My Q: How do Jews
treat hard drive ROM if it contains permanently stored sacred information? Should it ever be deleted? Should a name of Gd be saved if it is encoded
in data? We are careful with languages
other than Hebrew. Why would the
readable language a computer processes be any different? Some software is more powerful than other
software when it comes to file deletion, which opens up a similar question: If
the computer code for a word such as “Gd” enters a computer, is it okay to
delete any of its sacred contents at all?
Perhaps, computers should be made more sacred by programming them to
remember every key stroke, or use picture recognition to save words such as Gd,
such that Gd never ends up deleted. Even
images of words in the refresh rate of a monitor could be saved. Why not?
Rabbi's A: It's an interesting question that was raised right when various forms of media were coming out. The general consensus of the Halachic authorities was that electronic information that needs to be opened, played, etc is not considered holy texts to the extent they can not be thrown away or deleted. (Once opened, etc. it should not be read/listened to in bathroom or similar place in which Torah is not allowed(
Rabbi's A: It's an interesting question that was raised right when various forms of media were coming out. The general consensus of the Halachic authorities was that electronic information that needs to be opened, played, etc is not considered holy texts to the extent they can not be thrown away or deleted. (Once opened, etc. it should not be read/listened to in bathroom or similar place in which Torah is not allowed(
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