Jews
Deifying the Non-Jewish English Word ‘God,’
by Spelling it ‘G-d’
Introduction
For
about the last 90 years, it has become common practice
for persons from English-speaking countries (of varying
religions) to write the word God when they want
to discuss or refer to The Almighty. Among Orthodox
Jews (as well as increasingly among religious Christians),
the usage of the word God with the center letter struck
out is common. From the young student to the rabbinic
scholar, G-d or even Gd, are common ways most Orthodox
Jews write this word. Similarly, the English word Lord
is often written as L-rd.
In
theory and with intrinsic intentions, the Orthodox Jewish
approach is to keep the holy name of The Almighty outside
of daily use as to not make it profane. Further, observant
Jews avoid writing any name of God casually because
of the risk that the written name might later be defaced,
obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who
does not know better. Orthodox Jews feel by replacing
a letter with a dash, they are then not writing a name
of The Almighty, in a situation where it might be taken
as being "in vain." That said, the word God
itself is of non-Jewish origin and it is not a holy
name of The Almighty....
