Q. I would like to respectfully ask for clarification regarding the pronunciation of the Divine Name YHWH. In particular, I have encountered claims stating that “Yahweh” is the correct and original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.

From my understanding, traditional Judaism generally avoids pronouncing the Tetragrammaton and instead uses substitutes such as “Adonai” or “HaShem.” I have also read that the original pronunciation is considered uncertain or not preserved within mainstream rabbinic tradition.

Therefore, I would be grateful if the you could clarify the following questions:

1. Does mainstream Orthodox Judaism recognize “Yahweh” as the authoritative or correct pronunciation of YHWH?

2. Is there any accepted rabbinic, linguistic, or historical basis within Orthodox Jewish tradition supporting the pronunciation “Yahweh”?

3. What is the traditional Orthodox Jewish position regarding attempts to reconstruct or pronounce the Tetragrammaton today?

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

A. Thank you for your question, which was forwarded to my attention. We don’t know how the four-letter name of God was originally pronounced, but it certainly wasn’t “Yahweh.” It couldn’t have been for the simple reason that there’s no “W” sound in Hebrew!

The 19th-century scholar Samuel David Luzzatto (known as Shadal) discusses this question (he favors something along the lines of "Yehovah") but, to my knowledge, there is no general attempt to reconstruct the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton within Orthodoxy. We would have no way of doing so without a transmitted tradition, we’d have no way of knowing if we got it right, and even if we were successful, we couldn’t do anything with it!

Here are two articles that discuss the question of this name’s pronunciation:

6. The Name of God - The God Papers - OU Torah

7. Secret Names of God - The God Papers - OU Torah

In that second article, you’ll note that, before the pronunciation of this name was lost, it was a closely guarded secret; a scholar who had received the tradition could teach it to a worthy student once every seven years. So, it was never commonly known among the general population.

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