Friday, November 23, 1973—THE BULLETIN—5
Letters to the
•u
Forthright staniT
Dear Mr. Kaplan:
The Bulletin is a most interesting publication. Your forthright and courageous editorials are very commendable. We need more like these in ourother Canadian Jewish publications,
DR. N. SCHECTER, Ottawa.
JEWS NEED OPEN LINE PROGRAMS
Dear Mr. Kaplan:
Has anyone told you lately that you do a darned good job of editing and publishing The Bulletin?
The possibility of a negative or positive Blue Book is news and that is what you gave us (Oct. 26, JWB, Page 1). You made us all think, talk and examine ourselves and look around at others. And that is what you undoubtedly intended to do.
It's sad if people don't have money to give to Israel; but if they do have m^oney and don't give, then they're really to be pitied. However while 1 don't think we should have any kind of Blue Book here, I also don't think we should keep quiet when some of our people are not interested in Israel. We should know that there are those among us who do not support Israel.
Regarding M. Sanford's letter JWB, Nov. 9) about boycotting France and England, I think this could, hurt Jewish firms, in these 'countries and thereby interfere with the flow of money to Israel rough donations by Jews who own and staff these businesses, oycott can only work in coun-ries where Jewish people are not business - shall we try Russia nd all the Arab lands for a start? rhey are the ones that should be ^ycotted.
The article by Yosef Tekoah ;jWB , Nov. 2) was a wonderful xplanation of Zionism. Hearing ill the hate that has been coming ver the airwaves on open line hows (for example, on CKWX), have come up with a simple tatement on Zionism that works or me:
A Jew is a Jew and a Zionist ; a Jew - and never the two hall part. On Nov. 11 Rod Booth had a est, Lois Boyce who had just eturned from a "peace con-erence" in Russia where she "escribed everything as being dyllic. Then most cleverly, three inutes before the program was ver when it was too late for nyone to call. Rod Booth asked ois Boyce about the Mideast ituation.
She said that there was a very large and growing group of Jews in Israel opposed to the Zionists iiere-which is a deliberately distorted exaggeration of the exis-ince of a few leftists and Communists in Israel who have very freedom to be against their overnment because they live in an open democracy.
The purpose of going into all of these matters is to get across thp point that in my humble opinion we need an open line show or program on radio that's for the Jews. We need a program on which people can hear explanations like that of Tekoah on Zionism; talks by informed local people and interviews with guests and visitors; a forum for rabbis, teachers and knowledgeable people among us to counteract the wholesale lies and distortions stemming from anti-Semitic open liners, their callers and Arab and Russian propagandists.
D. FREEDMAN
No offence in the name of God
T am asked why it is that some people write God as G-d. And wliat offence is committed by writing the name in full.
First, it should be said that the reason is not. as many imagine, that "God' is to be treated as a name so tremendous that it must never be written in full. Such a reason has no support in any of the classical sources of Judaism. The Mishna (Sanhed-rin 10:1) sternly forbids the utterance of the Tetragramma-ton and Jewish practice has been to substitute for it the name Adonai. "'Lord."
Apart from the fad that this )articular prohibition only re-ers to the utterance of this name, not to the writing of it— it is, of course, written in full in the sefer Torah—it is permitted even to utter, let alone write, the name Adonai. a fortiori the English name "God."
In Deuteronomy chapter 12, verses" 2 and 3, we read: "Ye
shall surely destroy all the places wherein the nations that ye are to dispossess served their gods upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree . . . and ye shall destroy their name out of that place."
Verse 4 continues: "Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God."
The plain meaning is that the nations worship their gods in all kinds of places but you must worship God in the central sanctuary, as verse 5 goes on to say: "But unto the place which the Loid your God shall choose..."
However, a rabbinic interpretation (Sifre to the verse in the name of Rabbi Ishmael) of the juxtaposition of the verses is: "Destroy the names of their gods but do not destroy the name of God"
Thus, the rabbis (Shevuot 35a) rule that there are seven
divine names which must not be erased: El, Elohom, Ehyeh, Adonai, and Tetragrammaton, Shaddai and Tzevaot.
In another Talmudic passage (Rosh Ha-Shanah 18b) it is said that the Sages abolished the practice of recording Gods name (El Elyon) in a legal document because, after the debt has been paid, it would be thrown onto the dust-heap and God's name degraded.
It follows that care must be taken never to cause God's name to be erased or to be eventually cast onto the rubbish-heap, the common fate of most writings.
That is why the people to whom the writer refers forestall it by never writing "God" in full.
They are wrong for the following reasons. First some authorities hold that the prohibition of erasing the divine name only applies to a name
written by a scribe with the express intention of sanctifying it (see Sede Hemed, ed. Friedman, New York, 1962, Vol 4, pp 9f).
Secondly, some authorities hold that the prohibition does not apply to printed words (see I. Z. Kahana: Mehkarim Be-Sifrut Ha-Teshuvot, Jerusalem, 1973, pp 288-9).
Thirdly, and most significant of all, "God" is not one of the seven names that must not be erased and the famous authority Shabbetai b. Meir Ha-Kohen (1621-1662) takes it for granted (Shakh to Yoreh Deah 179:11) that the prohibition does not apply to the names of God in other languages than Hebrew, referring specifically to the name Gott in German and the name Bog in Polish.
There is no question, therefore, that according to the din it is permitted to write "God" in full
Copyrig^lit JCNftKS