Jewish people who type the word “god” as “g-d”: Do you think you can fool the big man upstairs with a technical work around? When he goes through your emails/texts/facebook posts after you die, you don’t think he’s gonna see that dash and think “this sneaky fuck here, enjoy h-ll.”
this thought comes from someone who has no idea how Judaism works, but okay.
People avoid writing out God’s name, because you aren’t ever allowed to destroy or desecrate something with God’s name on it – you have to bury it instead. That’s what a genizah is. The most well known is probably the Cairo Genizah. It’s a box where Jews can put anything with God’s name on it to ensure that it gets buried.
So obviously Jews do write out God’s name. In fact, it used to be traditional to mark the top of pages with God’s name as a kind of blessing or mark of honesty. That’s why there are so many miscellaneous texts in genizahs.
Judaism reads “do not use my name in vain” pretty literally as a command to revere and respect the Y-H-V-H name of God.
Most rabbis agree that this commandment only holds for the hebrew, so not typing out God is more something people do out of respect or as a nod to this tradition. Some people use G-d because they want to parallel the fact that the tradition was put in place for people who would be speaking and writing in hebrew or a very near identical language like Aramaic.
It’s a matter of respect, not a matter of “don’t do this or you will be punished.”
Besides, Judaism deals almost exclusively with punishment in life and Judaism very explicitly doesn’t have a clear and codified notion of עולם הבא (the world to come). And there is certainly no notion of hell.
Also, Judaism is not nearly that harsh in response to small mistakes. We have a holiday every year explicitly devoted to the idea that we all fuck up and that we need to ask forgiveness from each other and God (and during which God does all the judging – God doesn’t wait until after we die. It’s an active thing that can be constantly adjusted).
Maybe world religions is not the best topic of contemplation during your shower.
As a tangentially related note, the Cairo Genizah basically didn’t get emptied for like, a thousand years, and in the late 19th century historians started going through it and found all kinds of writing in Hebrew and Arabic about day-to-day Jewish life, trading activity, etc. throughout the Islamic world and Indian Ocean region, there’s even writings from famous people like Maimonides.There’s hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. Some of them have been translated and published and it’s really neat to look at if you’re into that kind of thing.
So this tradition gave us a historical treasure whose value cannot even be described.
To add another perspective:
I don’t personally see the need to write G-d. I’d be perfectly happy using the standard spelling.
HOWEVER, my sister uses G-d. And at some point during my conversion I asked myself: “which is an easier burden, me learning to automatically write G-d, or the burden I place on other Jews by forcing them to take responsibility for what I’ve written, go to their rabbi, get my writing blessed, find a genizah….” Clearly, the answer is that it’s easier for me to write “G-d.” So I do.
This doesn’t even mean I never write it out, incidentally. My sister made a pilgrimage to Israel last winter, shortly after one of my close friends committed suicide. I couldn’t go, but Angel told me if I wanted to write a prayer for Sarah and send it to her, she’d leave it at the Western Wall. I sent Sarah’s favorite picture of herself, and a prayer in which I deliberately included the words “You, God, are….” because I knew that doing so ensured both prayer and picture would be buried with respect in a genizah when the Wall was cleared. Part of Sarah will always be in Israel. It was a way of invoking His name to protect her—and as we understand Him in Judaism, I can’t imagine Him looking at that action as anything but “yeah, that’s okay. You do what you need to do.”
It’s not a sin workaround. It’s respect for His name.
“I’m at synagogue on Saturdays, but if my pager goes off, I drive in to the hospital, because saving a life supersedes the Sabbath. Many people I meet believe that my faith is at odds with my career. But my work allows me to practise the medicine that interests me while helping a marginalized community. I deal with patients who, by and large, have had negative experiences with hospitals and the health care system, and I give them the care they deserve. That is very much in line with my religious practice.”
“And that is the real source of discomfort: many Orthodox people see gender-affirming surgery as an admission that God made a mistake. They see me as calling God out on that mistake by correcting it. Which is odd: nobody’s accusing God of screwing up someone’s pancreas when they have diabetes or suggesting it’s a sin to inject insulin.”
I really wish there was an option on those Customer Service Surveys that says specifically, “The representative I spoke to was lovely and helpful and deserves all of the raises but I think that you, as a corporation, should die in a fire.”
hey as somebody who works in one of those companies that sends out those surveys, never, NEVER mention how much you hate the company in them. just talk about the representative. then, go to the company’s social media page and blast your bad reviews there
those surveys decide our pay, they decide whether we get bonuses or not, they decide if we get to keep our jobs or not. i’ve read transcripts on surveys where it’s has been praising the representative but mentioned one bad thing about the company. that fell to the representative because they should have been enough to sway the customers opinion.
Hey just to add on, if you liked the representative, and the survey is asking for opinions on a scale of 0-10… please give the rep 10′s across the board. Don’t try to be thoughtful and detailed and put down a 7 or an 8 or a 9. A lot of times anything below a 9 or 10 counts as a zero (no, for real) and guess who it comes back to? That’s right, the customer service rep.
At my job anything below a 10 is zero and our store is graded on our survey % so if anyone even puts 9s across the board it’s a 0 in the end and heavily brings down our stores score- which can lead to firings,
corporations: more horrible than i thought
Reiterate: Always score those surveys as 10s. Blast the company itself on social media.
In an awesome display of support dozens of gaming companies are coming forth with support and job opportunities for the now unemployed workers from telltale. These are just 10 of dozens of companies on twitter with these sentiments. It’s times like these where I love being a gamer and in the gaming community. Blizzard, naughty dog, Ubisoft, zenimax and countless others are showing the support that these workers deserve and need and it is truly classy!!!
His name is Blaine Hodge and he did such an amazing thing that just honestly made me feel proud and happy to know there’s good people out there. He came out of that dangerous situation saving a woman by stepping in and taking injuries to his hands, arms, and leg. He actually had a gofundme to help pay for his medical bills but closed it due to so many donations pouring in!
I wanted to share the most recent update he made from his gofundme here cause it really touched me and I believe is incredibly important for people to know:
“Blaine here –
Let me start with this: the outpour of love and support from everyone has been absolutely overwhelming.
In a way, I feel as though it’s a dream, and I’m having a difficult time taking responsibility for my actions in the way that you are all describing. I only did what I would do, what I felt in my core that I am supposed to do, what was my responsibility. In turn, I am having difficulty accepting so much from you. This is why, after one week, my team and I have decided to disable further donations. I am good. I will be good. And I have faith in you. This money will be such a great help to me. I will be able to pay my rent for a few months, finally get a vehicle that I won’t be able to drive for a while, clear my debts, get a bed, put food in my mouth, and donate to the Jamison Center, where I spent too much time in my youth.
On that note, I need to turn the narrative to the big picture. Teach your boys to love and respect women, to take rejection as an opening door to the rest of their lives, to be comfortable in themselves and to hold the women in their lives as holy. This event, what happened to me and that woman in Starbucks last Sunday, this is what happens. This is the result of a man thinking he has the right to a woman’s life. This is the result of one person not taking the time to teach him what is right. Please, if you’d like to donate more: donate to a shelter, donate to the Jamison Center, donate your time and love to the young ones around you. Teach them. Love them. Thank you.”
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