sheepchase
Elana@sheepchase I would recommend substituting the name of god with ה׳ wherever possible just to be on the safe side 😊 I don’t know what halacha is with toots suddenly becoming sacred…
@elana Good point, I’ll edit it.
@elana It’s a direct copy form Sefaria… I wonder what the Halacha is on Sefaria’s content itself.
HilaryI honestly don't think the restrictions apply online at all. The reason for being careful with names of God in physical documents isn't because writing itself is prohibited, it's because any document containing such a name can only be disposed of in limited, restricted ways. By burial, usually. There may be other methods I don't know about, but certainly not just chucking in the bin.
But text online has no physical existence and electrons recycle themselves.
@regordane @sheepchase Yeah I mean, I think we're heading into "3 Jews, 4 opinions" territory 😅 Things like this can obviously be debated ad infinitum. YRMV—Your Rabbi May Vary 😆
I personally take a very חומרה attitude (err on the side of caution), & for people who are still learning, I feel it's good to practice the maximum safe way of doing things. When you feel comfortable and confident, you can scale back. But that's just me!
The realest Jewish experience is seeing these debates anyway 😆
@elana @regordane It’s a really interesting debate (also, kind of relatedly about digital Halacha, I’m obsessed with the use of smart speakers and robo-toilets on Shabbat).
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/deleting-the-digital-name-of-god
Deleting the Digital Name of God
Handwritten and printed writing grows less sacred by the day because there is increasingly less of it. I grew up during the dawn of the digital computer and always typed more fluently than I wrote, so the pen on the page never held quite the power for me that it did for previous generations. When …
@sheepchase haha robo toilets??? is this some sort of newfangled shabbat washlet??? I must know more!!
This essay was really interesting by the way, thank you for sharing 
@elana ‘Robo-toilets’ was the term I found in English articles talking about the washlets lol. I think ‘Washlet’ might be trademarked by TOTO.
@sheepchase oh oh I see, you want to know if it's okay to use those things on shabbat!
yeah I think probably not? almost certainly not the speakers, unless they have a timer on them, and probably not anything electrically-powered about the washlets (I have no idea how they work)...
but if you're converting Reform, then you can really treat it more like jazz: learn the rules just so you can break them 😁
@elana Yeah I think fortunately (for me) Reform is definitely more like jazz.
The Halacha I’ve read on smart speakers and toilets is basically about whether electricity is turned on/off (or generated) or not. It’s interesting because there’s no definite conclusion on the Halacha yet!
(There was also something about whether ordering a speaker to do something is the same as ordering a bull to do something which is prohibited, but I can’t remember exactly…) 😅
@sheepchase bahahaha I love that! The shabbat version of Siri or Alexa or whatever should be only allowed to moo 😆
@elana 🤣 I REALLY want that!!!
@elana If you want to geek out a bit: https://jewishaction.com/religion/jewish-law/halachic-smarts-about-smart-technology/
@sheepchase yesss! haha that's the good stuff. Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed reading that