To this day, legions of Star Trek fans use Leonard Nimoy's Vulcan salute as a greeting, perhaps without knowing that it is a blessing taken from an Orthodox Jewish prayer.

In 2013, Nimoy revealed the famous salute's origins in an interview with the National Yiddish Book Center. In his warm and engaging way, he recalled a childhood memory of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue service in Boston.

Sitting with his father, he observed a ritual in which five or six guys faced the congregation and began to chant and wail in discordant tones that utterly captured his imagination. The congregation looked away or covered their faces at this point, and though Nimoy's father urged him to do the same, he couldn't resist sneaking a peek.

The chanting men thrust their fingers in the shape of split V's from beneath their prayer shawls to symbolize the Hebrew letter shin.

"This is the shape of the letter shin," Nimoy said in the interview, making the famous "V" gesture. The Hebrew letter shin is the first letter in the Hebrew word Shekhinah, which is the name for God's glory and the feminine aspect of the divine, as well as the name for the prayer Nimoy was participating in.

The light from the Shekinah glory of God was considered so powerful that it could be damaging, so as part of the prayer, the congregation protected themselves by closing their eyes. Nimoy's moment of daring gave him inspiration that would later echo around the world.

"Something really got hold of me," Nimoy said in the interview with the National Yiddish Book Center. In the captivating moments of the Shekinah prayer, he understood the gesture was a blessing, and it stuck with him. Nimoy practiced making the "V" symbol with his fingers as a child until he'd perfected the gesture, though he never dreamed that the symbol would become something so intimately associated with him as an adult.

The gesture was introduced in Star Trek lore during an episode of the original series, "Amok Time."

"It was the first time we'd seen other Vulcans, other people of my race, so I was hoping to find something touching that could help develop the Vulcan sociology," Nimoy said in his 2013 interview. He felt that Vulcans should have a special greeting and suggested the "V" gesture from his childhood. The director immediately accepted the idea.

"Boy, that just took off through the culture. It was amazing. Within days of getting it on the air, I was getting it on the street… and it's been that way to this day. It's almost 50 years later, and people are still doing it. It just touched a magic chord."

Nimoy took great pleasure from the "V" symbol's popularity and long-standing use, knowing the origins of the gesture and the divine blessing it represents.

As he expressed in a 2012 interview with StarTrek.com, "People don't realize they're blessing each other with this!"

Leonard Nimoy's final public words were "Live long and prosper", which was a blessing in itself. The man just wouldn't stop blessing his fans!