re: #298 cenotaphium

You use “G-d” in your writing. May I ask why you don’t simply write “God”? This seemingly arbitrary dropping of a vowel has always perplexed me.

Force of habit. In Jewish law, the name of G-d is always taken as something to be treated with the greatest respect. For one thing, if you write it, you have to be very careful that it does not get erased. So, in general writing, Jews will often abbreviate names of G-d to prevent that from happening.

Either that, or we write Hashem, which literally means “the Name” as a place holder for a name of G-d.

Now the word “god” itself, is not even a Hebrew word and it is no more one of His names than saying deity. However, it has become tradition to drop the vowel in the word for the same reasons and I do it out of force of habit, particularly when I am writing with other observant Jews around, because they expect to see it.