Permissibility of a Logo

Question

Hello,

Thank you for your good work in offering wisdom to so many.

I bought a new phone somewhat recently. The logo of the phone is a bird with a circle behind it. The circle is an outline of a circle so as to indicate it is behind the bird and the bird is flying over it. On starting up the phone, an animation plays of the bird flying up over the circle which is at first illuminated inside before being darkened as the bird freezes in front of it in the image that forms the logo for the phone. The bird “flies away” at shutdown. This is of concern because the name of the phone is also in direct reference to the sun, in a similar fashion (a compound word) as words like ‘sunlight’ or ‘sun-tan’. The fact that the bird flies over it and the company name is also referencing the sun… all would then seem to imply that the outlined or illuminated circle is depicting the sun. It may even be stated somewhere that this is the case– I have not looked in enough detail to know. Is the phone permitted to be used and looked at, including the logo, given the laws around depicting the sun etc.? Thank you.

0

Answers

  1. Unless the phone was created as an Avodah Zarah (which might be a question about all smartphones…), there is no problem with owning such a p[hone, and, likewise, there is no problem with switching your phone on and off.

    Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team