Subj : Re: "Hams to the Rescue After Katrina" MSNBC News Article ... Judaism and G-d
To   : alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf,rec.radio.amateur.antenna,rec.radio.amateur.dx,rec.radio.amateur.equipment,rec.radio.amateur.policy
From : Charlie
Date : Sat Sep 24 2005 17:16:57

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

No need to "apologize for the Top Post" it is the new old-fashioned way of 
the future...

-- 

Charlie






"David.Shrader" <Deacon_Dave@comcast.net> wrote in message 
news:moqdnSy21Pu8LKjeRVn-iA@comcast.com...
>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
>>
>

.