The Dead Hand Journal

A young lady asked me this morning why I hyphenate G-d. It's a great question, and I thought my answer might prove interesting to others.

One caveat: my answer is intended to be brief and informative, not comprehensive. I'd be delighted to DISCUSS this all day long, but if you want to ARGUE the finer points, I'll set up a forum. :)

Anyway, here's my response:

That's a great question!
 
About 1,500 years ago, when Jewish sages began seriously to construct the system that ultimately became Halakhah, or Jewish law, one critical guiding principle was to "put a fence around the Torah." In a nutshell, this means that if a thing were required or prohibited in Torah, then so are many of its logical extensions.
 
So, Jews are forbidden to pronounce the Name of G-d except at two very precise moments during the prayers at Yom Kippur... an indescribably powerful experience, by the way. The Name virtually never shows up in Jewish writings; instead we use euphemisms (remember, I'm transliterating Hebrew) like Adonai ("Lord") or ha Shem ("the Name"). By extension, though, we rarely write THOSE either. Instead, our texts often use the catch-all abbreviation 'ey-eh ("I am", taken from G-d's words to Moses at the burning bush: 'Ey-eh 'asher 'ey-eh, "I am that I am").
 
Because the complete word G-d (with the capital "G") IS the Name of G-d in English, many Jews are uncomfortable using it. But we still need to be able to communicate with the rest of the world, so it's become something of a convention to write "G-d".
 
Because of this context, I am incapable of writing even this word without experiencing a thrill of awe... because I've just touched a thing that is somewhat connected with a thing that stands as a euphemism for the name of something so unutterably holy that language and thought simply fail...
 
Get it? Frankly, I'm not a particularly observant Jew. But G-d to me is a lot like water to a fish: so pervasive and essential that, unless you do things to force yourself to pay attention, He's damn near invisible.
 
Please understand, by the way, that you will in NO WAY offend me if you don't do this, any more than it would offend me if you, as a civilian, failed to salute a senior military officer. It just isn't your context, and I hope you can guess by now that I am NOT one of those people who walks around looking for a reason to be offended. :)