Walter Jacob
QUESTION: My synagogue is faced with the problem of photocopied services and other materials for children that contain the Divine name; it is not practical to bury them. The congregation would like to purchase a shredder and thereby destroy the material. Is this an acceptable way of dealing with the problem of the sacred name?(Lloyd Silver, New York , NY )
ANSWER: The sacredness of the name of God and the care taken with it goes back to the biblical period when the Divine name itself was pronounced only once by the high priest on Yom Kip pur . It was not to be misused in any way. Sensitivity about the written name of God was partially derived from the command to obliterate names of the idols(Deut . 12.3ff..) with the subsequent injunction that this was not be done to“the Lord your God .” Our concern with the name of God stems equally from the third commandment,“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,”(Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11) and one interpretation of this commandment. There is some discussion of this matter in the Tal mud (Arakhin 6a) in which we hear of a pagan who gave a large wooden beam to be used in the construction of the Temple. It was incised with the name of God , and there was some question whether the beam could be worked and the name of God erased. Talmudic authorities decided that this incised name was not sacred as the beam was not the usual place in which the name of