Marcus aka Gregory Maidman
1 min readAug 9, 2023

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Yes. One of the earlier essays on Medium that made an impression on me and that I cite often in essays and comments is Gavin Sher's https://medium.com/interfaith-now/god-a-most-misunderstood-word-7b99d4491263, which says:

"In Judaism, the progenitor of monotheism, there are 72 names for ‘God’, each referring to some aspect of the Divine, yet in day to day practice the Divine is referred to simply as Hashem, ‘The Name’, precisely because it is considered better to leave undefined a concept that is too expansive to fit into a single word.

Outside of the religion itself, I have seldom seen anyone adequately explain the Jewish concept of ‘God’. Most folk seem to think Jews believe in some vengeful ‘God’ named Jehova, or Yahweh, but that is not the case. The same understanding of ‘God’ that is found in Judaism, properly understood, can also be found within streams of all the major religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, which typically aren’t considered monotheistic.

The holiest prayer in Judaism is the Shema, in which the holiest line, affirmed by Jews repeatedly every day, is often translated as ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is One’.

Obviously Hebrew is not English and translation can be a subtle thing. A more truthful translation of that holy line would be ‘Hear O Israel, The Lord is your God, the Lord is a Oneness,’ i.e. that ‘God’ is a Unity."

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Marcus aka Gregory Maidman
Marcus aka Gregory Maidman

Written by Marcus aka Gregory Maidman

Living 17,043rd human life. I am Marcus (universal name) or you may call me Greg; a deep thinker; an explorer of ideas and the mind.

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