Fun_People Archive
22 Jul
Jews can finally empty the Recycle Bin.

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 99 10:09:26 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Jews can finally empty the Recycle Bin.

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Forwarded-by: "Christopher R. Maden" <crism@maden.ne.mediaone.net>
[Forwarded from TYPO-L.]

"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)

© 1999 Peter Langston