[Avodah] People of the E-Book? Observant Jews Struggle With Sabbath in a Digita

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2011 at 12:18:56PM -0800, Simon Montagu wrote:
: IMHO another reason why there is no ketiva by computers and ebook readers is
: that there is no direct human action that forms the letters -- the operating
: system copies bits from one part of the memory to another, and any changes
: in the memory that make things that look like letters appear on the screen
: are caused by human interaction only after many levels of indirection.

Hitting the "next page" (or clicking on the book title, or...) triggers
that action. If the indirection is instananteous and pretty much
inevitable, it's pesiq reishei.

You raise an issue that I mentioned in passing. Does kesiva necessarily
require writing each letter? Does this depend on the same issues as
question of whether R' Abadi's stenciled sifrei Torah are kosher?
Or are kesivah WRT sta"m and WRT melakhah defined differently?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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