I often see a warning on printed material that says: “This contains the Name of God — please dispose of reverently.” I would be grateful if you could give me some advice on how this is done.

THE  RABBI REPLIES:

There are two separate issues here. One is the legal issue of erasing God’s Name; the other is the emotional issue of showing the Name proper respect.

First the legal side: The Torah exhorts us to destroy idolatry, and from here we learn the injunction not to erase the name of God. (see Deuteronomy 12:3-4)

The question is whether this applies only to Hebrew names of God, or to the English word “God” as well. The common rabbinic opinion is that “God” written in any language other than Hebrew, has no holiness and can be erased. (see Shach Y.D. 179:11, and Mishneh Brura 85:10)

There is still the other issue of giving the Name proper respect. This means not taking Torah material into the bathroom, and not throwing it out with the rest of the garbage. Instead, you should bring the printed material to the synagogue and place it in a box called “Geniza” (a.k.a. “Sheimos”). This box is used to discard unusable holy objects — including Torah scrolls that have become old and invalid, old Tefillin and Tzitzit, and papers that contain words of Torah.

When the box is full, it is taken to be

Now what about spelling the English name “God”? Even though it does not technically have “holiness,” some people go beyond the letter of the law and show extra respect, by spelling God with a dash.

Why doesn’t Aish.com spell it with a dash? Because many of our readers have little Jewish background, and spelling God with a dash might look strange and pose some block to learning the material. So in consultation with leading Torah scholars, we simply follow the halacha stated above, that non-Hebrew names can be erased.

An interesting extension of this topic is the issue of deleting God’s name from a computer screen. It seems that nothing is being written or erased, except for electromagnetic impulses. Actually, when you display any word on your screen, you are erasing and rewriting it 50 or 60 times a second. So when you press “delete” or turn off your screen, you’re not doing anything worse than you have just done thousand of times in the last few minutes.

And one more corollary: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein writes that although there does not appear to be anything wrong with erasing cassette tapes containing God’s name on it, when possible one should refrain from doing so as a sign of reverence. (Igros Moshe - Y.D. I, 173)

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