Why Do We Call G-d "Hashem"?

Hi, this is Rabbi David Wolpe with the question and answer series. Chana says, "I was just wondering why we call God Hashem." Uh So, one of the top 10 commandments of all time is thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. Yeah? We're very careful about that. We go out of our way not to mention Hashem's name. Therefore, if you look in the Torah and you see Hashem's name, you will see that it is something we do not pronounce. There are a group called the blank witnesses who have no problem saying God's name, at least in the English. We don't say that. Only the Kohen Gadol in the Beit Hamikdash Ha Kohanim right? He would say Yud Kay Vav Kay out loud. We don't even spell it. When we say it, we say Yud Kay instead of letter Hay, Vav Kay. We don't even want to spell it. We don't pronounce it. So, therefore, when we are doing something holy, we substitute that name of Hashem with the name Ado which ends, as we know, Noy. Which basically means my master. Yeah? And we say that during davening. We don't even say that when it's not during davening or in Kedusha. We say Adoshem. But even that's too close to the real thing. So, therefore, the custom is to just when we want to refer to God, to use the term the name. I'm not going to say the name of God. I'm just going to say Hashem. It used to be a custom that people would write on top of a paper base hey for Baruch Hashem. There were some people who didn't even want to write that hey. And so they uh change it to base samech daleth which is Aramaic bisiyata dish maya which means uh with the help of heaven. And so that's how far we go to be careful from saying Hashem's name. And uh we say when we need it, when we're teaching a kid how to say a bracha, we teach him how to say it. And then we say, "No, no, don't say it." But when a kid is learning for his bar mitzvah, they're very careful. Don't practice going Baruch atah Hashem cuz that's what you'll do when you're up there. So we tell him, "Practice the brachas using Shem Hashem cuz you'll forget and you'll make that mistake." But we're very careful with taking the Lord's name in vain. This is Dovid Olanski with our question and answer series.