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

[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.