Bread on the Water

A note on two words

You are going to see G-d and L-rd on every page of this book, and you deserve to know why before you decide it’s a typo.

It’s an old practice. Deuteronomy tells Israel to tear down the names of the nations’ gods off the high places, and then adds a line. “Ye shall not do so unto the L-rd your G-d.” (Deuteronomy 12:4) Don’t handle His name the way you handle theirs. Out of that one sentence came a habit of not writing the Name anywhere it might later be erased, thrown out, or wiped off a screen.

I know the argument against it. The English word is a title, not the Name, and the practice binds nobody. I’m not requiring it of you. Write it however you write it.

I do it anyway, and here’s the honest reason. It makes me stop. Every single time. In a book about doing small things in places where nobody is checking, I’m not going to skip the smallest one on the page.