YHWH

The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton (YHWH Hebrew: יהוה‎) and Elohim. Jews traditionally do not pronounce YHWH, and instead refer to God as HaShem, literally “the Name”. In prayer the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai, meaning “My Master”. Other names of God in traditional Judaism include El Shaddai and Shekhinah.

In Judaism, God has been conceived in a variety of ways. Traditionally, Judaism holds that YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the national god of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at biblical Mount Sinai as described in the Torah. According to the rationalist stream of Judaism articulated by Maimonides, which later came to dominate much of official traditional Jewish thought, God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent, while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is a force or ideal.