Subj : Re: "Hams to the Rescue After Katrina" MSNBC News Article ... Judaism
To   : alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf,rec.radio.amateur.antenna,rec.radio.amateur.dx,rec.radio.amateur.equipment,rec.radio.amateur.policy
From : David.Shrader
Date : Sat Sep 24 2005 17:02:23

From Newsgroup: alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf

I apologize for the top post.

Thanks Fred. Something useful has finally come out of this thread.

Fred W4JLE wrote:

> Jews do not casually write any Name of God. This practice does not come from
> the commandment not to take the Lord's Name in vain, as many suppose. In
> Jewish thought, that commandment refers solely to oath-taking, and is a
> prohibition against swearing by God's Name falsely or frivolously (the word
> normally translated as "in vain" literally means "for falsehood").
> 
> Judaism does not prohibit writing the Name of God per se; it prohibits only
> erasing or defacing a Name of God. However, observant Jews avoid writing any
> Name of God casually because of the risk that the written Name might later
> be defaced, obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who does not
> know better.
> 
> The commandment not to erase or deface the name of God comes from Deut.
> 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the
> promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous
> religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local
> deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our
> God. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any
> holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of God.
> 
> It is worth noting that this prohibition against erasing or defacing Names
> of God applies only to Names that are written in some kind of permanent
> form, and recent rabbinical decisions have held that writing on a computer
> is not a permanent form, thus it is not a violation to type God's Name into
> a computer and then backspace over it or cut and paste it, or copy and
> delete files with God's Name in them. However, once you print the document
> out, it becomes a permanent form. That is why observant Jews avoid writing a
> Name of God on web sites like this one or in BBS messages: because there is
> a risk that someone else will print it out and deface it.
> 
> Normally, we avoid writing the Name by substituting letters or syllables,
> for example, writing "G-d" instead of "God." In addition, the number 15,
> which would ordinarily be written in Hebrew as Yod-Heh (10-5), is normally
> written as Tet-Vav (9-6), because Yod-Heh is a Name. See Hebrew Alphabet for
> more information about using letters as numerals
>

.