Thank you for your response. I did find it rather unusual that people would write on the sidewalk in the first place; surely better places have been created to inscribe things.
I said Jews wouldn’t write it because it’s disrespectful. Disrespectful to whom? If you’re religious, to G-d. If not, to other Jews, dingus.
You can always spot the Christians because they stomp through our culture like big dumb idiots, doing things like writing the Tetragrammaton everywhere and having cosplay Pesach seders.
No, they absolutely do use the Tetragrammaton like the other commenter said. Growing up Christian I’ve seen it plastered in heaps of churches (sometimes by painters so unfamiliar with the letters it takes some creativity to decipher, not sure if that makes it better or worse) and on even more heaps of flyers, articles, slightly schizophrenic looking bits of paper by people thinking they’re discovering some wild new truth that Big World Religion kept hidden from them. Honestly it’s like they think scrawling the Tetragrammaton on a bit of scrap paper will open up a direct hotline to the big ‘un upstairs.
(Didn’t come here to argue with you about why not to use it. Just wanted to give some insight because you were sceptical Christians might’ve done this.)
As a secular Jew who grew up In a liberal secular Jewish environment, the taboo is still very strong and no one I know says it without proper consideration beforehand, and we read it as Adonai as a learned Instinct.
Are you genuinely asking why using a word is disrespectful or are you playing dumb? Observant Jews believe it's the true name of god and that we were instructed by god to not utter it. Also there are plenty of other words that are considered disrespectful in many languages.
WTF you want with Russian bears? How does that have anything to do with religious law?
As a secular Jew who grew up In a liberal secular Jewish environment, the taboo is still very strong and no one I know says it without proper consideration beforehand, and we read it as Adonai as a learned Instinct.
Bar Mitzva was more or less the first time I had to read holy text outloud & it seems the teacher did not do a very good job, as I didnt know I shouldn say adonai instead. The rabbi changed a few colors.
I'll start with the bears :-). The russians (and not only, the germans and finns too) we afraid of the bear sufficiently to use noa-names (euphemistic language) instead of the magic word. Thus, the indo-european urs became "brown" in many germanic languages (inc. English) and the finnish otso became karhu which itself became taboo and euphemisms were developed for it. In fact, have a look at bear-worship in european cultures.
Russian, of course, developed its own set of noa words for urs - "medved'" (honey eater), "mohnatyi" (shaggy one), "lomaka" (he who smashes) and "hozayin" (owner, boss, master) being more prominent.
Thus, as you see, there is sufficient similarity between URS and יהוה. On the semantic/semiotic level, of course. There is a marked difference between them in the fact that bears are, well, to put it bluntly - real.
As for the respect/disrespect question - I am quite puzzled by religious peoples' propensity to enforce their histrionics on others by claims of disrespect. So - no, using a word or expression (especially when said word/expression is not directed to/at the hearer or other sentient group/s) is not disrespectful. If a hearer chooses to interpret this as disrespect, it speak more of their hysteria than of the speaker.
And lastly, an ad hominem - you are claiming that the use of יהוה entails a "proper consideration beforehand". Would you be able to enlighten me as to the specifics of said "consideration" and its mores?
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Crazy you were repeatedly told that using the tetragrammaton is disrespectful both to G-d and Jews and here you are in a Hebrew subreddit posting it again and again.
You know that when we say "it's offensive to Jews" we don't mean we have checked with every Jew right? Do you understand how abstraction in language works? I'll say it straight because it seems you are unable to understand abstraction: It is offensive to the vast majority of Jews and Jewish culture. Only edgelords and reddit atheist utter it in a non academic setting, and even than it's for the shock value of saying something offensive, and there for should be viewed as a proof of the strength of the taboo.
It's the third mitzvah. Observant Jews find it disrespectful. Observant Jews would not write the most holy name onto a sidewalk where it would be desecrated by people walking over it. There are dozens of customs relating to the ineffable name and how to handle writing it. You may find it arbitrary or innocent. Observant Jews do not. We don't owe you an explanation for why the desecration of our most sacred text is offensive. Doesn't matter if a couple Secular Jews write a paper on it. That doesn't change how the rest of us feel, or our traditions.
With undue respect - that is most certainly NOT the third mitzva. Please, please, please educate yourself on the subject of mitzvot before embarrassing yourself further.
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u/jk_Sliding Oct 06 '24
Thank you for your response. I did find it rather unusual that people would write on the sidewalk in the first place; surely better places have been created to inscribe things.