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.
Tag: judaism
Hey liberal/leftist Christians, we need to talk
So first of all – what you’re doing is so important, especially now during Pride Month. Reminding people that what Jesus really stood for was radical love is so necessary, and I admire the way you stand strong and refuse to accept that the only options are atheism and conservative Christianity – you know there’s room in the middle for nuance and for a more truthful read of who Jesus really was. And honestly you do lifesaving work in helping lgbt Christians realize that Jesus loves them.
But. We’ve gotta talk about how you sometimes frame things. Sometimes, in your (admirable!) haste to assure lgbt Christians they are loved, you throw Jews under the bus. And it… doesn’t feel great. As a fellow lgbt religious person, we should be in this together.
What I mean is, comments like “the old testament god was vengeful, but Jesus is loving.” Or “now that we have Jesus, the old testament commandments are irrelevant and they’d be impossible to follow anyway.” Or really, in general, things that put down the old testament.
There are living breathing people whose religion is based on the old testament god and the old testament laws. When you throw those under the bus, you throw us under the bus too. We’re not just some sort of ancient strawman from the times of Jesus, we exist here and now and we see those comments.
I know this is complicated because supercessionism (regardless of how problematic it is) is a core part of Christian belief, but let’s try to move forward more sensitively, at least. Just… at the very least keep in mind that Christianity is based on Judaism and got its foundational documents from Judaism, and to do that and then turn around and throw those very same documents (and Jews and Judaism) under the bus is pretty rude – especially considering the legacy of Christians murdering and massacring Jews based on our being “incomplete” for not accepting Christ.
So, keep moving forward with the important work you are doing, but frame it in ways that does not uplift one group of people while throwing another under the bus.
This is essentially the thesis of Emily A. Filler’s fantastic op-ed, “Does God Hate Shrimp? When Biblical Citation Goes Awry”, which I highly recommend reading.
listen i know a lot of you think that judaism is just like….christianity but with some cool more ~ethnique~ holidays or whatever but if you’re approaching your interpretation of judaism within any sort of framework related to xtianity you’re doing it entirely wrong
“the torah says [x]” doesn’t mean “the torah says this and so this is what everyone does bc that’s the torah”
“the torah says [x]” means “for the next several thousand years people are going to argue about what exactly this means, what the loopholes are, how many different ways this can be interpreted, whether we should even follow it, and hey maybe gd isn’t even real so maybe the question is how this impacts us and our society, what are the implications, etc”
judaism is not “the torah says sodomy is an abhorrence therefore the entire religion is intrinsically homophobic and gd hates gays and is gonna send us to hell for being gay” because that is not how judaism works AT ALL
if you’re a prospective convert, if you’re someone who’s interested in theology, if you’re someone who thinks you know enough about judaism to talk about it on the internet, it is ESSENTIAL to understand these things.
judaism is not, and has never been, xtianity. not just because of our holidays. not just because we don’t believe that jesus is the messiah. but because we have a fundamentally different philosophy about gd, the torah, and how we should live our lives.
this is ok to rb btw
ykw goyim can reblog this too just don’t be stupid
One of the things I love about Judaism, as an outsider, is that apparently the rabbis got together a long long time ago, and decided, “the IMPORTANT part of this religion, is that people be decent to each other. When you love your family and respect your neighbors and are polite to strangers, and you strive to do well at your job and to understand that even very strange or damaged people are worthy of consideration… you are living the true holy path.”
And also, “Okay, so, we got all this scripture stuffs, lots of scripture, says lots of things. … How do we interpret it so that it agrees with that?”
THIS THIS THIS
Are there hardline Jews who believe there’s One True Interpretation and All Others Are WRONG? Absolutely.
But for the most part? It’s about what feels right for you and what does right for the community. It’s about bringing light into your life, into your community, and letting that light shine out to change the world.
So yeah, outsiders get caught up in “But you ~can’t~ eat cheeseburgers because the Torah says so!” and I’m all “I do what I can to help myself, my people, and the world, but take my cheeseburger and I will stab you with my fork.”
Okay, maybe that last part isn’t Jewish, but this is what INFURIATES me about people who try to get picky at me and tell me I’m doing Judaism wrong.
Because Judaism isn’t all about “tick off all these boxes, play-act through these ceremonies, and you get to go to Heaven and laugh your ass off at all the schmucks who went to Hell.”
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 