Firstly, Yisrael (known today as The Jewish People or The People of Israel) should not hearken to any of the other (pagan) gods. Then comes the obligation of man toward himself, of pursuing freedom, showing it by abstaining from working one day each week (the day of rest, i.e., the Sabbath). This is followed by the obligation of man toward his genitors, and only then toward others.
It will be of interest to read Fox's translation of the Shemah ("Hear O Yisrael"), since Ehad means 'One' and also 'Only.' The usual translation is "Hear O Yisrael, the Lord our God is One Lord."
This is not clear; the translation ought to be "Hear, Israel: The Lord, our God, is the Only Lord."
Still, it is incorrect to translate Y H V H as Lord, this mistake stemming from its pronunciation by the Jews as Adonai ('Our Lord,' or 'Lord,' depending on who expresses the TETRAGRAMMATON). Therefore, the correct literal translation ought to be: "Hear, Israel: YHVH, our God, is the only YHVH."
If an understandable translation (and a correct pronunciation) of the Name is truly sought after, first it must be understood that in the Torah, God tells that He has two Names, the first being Ehiyeh and the second YHVH. The former derives from the verb "to be" while the latter derives from the verb "to exist," to be in the present.
The derivatives of TO BE, are:
"hoyieh," meaning 'am, are, is'; "hayah" (meaning 'was'), and "ehyieh," (meaning 'I will be').
Thus, the first Name means I WILL BE.
The derivatives of TO EXIST are:
"hoveh," (meaning 'I exist, you exist, he exists'; it also means 'the present time'); "havah," (meaning 'he existed,' and "yiveh," (which is the future tense of to exist, and whose spelling is identical to that of THE NAME (The Tetragrammaton, the "Ineffable Name"). Pronouncing it, then, is tantamount to pronouncing THE NAME, as explained later.
In Hebrew, a person 'was' or 'will be,' but 'is' not (for example: 'I good,' not 'I am good,' even though the present tense exists), as if only God IS. In contrast, a person does exist or existed, but not 'will exist.' Still, the verb to exist is hardly used, being practically unknown. So much so, that the future of To Exist is never used and does not appear in Hebrew dictionaries, because it is eqivalent to THE NAME. Thus, the translation of YHVH would appear to be: HE WILL EXIST.
For reasons of convenience it appears acceptable to render THE NAME into English as AM or IS, according to who speaks: thus, in the Shema: "Hear, Israel, IS, our God, is the only IS." Because it would be cumbersome to declare: "Hear, Israel, HE WILL EXIST, our God, is the only HE WILL EXIST."
Also, "Love thy neighbor as thyself. I AM" is better than "HE WILL EXIST." Thus, it appears that in Hebrew only YHVH Is and Will Exist.
For clarification purposes, it might be appropriate to make the
historically acceptable English translation as: "Hear, Israel, our God is the only one that will exist forever."
And the reason for this is that the God of the Israelites had to be declared as being the True One, not just another pagan god.
Once the Israelites were reduced in numbers and became known as Jews, YHVH became the God of the Jews. After paganism became almost extinct, there was no need to have YHVH 'compete' with pagan gods. As western languages took preeminence in the Christian world, the translation of the Shema may be modified to suit modern times. In English, for instance, it might be:
"Hearken, Jews: our God is the Only and Universal God."
As for the pronunciation:
In ancient Hebrew, the expression "Oy vaiy!" would be taken to
mean, "Woe is me!" In Yiddish, it is pronounced "Oy veiy!"
while "Veist miyr" derives from the German expression "Weh ist mir".
Considering that, confronted with a woeful situation people
exclaim: "My God!" or "Jesus!" or "Elohim!" it wouldn't be too far-fetched to suspect that the Hebrew, German, and Yiddish expletives are emotionally equivalent to the exclamation "O my God!" for 'woe' derives from 'wai' and 'vae' (which in turn derive from 'vay').
Besides (perhaps most tellingly, or perhaps just by chance), the
Hebrew root HVH happens to be common to 'God' and to 'woe'.
Yet another ancient clue for the pronunciation of The Name comes from Latin, a language derived (through the Etruscans) from Semitic sources and which at one time was written from right to left. To wit, Iupiter (the letter J was later created from the letter I) bears on its name what appears to be the Hebrew diphthong YO (pronounced yioh), which is another of God's names. Jupiter is also known in Latin as Jove, which in Hebrew would be written YOVH, thus suggesting YOVEH as a possible pronunciation of The Name. After all, the Romans used the expression "By Jove!"
But not so, because YHVH, as future tense of HVH, most logically had been pronounced Y I H I V E H. The letter Y ("Yi") indicates a future tense, not being related to the root letters.)
A critical moment in Jewish history arrived when THE NAME was declared ineffable by law, and under risk of severe penalty.
The reluctance to deal with the pronunciation of The Name is perhaps rooted in the Jews' realization --at the level of their Collective Unconscious-- of the equation: 'No Hava,' no havah, i.e., 'No God calling, no woe befalling.' For truly, God's Name is invoked in times of woe or to stave it off. The superstitious fear is perhaps due to the sophistic, fallacious inverse reasoning: 'The Name calling, woe befalling.'
I am willing to accept that I am just exploiting the linguistic coincidence of HVH being a dual root, when offering the above tempting psychological interpretation, for almost no Jew is aware of such singularity.
Since the Torah does not forbid in an absolute way pronouncing The Name, it is tempting to suggest that the absolute and also legal prohibition dates from the time of Hellenistic influence on Jewish youths. The ruling Hasmoneans, to prevent the cosmetic procedures used (even today) to hide Jewish identity, imposed the absolute removal of the foreskin. By the same token, I find consistent to think that swearing by God, a common pagan custom, might have been absolutely forbidden at that time, since The Name was being pronounced in vain, against the original proscription in the Ten Utterances.
God had chosen His People: His representatives on earth had to keep it distinct from the pagans. As time went on, the People of Israel forgot YHVH's pronounciation, because vowels are absent in the Torah.
Personally, I believe that we Jews should not fear God's Name, and that we ought to feel pride in pronouncing It, even if being nonbelievers. There are no pagans to be wary of, and we are much more educated and therefore less supersticious than our earlier Israelite and Jewish brethren.