The One
called “the Name”

Written from Jewish sources: the Hebrew Bible (JPS 1917), the Mishnah and Talmud, Maimonides. A Jewish reader checks this page before it goes public.

Hear, O Israel

The Shema is Judaism's central statement of who God is. Jews say it morning and evening, and hope to say it with their last breath. Maimonides taught that God is one “in a manner which surpasses any unity that is found in the world”, and has no body. He went further: the truest things we can say about God are what God is not.

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A Jewish telling

▶The Shema Prayer · myjewishlearning

A Jewish telling

▶What is Judaism? | Religious Studies - My Life, My Religion: Judaism · BBC Bitesize for Teachers

A Name too holy to say

God's personal Name, written with four Hebrew letters (YHWH), is not spoken aloud. In prayer and reading, Jews say Adonai, “my Lord”; in everyday speech, many simply say HaShem, “the Name”. Once, in the Temple, the High Priest spoke it on Yom Kippur, and the people bowed to the ground (Mishnah Yoma 6:2). “Jehovah” and “Yahweh” are Christian scholars' versions; most Jews use neither.

The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy

These words, said to Moses (peace be upon him) at Sinai, are at the heart of Jewish prayer on fast days and the High Holy Days. The Talmud pictures God wrapping Himself in a prayer shawl to teach Moses this prayer, with a promise that those who say it “will not return empty-handed” (Rosh Hashanah 17b). The word for merciful, raḥum, shares its root with the Arabic raḥmān and raḥīm.

No image

“Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image” (Exodus 20:4). At Sinai, “ye heard the voice of words, but ye saw no form; only a voice” (Deuteronomy 4:12). Synagogues have no image of God.

How you live sanctifies or profanes the Name

In Jewish teaching, “taking the Name in vain” is about conduct as well as speech. Dishonesty and harshness are ḥillul HaShem, desecrating the Name, counted among the gravest sins (Yoma 86a). Honest, kind behaviour is kiddush HaShem: it sanctifies the Name.

And Islam?

A thousand years ago Rabbi Saadia Gaon translated the Torah into Arabic and wrote “Allah” for God. Maimonides, the most influential medieval rabbi, held that Muslims are strict monotheists, not idolaters, though he did not accept Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) as a prophet. And Jewish tradition remembers Isaac and Ishmael (peace be upon them) burying their father Abraham together (Genesis 25:9).

Everyone has a place with God

Judaism does not ask the world to become Jewish. Righteous people of every nation who keep the seven Noahide laws, Maimonides wrote, are “the pious among the gentiles” and have a share in the world to come.