Date:    Mon, 18 Jan 1999 23:20:39 -0500
From:    Aviva Ben-Ur <aben-ur@oise.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Erasing G-d's Name on Computer (Levin)

From: Jonathan Levin <jlevin@netmedia.net.il>

        I thought that this would interest the list.

Jonathan Levin
Jerusalem

"Rabbi Puts the Word Out"

        (IsraelWire-1/15-09:15-IST) A leading Orthodox rabbi has ruled that
the word "God" may be erased from a computer screen or disk, because the
pixels do not constitute real letters. Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein published
his ruling this week in a computer magazine aimed at Orthodox Jews,
"Mahsheva Tova."  Klein was responding to a question from a reader who was
unsure whether the ban on erasing the variations on the word "God" applied
to computers. The rabbi, prominent in ultra-Orthodox circles in the
Tel-Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, ruled that the letters may be erased.

        "The letters on a computer screen are an assemblage of pixels, dots
of light, what have you," said Yosef Hayad, the rabbi's assistant. "Even
when you save it to disk, it's not like you're saving anything more than a
sequence of ones and zeroes," Hayad said. According to Jewish law, printed
matter with the word -- "Elohim" ("God") in Hebrew, and its manifestations
in any other language -- must be stored, or ritually buried.

        The existence of the magazine -- a pun that means both "Good
Computer"  and "Worthy Thinking" -- reflects the growing incursion of
modern implements into the world of the ultra-Orthodox. (AP)

[Editor's note: Many thanks to Jonathan Levin for this cross-post.  It
certainly does relieve much Jewish guilt!]

H-JUDAIC Digest - 17 Jan 1999 to 18 Jan 1999