How do you write GeeOeDee?
Driving back from our Shavuos retreat weekend, BZ and I were talking about the [false] theological practice of substituting names for HaShem. BZ cited that the tetragrammaton has many alternates, which are in turn substituted with HaShem, which in turn is substituted in some frum communities with H’Sh’m.
This parallels the English practice of not writing the “o” in God. Then some use G-d, which is already a substitute name for the tetragrammaton, so it’s really not necessary. I, and many others in the pluralistic, “fruity,” liberal Jew circles in which I hang, like the G!d. It shows excitement and awe, and I find it aesthetically pleasing as well.
We started brainstorming other versions:
G?d for atheists G0d for agnostics G1d for Jews and Muslims G3d for Christians
Can you think of any others?
• God for Jews who feel no need to substitute for a substitute.
Yeah, I second that. This G-d stuff drives me up a wall – though I might find things like G!d even more annoying. To each their own and all that, though.
Generally Omnipotent Diety. Or the Bearded Man in the Clouds, because I think it’s more deeply rooted in tradition.
Shouldn’t the atheists get the zero (g0d) and the agnostics the question mark (g?d).
(Also, I think Jewschool’s CSS is not showing bulleted text in a font that will render a zero as distinguishable from the letter ‘o’.)
I’ve always been completely put off by the whole thing. God is a German word that’s migrated into English. It’s certainly nowhere near YHVH.
I write G-d as a force of habit, but it also is meaningful to me in a way because it’s a reminder that “God” is not the same as every other word in the dictionary, it represents the Omnipotent One, the source of life, etc. I think it’s fine if people write G-d in order to maintain more awareness of the sacredness of Hashem and the problems inherent in trying to write down Hashem’s name. And I do think it serves that purpose for me, and it helps remind me not to use the word in vain. But i don’t think I could begin to try to defend it theologically/linguistically. BTW, even on frum e-mail lists I’m on I’ve never seen people write H’Sh’m.
G-d or Gxd for atheists
As a person from a Christian background, I find it fascinating that there’s even a debate about how to call or name the Unnameable.
I’ve started to be more conscious of what I ascribe to the Almighty as a name because of the Jewish tradition of being conscious of it. I think it’s a great way to be constantly reminded (especially in a culture where the Lord’s name is thrown around like it means nothing) that the Lord is even beyond the words use as attempted descriptors.
this is a fascinating phenomenon that is actually a conflation of two different mitzvot–one which is not to destroy God’s name, the other is not to speak God’s name without reason (i.e., outside prayer or blessing). There are 7 names which cannot be destroyed which have now become the names that people will not say. Needless to say, this is all irrelevant, halakhically speaking, when dealing with non-Hebrew writing. The practice to not write ‘God’ in any language stems, as far as I know, from the Alter Rebbe. I imagine that the practice of utilizing a ‘-‘ in place of the ‘o’ is derived from the advice of the Rambam that when writing the seven names not to be destroyed to insert a ‘-‘ between the first two letters.
What I find fascinating is that frum people will tend to not type ‘God,’ but even Orthodox poskim (legal deciders) have determined that one can delete YHVH if typed on a computer because it is only digital and therefore has no physicality to it.
All this makes me think how crazy a people we really are.
oh, and by the way, there’s only one name that can’t be said, and that’s YHVH (which if you know how to say it, you’re pretty special). So saying things like “kadonai” or “tzevakot” or “kel shaddai” or “kah” is just plain stupid.
Aharon, it’s showing as a solid black bullet for me. Advice?
To be less flippant than I was earlier, I avoid writing the word because I’m not sure where I stand on the use of it. I think the o replacements are kind of silly but I do agree that one should be very mindful about how you describe divinity. I’d rather use a more descriptive word like Lord, Infinite, Divinity, He, It. I don’t like religious consistency.
gods r us – for post-enlightenment self-worshipping modern pagans? i’m thinking legions of shirley maclaines (though i can’t remember the movie) shouting out ‘i am god!’
G$d – for lottery winners who thank God that they won
G@D – for religious high-tech venture capitalists
Godd for Snoop De oh double gee
I generally write God for myself. However in public settings like this and on Twitter (especially during the lead-up to Shavuot using #Torah) I began using G!d. If felt just fine.
Interesting side note: Back when I was at Yeshivat Hamivtar (Brovender’s) there was a copy of someone’s master’s thesis circulating around that asserted that “God” had an etymological connection with the Hebrew word “e?ad” (???, one).
(KFJ: The bullets are solid black for me as well. It’s just that the font for bulleted text is not sans-serif, so the zero looks like a regular ‘o’, at least in my browser. In any case ‘G0d’ makes sense for atheists, and ‘G?d’ for agnostics. Looks like a simple mixup is all.)
Hmm, guess Jewschool’s comment form doesn’t yet support UTF-8 (unicode)…
G[^o]d for computer programmers 🙂
Here’s an example of a site that uses “HaSh-m”: a substitute for a substitute for a substitute.
Sixty years ago, when I was going to cheder with frummies, the evasion (a word I like better in this context than euphemism) was adoshem elokeynu.
None of the discussion above takes note of the name problem on the other side of the spectrum — the liberal discomfort with any English appellation that might suggest gender. Before we became so gender-conscious, the two primary Names were Lord and God. God is still kosher, but Lord gives way to the Eternal, or reverts to the standard Hebrew cop-out, Adonai.
Personally, I find G-D offensive — a purposeful distortion of a name is a sign not of respect but of disrespect. I note on the quotation from the Rav that appears beneath my typing box that he is quoted with God’s name left intact. Kol hakavod.
GxD for the “God is Dead” crowd.
I directly connect Capital G to d in handwriting, but I usually write out God in full while typing. There is really no reason to censor it, for it would seem like blotting out the Holy Name H”V.
The Sephardic “Amonai” bothers me immensely, because it is essentially saying “My Amon” H”V.
Except “God” (as opposed to the Tetragrammaton) is not actually holy.
I’m always especially charmed by such things as “Elokim,” since as soon as you have the “El” part the word goes as it were live; destroying an Elokim is just as bad as destroying an Elohim. Precaution fail.
My friend and teacher Rabbi Ari Cartun uses G0d, with a zero. He also replaces the “o” with a zero in Ad0nay and El0heynu.
He explains that “the zero evokes the concepts of the Ayn Sof (without end or infinity) and the Ayin (literally ‘naught’), the Kabbalistic term for G0d’s ultimate, unknowable no-thing-ness, which is beyond our finite comprehension. By placing a 0 in the middle of the word we use the signify The One (G0d), we are literally dividing one by zero, which, mathematically, equals infinity or an unknowable sum.”
i have been using G?d for a while now, since i have never liked the implications nor the aesthetics of G dash d.
but i am not an atheist. rather, as a post-modern mystic, it signifies the wonder and the mystery of the Divine.
oh, and by the way, there’s only one name that can’t be said, and that’s YHVH (which if you know how to say it, you’re pretty special). So saying things like “kadonai” or “tzevakot” or “kel shaddai” or “kah” is just plain stupid.
My personal favorites are “kelevator” and “ginger kale.” 🙂