Law 2 of seven, a restraint
Treat the Name of G-d with reverence
Of all seven, this is the one that sounds smallest and is not. It governs the only faculty a human being has that can reach across a room and change what someone is. The tradition guards it so carefully that it will not even write the name of the offence.
OneIn one sentence
The Name of G-d is not to be used as a weapon, a curse, or a throwaway, and reverence in speech is the first place reverence becomes real.
blessing the Name
ברכת השםBirkas Hashem
The words mean blessing the Name, and they are a deliberate substitution. The tradition would not write the real subject of the law, which is cursing it, so it wrote the opposite word instead. The euphemism is itself the teaching.
TwoWhere it comes from
All seven laws are read out of a single verse spoken to the first human being. This one is found in the words ה׳ Hashem, which mean the l-rd, in Bereishis 2:16.
In the Talmud's reading of the verse spoken to the first human being, the four letter Name at the start of the verse is where this law is found. Notice that the Hebrew word Hashem, which observant readers use in speech, itself means the Name: even the ordinary way of referring to G-d in conversation is already a substitution made out of care.
The Rambam counts this among the seven and treats it as binding on every human being. The detail of the law is set out further on in the same chapter.
Cited: Bereishis 2:16; Sanhedrin 56b; Rambam, Hilchos Melachim 9:1. Every reference on this site is listed in full, with its status, on the sources page.
ThreeWhat it actually asks of you
That the Name not be used to wound.
Cursing in G-d's Name, swearing at someone under it, invoking it to frighten or to shame. The law is aimed at the moment speech is turned into a weapon and the Name is the edge.
That an oath mean something.
If you put your word under the Name, in a court, in a contract, in a promise to a child, the word has to hold. Swearing casually about small things is how the capacity to swear about large things dies.
That you speak of the Maker the way you would speak in a room where He is.
Which is every room. This is not stiffness and it is not fear. It is the ordinary courtesy you already extend to someone present.
FourWhat it does not ask of you
It does not forbid questions.
Arguing, complaining, demanding an explanation, saying plainly that something is unbearable: the Hebrew Bible is full of this and it is not what the law is about. Honest protest addressed to G-d is a form of relationship, not a breach of it.
It does not forbid doubt.
You may say out loud that you do not know whether anyone is listening. That is not cursing. It is reporting.
It does not require Hebrew.
This site writes G-d with a hyphen, a common practice of reverence in English. It is a custom, not the law, and you are not obliged to adopt it. What matters is what your speech is doing, not which alphabet it is doing it in.
It does not make ordinary swearing a capital matter.
Coarse language is a separate question about how you would like to speak. This law is specifically about the Name being turned against its Owner or used to give weight to a lie.
FiveThe deeper layer
The deeper layer
Everything above is the plain law. What follows is the inner tradition's reading of it, and it never replaces what came first.
Look at what the tradition did with the title of this law. The subject is cursing the Name. The Talmud wrote blessing instead, and the substitution has stood for two thousand years. The Sages were unwilling to place the true word next to the true Name even inside a discussion of the prohibition, in a book, in a study hall, in an argument about law.
That is not squeamishness. It is a claim about how speech works. A word is not a label attached to a thing from outside. In the Hebrew account of creation the world is made by speech, and by ten sayings, which means that saying and existing are not separate categories at the top. Speech is the seam where an inner reality becomes a thing that is out in the world.
So a law about the Name is not a law about etiquette. It is a law about the one place where a human being does something structurally similar to what G-d did: bring something into the shared world by saying it. The seven laws place a boundary around each faculty a person could use to consume what is not theirs. This is the boundary around the mouth.
SixOne practice this week
Let one sentence go unsaid.
This week, catch one sentence on its way out that would have used G-d, or heaven, or hell, to add force to something you were angry about. Do not replace it with a better sentence. Just let the force drop and say the plain thing underneath it. Notice what the plain thing turns out to be.
SevenQuestions people ask
Why do you write G-d with a hyphen?
It is a custom of reverence, carried over from the care taken with the written Hebrew Name, which is not erased or discarded. English is not Hebrew and the custom is not required by law. This site keeps it because the care is part of the subject.
Is saying oh my G-d a violation?
It is not what the law targets. The law is about cursing the Name and about swearing falsely under it. A reflex phrase is a question of how carefully you would like to speak, which is worth asking, and it is a smaller question than the one this law is about.
Can I still be angry at G-d?
Yes, and you can say so. The distance between honest anger addressed to someone and a curse aimed at them is not subtle, and you already know where it is in every other relationship you have.
What about oaths in court?
Taking an oath is not forbidden. Taking one lightly, or taking one you do not intend to keep, is the thing the law guards against. If you are ever asked to swear to something you are not sure of, the law is on the side of your hesitation.
This site does not rule on Jewish law and cannot answer a question about your own situation. The about page says how to find someone who can.
Where this sits
- 1Recognise the One G-d, and worship nothing else
- 2Treat the Name of G-d with reverence
- 3Do not murder
- 4Guard the boundaries of sex and family
- 5Do not steal
- 6Do not eat flesh torn from a living animal
- 7Establish courts of justice
Six restraints and one construction. Law seven is the only one that asks a society to build something, and the other six clear the ground it stands on.