As technology advances....

[rhu]

• Displaying the Tetragrammaton on a computer screen was not a problem because the image has to be repainted dozens of times a second, so we don't have to worry about erasing. With e-Ink (and I don't know if the Kindle uses this as well), once an image is drawn to the screen it stays there until changed. Are there now halachic problems with displaying text containing the Tetragrammaton?

• If cells are extracted from a living animal and cultured into foodstuffs, does that violate ever min he-chai, the law that says we may not eat a limb torn from a living animal?

Comments

[bourbon-cowboy.livejournal.com]

If history is anything to go by, the answer will be something like, "Ah, the hell with it." Because anyone wishing to observe a religious rule--which is, by definition, a rule that's observed for no logical reason but just because tradition and/or God says so--is always running up against the value of a rule versus the pain in the ass of observing it. (An example from my tradition: The rhythm method is a pain in the ass; most American Catholics use some other form of birth control no matter what the Pope says.) In the first case, to say, "You can show the Tetragrammaton on a computer screen but not on a Kindle screen" suggests that God is obsessively interested in the details of technology and is just LOOKING for an excuse to be offended. Ditto, to my mind, for any interpretation that treats a cell as a "limb."

To put it another way, the way you follow the rules is a window into what kind of God you worship. And a God who gives a damn about these minutiae--which are probably fun to think about, the way I used to enjoy thinking about theology--is a God who consistently confuses blind obedience with goodness, which in turn cannot help but drive his followers AWAY from actual goodness and toward an abstruse sectarianism that does not reflect well on either God or humans.

Short answer: these are fun questions to ask. But if the answer is "yes" to either one, your religion is headed the wrong way; hope you've got a seat near an exit row.

POSTSCRIPT: I just thought of a way to redeem this way of thinking, which I seem to remember is the way you DO think of this stuff: If you're thinking "This is what God wants and anyone who disagrees is evil," then you're obviously not doing goodness any favors; but if you're thinking, "This particular tradition means a lot to me and this new technology gives me and my fellow practitioners some fun things to think about, even though on some level we know this is just for us and it says nothing about God per se" then my blessings to you, and I'm sorry for throwing elbows in the middle of your fun. (And at that point, you can say yes to both your questions and still be a perfectly decent person.) We've talked before, and you know this is the sort of thing that tends to push my buttons. Sorry if I freaked. Peace!

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

What, you've never heard of the Talmud? Jewish scholars have been arguing and discussing the minutiae of correct behavior for millennia. (And I'm much less qualified to discuss this than 530nm330hz, but I can't keep my yap shut.) It's an intellectual exercise, a way to keep the mind sharp while focusing on the sacred. It's less about how picky God is, and more about how analytical people can be in interpreting special cases, iffy situations, and contingencies that may not have been considered by previous generations. Such as the cloning issue.

Is a cell culture a limb? That depends on what a limb is, as defined by previous generations of scholars (whose arguments will surely be re-examined, criticized, tightened up and reinterpreted in the process of reciting them). Further, is a cell culture torn from a living animal? Plenty of room for discussion there. Again, is vat meat to be considered a limb? What if the culture is not considered a limb, but the vat meat is? The meat will be off limits if the culture is grown into meat while the donor animal is alive, but what if the culture is kept dormant until the donor animal dies? Would the meat grown after the animal's death be acceptable?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

It's an intellectual exercise, a way to keep the mind sharp while focusing on the sacred.

Yes. And, if I may add and emphasize, it's a way of imbuing our everyday actions with an understanding of their potential to be sacred.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Another way of thinking about it is that these "legalistic" questions are actually a formularized way of asking questions about proper human behavior.

There are cultural norms for showing respect. I remember being shocked when I was in Switzerland as a teenager and there was a show for tourists that involved a flag dance and the Swiss flag touched the ground as part of the dance. My parents explained to me that "The flag shall not touch the ground" was an American law, and didn't apply in Switzerland.

So: "The four-letter Name of God shall not be erased" is a Jewish law intended to show respect to God. How do I continue to signify respect in this way when the definition of "erase" is changing? You may consider it legalistic wrangling, but it matters to me because these sorts of things only have force if the community agrees what the boundaries are.

In the case of cell cultures, it's a deeper issue. The assumptions that are written into thousands of years of legal development may no longer apply. I keep kosher in part because it forces me to acknowledge the moral ramifications of eating meat; I ask the question about cell cultures and ever min hechai as a thought experiment to work through how these moral choices are likely to change as the technology evolves. That's not legalism in the smallest bit, although it may appear so from the way I've phrased the questions; it's a deep concern for how my actions will continue to increase "goodness" (in your word) in a changed context.

By asking these questions using an established vocabulary that has precise meaning for "legalistic" terms, we can focus on the "meat" of the issues (sorry, couldn't resist) without being distracted by first having to agree on what our words mean. I can say ever min hechai and those who are familiar with the term understand not only its technical definition, but the repugnance with which Jewish law regards that practice. (It's one of the seven laws that we consider binding on non-Jews as well as Jews.)

[bourbon-cowboy.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your gentle response to my (overdetermined, bred in my own upbringing) churlishness. I apologize for stepping on any toes--though of course the Talmud gets battlesome at times too. (I'm familiar with the Talmud, though I've read only teensy portions.) But you answered my question beautifully, and I apologize for having conflated two issues that really are quite separate. I knew even as I was doing it that the meat question was more rooted in real-world morality than the question about the Kindle, which really only speaks to fellow group members.

What irritated me about the "New Atheist" writers (Hitchens, Dawkins, etc) is that they took a single premise--say, that, in the book of Acts, God kills Ananias and Sephira for holding back part of their tithe--and leapt from that to a paranoid assumption about all believers: "There's nothing preventing modern Christians from believing the same thing and killing OTHER people who hold back tithes!" All you have to do is clear your throat and say, "Um, but they don't do it because they're decent people and they aren't idiots." It seems I may have done the same injustice to you, and I'm sorry. The orthodox community has far more andrews in it than it has, say, Shalom-Auslander's-dads in it. I just wanted to make sure the distinction was clear, and it was an unnecessary assurance. Continue with your---um, I wanted to say "pilpul," but that's wrong, since pilpul is bad, right? So continue with whatever the Hebrew term is for the ideas you're kicking around. Thanks! It's fun to learn.