Even if the Seder night were to fall on the Sabbath?

Why isn’t there a prohibition here on account of writing? [If the screen doesn’t turn off, the image drawn on the screen (and perhaps also on an internal board) is enduring writing.]

On a screen, that counts as enduring? I don’t understand. Inside, it isn’t written at all (there is no form of letters). Writing on a computer is not the prohibited labor of writing unless we introduce that as a new application for our times (a novel stringency).
On the Sabbath it is more complicated, because transferring fire was also prohibited (and it should also be prohibited under the law of generating something new). Still, it seems to me that strictly speaking it would be permitted there too.

Why not? If the electricity is flowing and there is no screen saver, then the image drawn on the screen will remain forever, and here you have full-fledged writing.
Also on the internal board there is some kind of physical inscription [binary language], as far as I know, and this language is an agreed physical marking that signifies the letters, so from that perspective too this is complete writing. [What difference does it make if people can’t read it? They have a machine that decodes it, and it is a fixed and clear marking, and this is the normal way of writing in this language all over the world—much more so than ordinary script.]
Please explain your view.

I disagree. The fact that electricity is flowing means it is reanimating the writing at each and every moment, so the writing is not enduring.
As for the internal board (memory, in Yiddish), there is no writing there at all. There are physical phenomena there that are not writing, and they are not visual at all. I have nothing more to explain than that.

Why isn’t there a problem here of creating an electrical circuit, like flipping a switch? Building, in the secular terminology…

In your view, writing that endures by means of the flow of a river [which keeps the writing standing] is not considered enduring writing, even though no action is needed to cause that maintenance? I don’t understand your reasoning.
Besides, writing that does not endure is at least rabbinically prohibited.

That is only when you wrote, not when you created something that looks like writing. If such writing does not endure, we are not concerned with it. As for electrical current, it is not a natural phenomenon but a human supply, and in that respect it differs from the flow of a river. Perhaps it should be compared to water flowing from a faucet, and there indeed I would say it is not enduring.

By the way, the halakhic decisors discuss how long it has to endure in order to be considered enduring. Some said a day, or a week, or until after the Sabbath. None of those applies here.

See a survey here (and there are additional sources he didn’t bring, mainly regarding tying and dyeing):

Click to access 41.pdf

In the responsa Har Tzvi, Yoreh De’ah, sec. 230, he proves that one who writes with milk on a page, so that the writing is not visible (secret writing) until the paper is placed over a candle flame, is liable on account of writing.
In your view, is saving data on a computer less than writing in invisible ink? After all, later on it is possible to bring the letters out from the hard drive to the screen and to print them.

Invisible writing is a discussion that began even before Har Tzvi (see, for example, the article I’ll bring below). But it is not similar to our case, because here there are no letters that are revealed by some process. The letters in the internal memory are not letters at all (but at most a potential to create letters on the screen). In the case of invisible writing, actual letters were created, except that they were not visible.

דף הבית

I know the sources (I wrote an article about it), and one who writes invisible writing has certainly written at the Torah level (not merely a doubt or a rabbinic prohibition), regarding the Sabbath (not bills of divorce), even before it is revealed and brought from potential into actuality—that is Har Tzvi’s view (following the Jerusalem Talmud).
How would you define what letters are, in order to distinguish between invisible writing and a computer? I find it hard to define, especially if liability for “writing” applies not only to writing letters but also to drawing and sketching meaningful forms.

When there is the form of a letter, there are letters. In a computer there is no form at all, neither of letters nor of anything else. It has no connection to invisible writing, where there is a form of letters and there was also writing, except that it is not visible.
And regarding invisible writing, you are very emphatic and I disagree (see the article mentioned above), but this is not the place to elaborate.

In my opinion, the Seder night on Zoom is not really effective, but will only cause people to fuss around the app, and that will even be detrimental (as compared to holding the Seder alone). So basically it is no different from the prohibition on television using a Sabbath timer.
Also, it could lead to desecration of the festival if people come to touch the app because of disconnections and the like.
Isn’t there room to prohibit it because of these considerations?

First of all, there are elderly people who simply will not conduct a Seder at all on their own (older women who live alone). The permission is intended mainly for them.
The comparison to television is incorrect. There there are additional problems beyond the concern that someone might adjust it.
And even if there is a concern, we do not have the authority to enact new decrees. As long as there is no formal prohibition, I see no license to be stringent because of your personal concern and thereby nullify an outright commandment at the Torah and rabbinic levels. There is room to be stringent only where the stringency has no cost, but here it is a stringency that leads to a leniency.
An authorized religious court could uproot a matter from the Torah and prohibit sounding the shofar or reading the Megillah out of concern for Sabbath desecration. But can it enter your mind that a private individual should not sound the shofar or read the Megillah out of concern that perhaps he will carry it? Such a person is a sinner.
Therefore, where it is possible to conduct the Seder alone, there is certainly room, and perhaps it is even preferable, to be stringent. But when the alternative is that the Seder will not be conducted properly, it seems to me that there is no right to be stringent. And if a person will feel lonely and the Seder night will be a difficult experience for him even if it is conducted according to Jewish law, then perhaps there too there is room to discuss stringency, although in my opinion even there there is room to permit Zoom.

You wrote:
“There is no connection at all to invisible writing, where there is a form of letters and there was also writing, except that it is not visible.”

I am again asking for clarification: if the prohibition of writing applies to any meaningful form or even to a drawing, and not specifically to forming a letter, what is the difference between invisible writing and saving data on a computer?

Thank you very much.

And I repeat once again, in a hoarse voice, for the last time: data stored in memory has no form at all (not merely that it lacks the form of a letter). That’s it.

With Heaven’s help, 1 Nisan 5780

What good is “zoom” without “asida”? After all, “asida” is made from flour or semolina that is put into boiling water, and the medieval authorities (Rishonim) already said that we are not expert in scalding, so it is not relevant to eat “zoom” without “asida.” And in general, who eats a dairy dish on the Seder night?

Perhaps they discussed permitting it according to the North African custom of eating the “asida” in a meat sauce, and since they make the “asida” from flour of roasted grains, which according to the law of the Talmud are not subject to leavening. But as noted, even about that the medieval authorities wrote that we are not expert in roasting.

Or perhaps they mean that they should eat the “zoom” while standing, made from cornstarch, which has no concern of leavening. But there are several problems with that: after all, North African Jews had a custom to prohibit legumes, and it is possible that they also had a custom to prohibit corn, from which cornstarch is made. And perhaps also because one should not live in a place where it is not a good sign to eat cornstarch.

Be that as it may, it seems preferable to eat the “zoom” with cornstarch asida in the morning. On the Seder night, it is preferable that elderly people who have difficulty chewing eat pieces of ground matzah softened, and not mix it with “zoom,” which would nullify the taste of the matzah; rather, they should soften the matzot in water.

With blessings, Cantor-Tzibbur

Elderly people do not like sharp changes in their life habits. An elderly person who all his life was careful to observe the Sabbath will feel awful when suddenly his Seder night turns into a weekday of watching television—something he was careful about all his life. He gets a shock just from thinking about it.

Usually an elderly person also doesn’t have the patience to spend the entire Seder night with a big family and all the chaos of the children. He would prefer to finish the Seder quickly and go to sleep… and a full-length family party starts to become more of a burden than a pleasure.

Therefore, it seems to me that if you want to give grandparents a good feeling, the best thing is to send one of the children or grandchildren to make a brief Seder with the grandfather. That will give him a wonderful feeling that he has not been abandoned, while also not driving him crazy on the Seder night. The television-style party can be held during the intermediate days of the festival.

Sitting together for half an hour to an hour with the grandparents, while keeping a distance of two meters from one another, gives them a good feeling that strengthens their health resilience, and on the face of it this should not be harmful. In practice, of course, one should consult a doctor.

With blessings, Grandpa Samson