struggling over Yom Tov

[cellio]

Today is the seventh day of Pesach. The Torah states quite clearly that this is a festival day (like the first). Yet here I am at work, just like last year and the year before and...

I don't know why I have so much trouble with this one. (And, correspondingly, the last day of Sukkot.) There is natural resistance -- it's another vacation day, and clumps of holidays disrupt work schedules already, and there's no real ritual associated with it (unlike the seder), and -- locally, at least -- there's basically no community encouragement for it outside the Orthodox subset. (Yes, everyone has holiday services, but the presumption that of course you're observing the holiday is absent.)

But the Torah tells us it is a festival and to "do no work", just like the others, and that ought to be sufficient. And every year I feel a little more guilty and become a little more aware that I am sinning.

Maybe next year I will finally overcome this. (Once I start, I will feel bound to do it every time -- no "just when it's convenient" observances here.)

Comments

Re: Why "G-d"?

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Why is substituting a different word better than substituting an approximate pronunciation? Is this a recent thing because you don't know how to pronounce it, or did the Jews previously avoid speaking the name of God as well? (I suppose it's very hard to misuse the name of God if you don't use it at all, so that's a bonus...)

I'm sorry if these questions are either annoying or trivial, feel free to ignore at any point...Also, I'm coming from a background where they've been freely corrupting God's proper name (and that of every other person who appears in scripture) for centuries, so this is a little different...and makes me wonder why no common Christian prayers use the proper name of God-the-father when they're so free with the proper name of God-the-son.

Re: Why "G-d"?

[cellio]

Why is substituting a different word better than substituting an approximate pronunciation?

Just a guess, but if you substitute a different word then anyone looking at the text and hearing you knows you're not speaking the true name. Since we're not supposed to speak the true name (even if we knew how), this is good. There is a concept in Judaism called "marit ayin", "giving the wrong impression", that says that you don't do things that are ok if they can reasonably be mistaken for not ok, especially if this might cause someone else to imitate you and sin. So, as a minor example, if you're going to serve those fake bacon bits with the salad, you put out the jar of fake bacon bits on the table, but you don't spoon them into a serving bowl and lead people to believe you're serving pork.

Is this a recent thing because you don't know how to pronounce it, or did the Jews previously avoid speaking the name of God as well?

When the Temple stood, the high priest spoke the name of God once per year, on Yom Kippur, inside the holy of holies (not publicly). This is the only sanctioned usage as best I recall, though clearly there must also be a mechanism to transmit this knowledge to the next high priest.

And yeah, if you never say the name at all then it's harder to take it in vain, which is a big bonus.

Re: Why "G-d"?

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

When the Temple stood, the high priest spoke the name of God once per year, on Yom Kippur, inside the holy of holies

Woah, and I thought that the movie Pi was just making that up.

Okay, so, considering that the name of God has a standard meaning, that being "I am", how do you prevent people accidentally saying it if the need to assert their existence arises in a conversation?

Re: Why "G-d"?

[cellio]

Actually, God has several names, only one of which is the name (by which I mean the four-letter Hebrew name). As far as I know, that word doesn't have any other meanings and is unlikely to come up in casual conversation.

You're probably thinking of God's answer to Moses' question at the burning bush. God doesn't actually use the four-letter name there; he says "ehyeh asher ehyeh", approximately "I will be who I will be". Volumes have been written on what this means.