? Faker!!! Fraud!!!! ... I...I'm immediately calling the Va'ad....."

"Hey, cool your antimatter units," said the captain. "This stuff is kosher. There's not one bit of pork or shrimp on this dish. It's all synthesized from interstellar dust and the ship's waste. The Va'ad knows about this. Heck, I'd bet that their head mashgiach helped write the foodStar-K program. It would figure. The guy knows his Shulchan Aruch, be he has no culinary sense..."

"No." said Rochel, "There's no way that this can be kosher. Even though it's not actually made of pork and shrimp, the programmers had to use templates of the real thing in order to make the replicated result look and taste authentic. The templates are treif, and so they pass their essential porkness and shrimpness onto the replicated product. Thus the replicated product is treif. And this chazzerei sitting here is treif... Uchhh, get rid of it." She shuddered.

"Yes, I've heard that opinion," countered Captain Cohen, "but if you read R. Ezra Escoffier's compilation of hilchot hakashrut, the Hadar HaOchel, he clearly states that all replicated food is permissible."

"On what basis?" demanded Rochel, "Escoffier's compilation is suspect. He doesn't give sources for many of his laws. And the recipes in the marginal notes are terrible. You know full well that in the R. Mendel Maneschewitz in his compilation of hilchot hakashrut, the Mazleg V'kapit, specifically says that replicated food is allowed only if the template is strictly kosher... And he brings down the rulings right from the Talmud to prove his point. In an emergency, he'll allow you to use food made from templates that were not originally kosher. So a hamburger might be OK, but that..yechhhhh...pig, no way!"

"Rabbi Maneschewitz wasn't the last word..." soon the captain and the new chaplain were deep in an intricate Talmudic discussion.

Counsellor Tamar sighed with relief. Maybe they will get along, she thought. Ahhh, maybe we'll be able to take out the chuppah, and have a real party soon.

Meanwhile, the issue of the kashrut of the replicator hadn't been resolved. This was important, because without a kosher replicator, Rabbi Rapaport was going to get mighty hungry in her new duty assignment.

"Commander Machshav," said the captain, "You have the entire Torah programmed into your memory chips. What's your opinion?"

"Captain, I would suggest that you post this question to mail-jewish." said the android.

"Post the question to what??" asked both Rabbi Rappaport and the Captain.

"Mail-jewish was a computerized discussion list in which people post their opinions and questions on matters of Judaism. Other members of the list will then reply with their comments. Of course, it doesn't substitute for a real rabbi making a decision, but perhaps you will find that one of the list members will come up with an idea that will solve your problem."

"Hey, that sounds pretty good. Commander Machshav, have the Communications Officer link us up to this mail-jewish. Do they have a subspace address?" Captain Cohen was clearly excited.

"Uh, captain," said Commander Machshav, "Mail-jewish is no longer operative. It was an Internet discussion group during the late 20th and early 21st centuries..."

"You mean they used the Internet to discuss serious matters?" exclaimed Rochel. "I thought that the Internet was only used by perverts to download pornography. I remember in history class watching a recording of a speech by, what was his name, Senator... Nixxon?...no...wait...yes! it was Senator Exon! anyway, that's what he said, that this 'internet' was a sewer of pornography. Apparently, most historians believe that serious on-line networking during that period was carried out on America On-Line and Compuserve..."

"That is a common misconception, but untrue," said Machshav. "The concept of computer networks was first implemented in the 1960's by the U.S. Department of Defense..."

"Commander Machshav, why don't we skip the history lesson?" said the captain. "Why did you suggest starting a discussion in a nonexistant discussion group? This isn't going to solve, er, Rabbi, ahem, Rapaport's kashrut problem. The only way we could use mail-jewish would be to go into a time warp, travel back through time to the 1990's, find a computer, and post the question. Are you suggesting that we do that?"

"Yes," replied the android, "I am."

TO BE CONTINUED.....

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