The story behind the warning that Orthodox Jews should not work on this puzzle is fascinating, and I am very glad I heard it today.https://t.co/gkOXB9YRkM pic.twitter.com/9fzP0Kiplk— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020
I believe (I haven’t worked the puzzle myself) that the puzzle involves manipulating letters of other alphabets as symbols, including the Hebrew alphabet, and at some point in doing the manipulations you would produce the Tetragrammaton (one of the Jewish names for god)— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020
It was unclear to the makers of the puzzle how big of a deal that would be for people solving the puzzle, but here’s wikipedia giving a summary:https://t.co/bls8YzxDKn pic.twitter.com/ybqgauMihh— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020
So if someone were working on the solving the puzzle on scrap paper, and stumbled onto the right track for the solution, unaware of what was going to happen, they might wind up with a piece of scrap paper that they then had to protect/treat as especially sanctified in perpetuity— john stuart thrill 🕶 (@js_thrill) August 8, 2020