Sunday, December 8, 2019

halacha - Explicit shaimos printed in prayer books


The gemara in Shabbos 115b cites a Tosefta seemingly condemning those who publish prayer-books (and amulets) with G-d's name: "...מכאן אמרו כותבי ברכות כשורפי תורה". Nonetheless, it is common practice today of virtually all prayer-book publishers to include G-d's names in their products. Is there a halachik justification for this seemingly unnecessary leniency?


(While not necessarily addressing all the potential halachik issues, many older siddurim often employed e.g. the use of "יי" in place of the Tetragrammaton and used a character that combined the א and ל for other divine names. [My understanding is that the other names were printed as is.] Even this practice seems to have been abandoned by modern publishers of prayer-books.)


An additional potential issue of e.g. printing the Tetragrammaton as written instead of as pronounced is the possibility that those unaware of the rule about pronouncing that name are likely to be misled into violating that halacha. Is there any basis for this potential "michshol" as well? (This leniency was even introduced into the recently published children's picture-siddur of Koren publishing.)





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