Hey Whats Your Name!

Please let me preface this post by saying how excited I am to be writing it. I know I’m excited because I get super polite when I’m either drunk, or really really excited. And I’m not drunk, soooo…. Back to why I’m excited.

I have a reader question to answer. A real one, not imagined, solicited or otherwise coerced.  Not that I would do that, but, let’s be honest, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. The question from a real live blog follower, reads as follows:

“ ….Any way, question, sorry if it’s stupid, but why do you leave the O out of G-d?”.

This is not a stupid question. This is a fantastic question. And much like everything in Judaism it has a very serious, long, complicated answer that I’m going to nutshell for you as much as possible.

In Judaism, G-d has a lot of names. There’s the big one, given to Moses at the burning bush, and there’s a lot of other names we call the Divine based on attributes that we notice from past interactions (for a full list of those interactions I suggest starting with Genesis).  The G name that you are referring to is actually a rough translation of one of the Hebrew words for G-d.  Regardless of what name we actually use, since it is still referring to our Divine Creator, we treat it with the upmost respect.  As such, it is never fully written out on anything that might be thrown away, or discarded.

Now you might be thinking, this is a blog post, how is it going to be thrown away. Well you see I have a vivid imagination. And sometimes I like to imagine that someone working for- insert any well known newspaper here- will read this blog, like my writing and ask me to come write a column for said newspaper. In order to do this, that person will need to print out a copy of one of my posts and show it to their boss, who after reading it, might accidentally spill coffee on it before it gets framed. Accidents happen.

More realistically, someone reading this blog might print it out and give it to a friend, who after having their mind blown, tosses it in the trash. As you can see there are a myriad of ways my posts could get printed out and wind up in the “real world”; and I’d rather not risk it.

The only place the name of G-d is written fully (that I know of) by observant Jews is in the Torah scrolls. According to Jewish law, if one of the scrolls is damaged and is no longer usable, it has to be buried and separated from other holy objects as a sign of respect.  Fun Fact- if someone drops one of our Torah scrolls while it’s being carried or passed around our entire congregation is supposed to fast for a month, completed in daily shifts by various congregants of course.

Simply put, it’s for respect of the Holy name of G-d and I don’t want to take any chances.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog! I hope my answer helped. Keep em coming folks!