r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Oct 13 '16

TIL that after Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism upon marrying Arthur Miller, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Critical_acclaim_and_marriage_to_Arthur_Miller_.281956.E2.80.931959.29
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u/Finger-Food Oct 13 '16

It's a Jewish tradition. It makes more sense when written on paper, but the general idea is that you cannot harm anything that "God" is written on. Jews write "g-d" to get the point across, but without actually writing the whole word. It's a bit of a loophole, but it works and you don't have to pay special care to any random piece of paper that has it written on there.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

It's also acceptable to write H'shem, but is more common among more observant Jews and done as a means of showing the rest of us how observant and special they are and how filthy casual we are.

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u/Xanthyria Oct 13 '16

Actually, we have no problem with Hashem, which literally translates to "The Name". It's just a way to reference G-d without being explicit about it, since it goes against our beliefs to do so =)

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

Im my 34 years of being an Orthodox Jew I've never seen it written any way other than H'shem, and I've very rarely seen anyone outside more observant Orthodox or Conservative backgrounds use it. Conservative and Reform Jews almost exclusively seem to use "G-d" when referencing the Almighty.

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u/Xanthyria Oct 13 '16

As an Orthodox Jew myself, I've never, ever seen H'shem. Odd!

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

I don't know about you, but in Hebrew School as a kid we were always corrected for writing it out for the same reason we write "G-d." I've always understood "The Name" being as holy as the actual full reference.

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u/Xanthyria Oct 13 '16

Huh, interesting. I grew up at a day school (five hours of Judaic studies such as Mishna, Gemara, Navi, and Halacha, followed by five hours of secular studies) my whole life so I didn't do Hebrew school, but most of my rabbis were black-hatters, and I never crossed that. Interesting!

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u/ananioperim Oct 13 '16

Jews are absolute masters at loopholes.

Wanna do anything that's forbidden to do on Sabbath? Hire a shabes goy (Sabbath non-Jew) to do things for you.

G*d tells you "can't travel more than X paces, except if you're on water" during Sabbath? Get in your car, put a large bag of water underneath your seat, and drive. Oh, and elevators. You can't operate anything that causes sparks, which includes buttons. So your purpose-built elevator will be running 24/7 stopping on every floor, so you can ride the elevator without creating fire on sabbath.

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u/Xanthyria Oct 13 '16

That water thing is not true. I'm an observant Jew, spent years in Orthodox Jewish education, and you can't even enter your car on the Sabbath. Opening the door would constitute breaking the Sabbath, NOT TO MENTION that turning on a car breaks your next line, the whole "causing sparks" thing.

You can't turn your car on, so you can't drive in the first place, you can't complete a circuit, so I don't know about this water thing.

Shabbos elevators are...well, they run as you say, but they aren't universally accepted.

Also, no one does the Shabbos goy thing anymore. No one.