Judith Kaplan's Bat Mitzvah (1922)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 06/23/2002 8:29:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU writes:

> >>  Q:  How do Reconstructionists spell the name of the Deity?   Pr-cess.
>  >>  A:  Pr-cess.
>
>  I'm glad someone got it. I didn't. Why is the word repeated? And how is it
>  pronounced?
>

Repeating the word was a typo.

As for "how it is proinounced?", the proper question is whether it is
pronounced.

The Old Testament generally uses one of two names for the Deity.  One is
"Elohim"(frequently shortened to "El"), usually translated as "God".  The
other is the Tetragram, consisting of the four consonants Y-H-V-H (or if
you're German, as the leading Biblical scholars were in the 19th Century,
J-H-W-H), generally translated into English as "Lord" although "Eternal"
would be more accurate.  There is much colorful lore and mysticism about the
Tetragram, but for this discussion all you need to know is that
1)  the Name (that is, the Tetragram with the proper vowels) was only to be
uttered by the High Priest
2) the proper vowels have been lost
3) the Tetragram (in Hebrew, not Latin, letters) must be written only in holy
works, or more exactly, writing the Tetragram makes the parchment or paper
holy and therefore requiring special handling.

So what happened when Jews moved into the English-speaking world?  Some pious
Jews felt that it was wrong to write the English name of the Deity, and so a
custom grew up among SOME Jews to write "G-d" instead of "God".  (You will
not that I do not follow this tradition.)

Imagine the consternation of a Gentile who was an English teacher at a Jewish
day school.  He assigned some homework about Jonathan Edwards and to his
total confusion received papers talking about "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry G-d".

Reconstructionism is more interested in Judaism as a community than in the
spiritual side of Judaism.  (Someone correct me here if I'm wrong).  Hence to
them the Deity is more of a Process than a Being, or something like that.

The spelling "Pr-cess" is therefore a satirical in-joke.

     - Jim Landau

P.S.  "Bethany" is Hebrew for "my house"