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

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

a) Hm. Interesting question. I'd suspect not, but I'm sure when the technology becomes more widespread this will be debated at length.

b) I'd say no, because the point is to spare the animal pain, and not benefit from its suffering. Culturing cells in a dish doesn't hurt the animal.

[dsrtao]

If you kill the donor animal appropriately, and immediately grab your culture sample, then you avoid that problem. You should eat the rest of the animal, of course.

The next problem is that your sample has not been kashered...