re: #320 buzzsawmonkey

Spelling “God” as “G-d” is a convention that carries over into English the Jewish practice of not pronouncing the Name of G-d in any direct manner. The Tetragrammaton which some people insist on pronouncing or spelling as “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” is never pronounced; tradition has it that it was only pronounced by the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) on Yom Kippur, and that the proper pronunciation has been lost. Instead, various euphemisms are used; “HaShem” (“the Name”) is the most common. When “Elohim” is used outside of the context of actual prayer, Orthodox Jews will intentionally mispronounce it as “Elokim” for the same reason.

Why do Jews who do not believe in G-d still continue this convention? Probably because it is a convention, which, if learned early and deeply enough, feels strange to abandon. By the same token, many Jews who do not keep kosher still do not eat mixed milk and meat dishes like cheeseburgers; they may well eat something overtly treif like bacon or shellfish, but the milk/meat mixture just doesn’t “sit right.” Or they may take lemon instead of milk in their tea because they were brought up with this vestigial remnant of kashrut and the other doesn’t “taste right.”

Actually it is not the Tetragammaton that was pronounced on Yom Kippur according to many rabbaim, but rather a much longer kabbalistic Name.

The reason for the care with the name has the following roots:

1. Kids answer: you don’t call your father, a king or a president by their first name.

2. Intermediate answer: Naming something is putting a classification and a boundary on something. Contained within the act of naming, one believes that they have a full picture in their mind. We do not say the Name because it is a reminder that G-d defines you and you do not define Him and a remider that He does not have bounds that conform to your intellect.

3. Deep woojy answer: It is a statement of Goedel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Hashem defines the universe. If you could honestly name Him, i.e. “see his face” note Moshe Rabbenu’s request - would mean that you see Him from outside of Him and that you have left the set that defines you. Hence you would cease to exist. This is a deep statement of the idea that the universe is contained within Hashem.