Jewish question

[Monel Funkawitz]

This is a dumb question, but I was looking through a child's Jewish book, and anywhere where it mentions Lord or God, it is bleeped out with a hyphen.

Ex... God (G-d)
Ex... Lord (L-rd)

Are they forbidden to say it? Why?

 

[aphex]

I remember learning it in hebrew school but i cant recall why. Lemme call my mom, she might know

 

[Passner]

you cannot say Hashem's name in vain, so if it is possible, you hyphen in. I believe most people hypen G-d, if it is not in a holy context.

 

[aphex]

i think passner may be correct... my mom wasnt home so i couldnt ask...

 

[Justin218]

I think it's just a personal preference or something. Some people do it, and some people don't.

 

[KevinF]

It's an extension of not using the God's name in vain.

Since the paper will eventually be destroyed, that is using God's name in vain.

However, it's interesting to see Lord hyphenated that way. That hypenation of God's name is a very reform thing, and Lord is pretty much not used by reform Jews because it is a "male" word.

 

[gopunk]

poppycock if you ask me

i get so irritated at people that accost me for saying "hell"

 

[erub]

1derful is correct. Any place God's name is written, it is supposed to be buried and not destroyed. This, IMO, mainly applies to when it is written in Hebrew. Most of the time, God's name in Hebrew is written as "his name". Interstingly, there is no correct pronunciation of God's actual name in hebrew - it is a yud,chey, vhav, hay (SP, i don't know how to spell the hebrew letters in english...). So Yahweh is not God's name - the reason nobody knows how to pronounce God's name in Hebrew is because it was written without any vowels, and only the high priest from the ancient temple knew it, and recited it only once a year, drowned out by the other priests in the temple. I've seen Orthodox Jews write God as G-d as well, though.