What is his name?
Exodus 3. The Divine Name Revealed
13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. [אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה eh-yeh asher eh-yeh]. He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am [אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה] has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord [יְהוָ֞ה], the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
This is my name forever,
Why Do Some Jews Write G-d?
Because the Torah prohibits erasing God's name.
BY MY JEWISH LEARNING
Among observant Jews, it’s not uncommon to see God rendered as “G-d,” particularly, though by no means exclusively, in Orthodox communities.
The source of this practice is a passage in Deuteronomy commanding the Israelites to destroy the altars and obliterate the names of non-Israelite gods worshipped by other nations who once lived in the land of Israel. “Do not do so to the Lord your God,” the passage concludes (Deuteronomy 12:4). The commentator Rashi understands this verse to prohibit the erasure of the name of God. This is also why sacred texts containing God’s name, like Torah scrolls and prayer books, are stored in a genizah and/or buried once they have fallen out of use.
The Talmud (Shevuot 35a) elaborates a specific list of God’s names that may not be erased: El, Elohecha, Elohim, Eloheichem, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, Ad, Yah, Shadai and Tzevaot. Maimonides offers a slightly different list: the Tetragrammaton (pronounced as Adonai), El, Eloha, Elohim, Elohei, Shadai and Tzevaot.
There is some question about whether this prohibition technically applies to God’s name when written in a language other than Hebrew, with many authorities ruling that it does not. More recently, there has been further debate about whether it should apply when God’s name is written digitally, on a website or in an email. Though there are reasonable grounds for concluding that the prohibition ought not apply in these cases, as in many situations where the law is less than fully clear, some Jews prefer to err on the safe side and avoid the practice anyway. Some also consider it a sign of respect to avoid writing God’s name in any language or medium, or as a means of avoiding the tendency to relegate God to a mere concept that can be captured on paper.
Rabbi Alan Lew, asked during his rabbinical school interview why he wrote G-d instead of God, invoked the latter consideration. He writes:
I didn’t want to speak of God without really thinking of or experiencing God. So I used a hyphen to remind me that that word is not the same thing as God. Well, what happens when you get habituated to G-d? he asked me. Well, then I guess I’ll go to an asterisk, I replied.
Indeed, while G-d is still the most common way God’s name is rendered in print by those mindful of this concern, some have in recent years taken to using G*d or G!d.
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Commonly pronounced Adonai (Lord) or Ha-Shem (the Name).
Copy and pasted from "My Jewish Learning" this morning. TW+
RSF&PTL
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