(c) Apr 18 2001 RashiYomi Inc. MY COLLECTED & INDEXED MAIL JEWISH POSTINGS-Ver #1
Individual Postings 1st appeared(& were copied in html form) on the Email List Mail Jewish

From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@mcs.drexel.edu>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 22:00:57 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: FAXES and Eggs Born on Shabbath

Just a quick note on the FAX ON FRIDAY-RECEIVED ON SHABBAT issue raised
in V28n64 and answered in v28n66.

This whole topic was discussed in Mail Jewish about 2 years ago. To
summarize one point of the thread I cited a discussion I had with
Rabbi Avrohom Litvin of Louisville, who introduced me to this topic.
After I claimed (like David v28n66) that a fax could be read, Rabbi Litvin
reminded me of the concept of NOLAD--lit. BEING BORN.

According to Jewish law, e.g. an egg BORN on Shabbath cannot be used
on Shabbath even though no Biblical commandment is being broken.

We had a long discussion in mail jewish on why exactly eggs cannot be
used on Shabbath. One suggested approach is that a BORN EGG has a NEW
STATUS--before Shabbath it was part of the chicken, while now it has the
STATUS of an EGG (e.g. you can point to it and talk about eating it).

In a similar manner--a piece of paper that received a fax message on
it on shabbath has achieved a NEW STATUS--it no longer has the status
of being a piece of BLANK paper but rather it has the status of a FAX
Hence it is "BORN" and should not be read (till after Shabbath).

This posting has nostalgically reminded me of some nifty halachic
discussions. The talmud actually compares wisdom to wine---they
naturally improve with age...who knows maybe we can get a better
vintage of discussion on NOLAD this time (it is a challenging task)

Russell Jay Hendel; Phd ASA RHendel @ mcs drexel edu
Dept of Math and Comp Science
Moderator Rashi is Simple
http://www.shamash.org/rashi