[Avodah] HaShem as God's Name

[Minden]

RAK wrote:
> Yes, it's gotten to that point, but I think it has actually advanced even further beyond that point: I've seen some write it as "H-shem" or as "Hash-m" so as to avoid desecrating it when the writing is discarded. […] Those who would make fun of the spelling "Hash-m" surely feel that way because it is not among the Names of G-d. And I agree that it is not a Name in the English language, certainly not in Lashon Hakodesh, and not in Yiddish either.
>
> But perhaps it *IS* a Holy Name in the language (dialect, creole, whatever) known as "Yeshivish". Those who speak Yeshivish certainly use it in that sense: "Hashem said this. Hashem did that."

But today, it's so common to write H-shem or Hash-m and similar forms that these should maybe be considered holy names by now, and one should deform them somehow. What options does we have? Some symbol? The Aibershter Formally Known As H*sh#m -> TAFKAH -> T-FKAH? (Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafkap ) God, that's difficult!

A suspicion offers itself: People said God/Got, but the question wasn't so pressing anyway, because they said it much less often than people refer to God today. Connected to the difference that there was emune pshute (in the best sense), but less stress on hashgoche protis, and that people lived according to the Tôre, but they lived a Jewish *life*, instead of occupying themselves 24/7 with Judaism.

Another note: 18th century sforem indicate that people said, as a farewell formula similar to "God speed you", "Lech beshem elôhei Yisroel" - not "elôkei". And formerly, they certainly didn't distort the names in zmires, AFAIK not even when a line was repeated.

LPhM


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