RagnarokAngel posted:

Very mixed. I don't inherently see a problem with the philosophy of using Jewish tradition in a Christian church. I wouldn't really call them Jews though. Where my ire comes from is that some will try and use it as a "Gateway" to get Jews to come to Christianity, though I can't say how well that works, seems it'd be pretty easy to spot the motive there.

There's a couple layers to that, the reason some Jews will say G-d is it's the logical conclusion to the idea that you're not supposed to say His name in a disrespectful way, which leads some to say anything but prayer is disrespectful use of His name. Some care, some don't. I'm actually trying to be better about it but sometimes I forget, I'm not going to change it now.

as for His Name that's complicated, the Bible has dozens of names for Him based on different aspects of Him. The most common you'll hear is Adonai or Hashem. You sometimes hear YHWH but few Jews are actually going to use that. YHWH was a name meant to only be used by the high priests, in private, on Yom Kippur. We have no idea what the vowels even are because ancient Hebrew writing doesn't HAVE vowels, people just "knew" what the vowels were.

Adonai is the more common name but some Orthodox still think it's disrespectful to use it outside of prayer so they'll use Hashem which literally just means "His Name"


I'm a conservative Jew and conservative owns. It gets a lot of flack for being a "middle ground" but I think preserving the ancient practices is super important, while still modernizing the faith at the same time. It's usually a few years behind reform in social advancement (e.g. women rabbis and gay clergy) and I wish it wasn't but you take what you can get.

As for converting the best answer is just go to a service. Even though temples have memberships, you're allowed to just show up and no one will stop you. Afterwards talk to the Rabbi and they can help you out.