Recycling Instead of a Genizah
In many synagogues, schools, etc., there are boxes for placing material with God’s name (שמות) that instead of being thrown out is placed in a genizah. Have you ever wondered where they went? An Israeli columnist (here-in Hebrew) followed the genizah trail and was quit appalled by what he found. Nachum Pinchuk went to a “genizah cave” and the photo below is what he found.
Pinchuk, a religious environmental activist, decided to see if there was an alternative to this situation. He asked Rabbis Shlomo Aviner and Yuval Sherlow and they both supported the recycling of either all of most of what today gets set aside for a genizah. Rav Aviner suggested that there be an option for recycling shemot specifically for the use in future sifrei kodesh. While this column can’t but help, I wanted to point out that almost twenty years ago Rabbi Chaim Weiner wrote a responsum (here-in Hebrew) on this very same topic, visiting possibly the very same “genizah cave,” and offered a similar solution. The next time you are about to throw something into the genizah, think about throwing it into the recycling bin instead.
Update: See here for a posting on the question from Rav Aviner’s web site.
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
When one of the shuls in town was digging a new foundation, I volunteered to be the shaimot shlepper. I was amazed at the stuff people put into the various shaimot boxes, including kippot, taleisim, plates that said only something like “kiddush”. Most of the stuff consisted of shabbat sheets & jewish publications, and very few actual items that required burial. The community rav was always very explicit that publications that say “this contains divrei Torah, please dispose of respectfully” should just be put in recycling. But apparently this message was lost on most people.
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I love Pesach! Every year people put valuable seforim into shaimos. So far this year I found three volumes of Mosad harav Kook’s Arim V’imahot b’yisrael. A couple of years ago I found all four(!) volumes of M. Guttmann’s Mafteach Hatalmud.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:08 am
Often we finf treasures of remnants of manuscripts up to 700 years old in bindings of Yemenite books. This was apparently accepted procedure for geniza, customary only in Yemen, and possbily, to to a limited extent, in Iraq as well.
As for recycling sifre kodesh without shemot, See Igrot Moshe OH IV 39.