I Thought That Jews Write G-D Like This?
It was seen pretty early in the movie, where the Rabbi has a file on God.
I'm not Jewish but I thought that whenever Jews write God down they write it like like this - "G-D".
"I thought that whenever Jews write God down they write it like like this - "G-D"."
That's what my wife said. I'd never heard that before, but I knew they didn't "say" God's name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkbqzWVHZI
"You're forgetting one thing- I just started using laser cats again!"
Hi,
We normally do write it with the dash in the middle. (This also applies to the word L-rd.) There are variants on that. I usually write it G-d. On occasion I have written it G0d. Writing the name with a dash in the middle is a custom, but it is not a requirement. The idea is that we are not supposed to destroy G-d's name, so if it is something that we expect to dispose of then we would write it with the dash so that we are not really writing the name.
I mentioned that it is a custom. I have heard one argument that we don't need to follow the custom because the English spelling is not really the name anyway, so there is no need to protect the pseudonym from destruction. I have heard people mention this view, but I see everyone using the dash.
Within the movie, it could be argued that the Rabbi intended to permanently keep the file so he didn't need to use a dash. However my opinion is that a minority of viewers are familiar with the dash custom, and so the name was spelled out for the sake of the majority of viewers. In fact, it's even possible that the writer of the movie is not familiar with the custom. I have not read the book, so I do not know how Mitch Albom writes the name within it.