Main news for 30 April 2022

Names of gods, sacred names, have always played a special role in the life of the Jewish people and of other peoples of antiquity. The reason is that from very early times something special was associated with a name, whether the name of a person, a spirit, or even a domestic animal.

The basis for such an attitude is not hard to find in the Book of Genesis, in its second chapter, where it speaks of the creation of the human person and of how the person created by God in His image and likeness gave names to the animals, and the text speaks first of all about domestic animals, which God brought to him. The corresponding Hebrew word can mean both a designation, a common name, and a proper name; in any case the issue is the connection of the name with the meaning of the one named and the relationship of the person with the one to whom he gives a name.

If God or another spirit reveals His, or its, name to a person, this means that He, or it, opens Himself to the person, enters into contact with him, and allows him to address Himself. It is not surprising that so much attention was paid in antiquity to the names of gods and sacred names: they were never pronounced just like that. When one named the name of a deity or spirit, one could always expect an answer, a response, a manifestation. Yahwism adopts this attitude toward the sacred name: it is no accident that among the Ten Commandments there is one, the third, forbidding the mention of God's name in vain.

Regarding the names of pagan gods, against this background there appears a completely understandable demand not to mention them at all, to see that they do not even accidentally slip from the tongue.

One might think that an accidentally dropped word, and in particular an accidentally mentioned name, does not count. But the Torah reminds us that there are no accidents in spiritual life: if someone's name is on our tongue, then deep in the soul our connection with the one who bears that name is strong enough.

In such a case there can be no question of normal spiritual life. If so, then the center of our life is not God, but someone else. Then we will have to forget not only the third commandment, but also the first. And the way of God as well.