Shevuot 35

The Torah forbids taking God’s name in vain — but which name(s)? On today’s daf, many different appellations for the divine are discussed with the goal of delineating those that are official names of God.

Adonai (along with a shortened form, just the first two letters: aleph dalet), Elohim, El, God’s four-letter proper name yod-hey-vav-hey (and a shortened version that consists of just the first two letters), Shaddai and Tzeva’ot are all incontrovertibly deemed divine names. Adjectives used to describe God — great, mighty, awesome, compassionate, slow to anger, etc. — present a more complicated case. The Gemara determines that when incorporated into descriptive phrases — He Who is Great, The One Who is Slow to Anger, etc. — these are also divine names that should not be taken in vain and should also not be erased.

There are also names of God that are more obscure and, in some cases, surprising. For instance, toward the bottom of today’s daf, we read:

All mentions of the name Solomon that are stated in the Song of Songs, such as: “The song of songs that is Solomon’s” (Song of Songs 1:1), are not references to King Solomon. Rather, they are sacred names, meaning the One for Whom Peace is His.

Solomon — the name of one of Israel’s greatest kings and subsequently many Jewish children — turns out to be a name of God! In Hebrew, Solomon is shlomo, a shortened form of the expression shalom shelo, which translates to “his peace.” The rabbis understand this as shorthand for the One for Whom Peace is His.

A literal reading of Song of Songs suggests that King Solomon is its author, and therefore, the erotic poem it comprises chronicles his explicit relationship with a lover. By reading the name Solomon not as the human king of Israel but instead as the divine King, the rabbis radically transform the meaning of this biblical book. Rather than a sensual love poem, the entire work becomes an allegory for the love between God and the Jewish people.

The inclusion of Song of Songs in the biblical canon was itself the subject of significant debate by the rabbis. In a discussion recorded in Mishnah Yadayim 3:5, the sages argued whether Song of Songs should be considered sacred at all. In that discussion, Rabbi Akiva, whose opinion became the halakhah, is its champion, declaring:

For the whole world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies. 

These two teachings — that “Solomon” refers to the Divine, and that the Song of Songs is a divinely inspired work —  make more sense when compared to each other. Song of Songs is the “holy of holies” when viewed as the most enthusiastic sustained declaration of divine love. And that reading makes most sense if we replace Solomon with God.

Although the original concern on today’s daf was taking God’s name in vain and determining which names are in danger of being misused, the discussion morphs into another possible misuse of the divine name: erasing it. Therefore, the rabbis state, any of the names mentioned on today’s daf should not be erased. This is the reason why to this day, Jews store sacred texts with the divine name in a genizah, rather than simply trash or destroy them. This is also why some people refrain from writing out the name of God, even in English, substituting a dash (G-d) or an exclamation point (G!d). The rabbis didn’t necessarily agree that translations of the divine name “count” as holy, but those who choose to follow this practice are placing one more fence around the Torah and one more layer of protection against the name (or, rather, names) that hold so much power.

Read all of Shevuot 35 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 5, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.