Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
Halakhah הֲלָכָה
Something sort of shocking happens in this week’s parashah. As part of the סוֹטָה (sotah) ritual—which was meant to resolve a dispute between a married couple—the Torah tells the כֹּהֵן (kohen, priest) to write a curse that contains God’s name on a scroll and then to erase it in a container of water!
We saw a midrash that pointed out how the sotah practice highlights what a priority it is to bring about peace and to end fights between people. Because, in general, we are very careful not to erase God’s name.
So if you find a piece of paper where someone wrote a name of God, don’t erase it, and don’t throw it away! Instead, you can ask a grown-up to help you find a genizah, a special place where holy things are taken care of respectfully (usually buried) after we don’t have any use for them any more.
But what about Devash? Well, we hope you will keep your issues forever and keep learning the parashah year after year! But if you really needed to get rid of your old copies, would this magazine need to be put in a genizah?
On the one hand, there is a lot of Torah in Devash, and sometimes we quote full pesukim to learn. So old copies definitely cannot be thrown in the garbage. Putting them in a genizah instead is a very good option.
On the other hand, that can sometimes be hard to do.
That’s why we avoid printing the Hebrew names of God in their full forms in Devash, either replacing some of the letters or using dashes to separate the letters. Also, you don’t have to worry about English words, like “God.” We are only concerned about names of God written in Hebrew (Shakh Yoreh Deah 179:11). And when something is printed by a machine as opposed to written by hand, some argue that there isn’t enough holiness to require genizah (Responsa Havvot Yair #109).
For these reasons, recycling in a respectful manner can be an option. This can be done by putting old copies in a bin with paper that is otherwise clean and tidy, and then allowing the pages to be collected by a recycling service.
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