Q&A: Holiness in a Computer
Holiness in a Computer
Question
Hello Rabbi
Should one treat media containing the Bar-Ilan Project with respect, for example like a book of Jewish law, and if so, why?
Thank you
Answer
Hello Omer.
I hope you’ll forgive me for the comment, but when I saw this question I wanted to delete it immediately. It’s obvious that you didn’t invest even a second of thought in formulating and clarifying the question. What exactly do you mean? Do you mean that when the responsa project is passed between tables, one must stand up in its honor? Or perhaps one should speak to it or about it in the third person: “His honored Responsa Project said such-and-such,” and not “you said such-and-such”? Is this serious?
Please take a second to clarify the question for yourself, and then formulate it clearly. It’s advisable that you also bring an example of a practical dilemma that arises from it. Then you can post a question here for an answer and discussion.
Discussion on Answer
I’ll tell the truth: for a long time I thought it was really just like a Talmud book or books of Jewish law, and that’s how I acted, but people laughed at me. As far as I’m concerned it’s exactly a book.
And the eyes are also just a device for seeing; it’s like the computer.
In principle, you’re right. The information found in a sacred book is no different from information in a digital database. In both cases, a device is needed to decode the information and turn it into words of Torah (the computer, or the eye and the brain).
Strictly speaking, the formal halakhic obligation to honor books applies only to books written in ink on parchment (valid Torah scrolls, or remnants of them). But the custom developed to honor printed books as well. See an overview here:
https://ph.yhb.org.il/07-06-05/
As I understand it, the basis of the matter is the proper attitude toward sacred things, not a formal law. And according to this, there is certainly room to give respectful treatment to a disk on which sacred material is stored. There is an intuitive tendency to say that it’s not the same thing, because we are used to seeing something printed as something sacred (that is, we don’t see it as a medium from which words of Torah can be reconstructed, but as the words of Torah themselves), but I think that’s only habit. Thus, for example, halakhic decisors wrote that once printed books came into existence, even though they do not possess holiness strictly speaking, one should give them the same treatment (and this has practical implications, such as rescuing them from a fire on the Sabbath and the like). Therefore, by reasoning alone, there is certainly room to say the same thing regarding a disk, which is the printed book of our times.
I can understand someone who would disagree and say that this is true only for print and not for storage on a disk, but there is definitely room for your reasoning. At least when it is a disk used only for this purpose, and especially if its use is clear from the outside. The purpose of all this is to create in us the proper attitude toward sacred things (that is, in the person, not in the object), and that exists with respect to a disk as well.
And the Rema already wrote at the beginning of Orach Chayim: “Do not be ashamed because of those who mock…”
More power to you, honorable Rabbi, thank you very much.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious. I wrote it as in regard to a book.
The question is whether you need to treat it like people treat a book: you don’t put things on top of it and you don’t throw it on the floor.
Because what’s the difference? Just because you need a device {computer} in order to read it, does that mean it’s not a book? And if I need glasses,
is it okay to throw the Bar-Ilan Project on the floor?