The phrase דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ derekh eretz appears hundreds of times in rabbinic literature. Literally meaning "the way of the world," it has multiple meanings. Generally, they are divided into these three categories:
- accepted manners, etiquette, and customs
- work, occupation, livelihood
- a euphemism for sexual relations
Shmuel Safrai in his essay The Term Derekh Ereẕ / מובנו של המונח 'דרך-ארץ' and David Flusser in his 'Which is the Right Way that a Man Should Choose for Himself?' (Sayings of the Fathers, 2:1) / 'איזוהי דרך ישרה שיבור לו האדם?' (אבות ב, א) (both in Tarbiz 60, 1991), add another meaning: morally right behavior, not merely "good manners."
Safrai supports this by the frequent pairing of derech eretz with Torah, and argues that this pairing fits ethical behavior better than the other definitions. Flusser finds parallels to this broader ideal of morality in the ancient Jewish doctrine of "the two ways" that a human must choose - between the way of life and the way of death. This doctrine eventually appeared in the Talmudic tractates Derech Eretz Rabbah and Derech Eretz Zuta.
Take, for example, Avot 2:2. Rabban Gamliel says:
יָפֶה תַלְמוּד תּוֹרָה עִם דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ, שֶׁיְּגִיעַת שְׁנֵיהֶם מְשַׁכַּחַת עָוֹן
"Beautiful is Torah study with derech eretz, for exertion in both of them causes sin to be forgotten."
Rambam and others explain derech eretz here as work or livelihood. Safrai (following the medieval interpretation of Rabbi Yisrael Yisraeli) says it means here good qualities and their realization in action. Among his arguments is the fact that the same mishna continues:
וְכָל תּוֹרָה שֶׁאֵין עִמָּהּ מְלָאכָה, סוֹפָהּ בְּטֵלָה וְגוֹרֶרֶת עָוֹן
"Any Torah without work [melacha] will ultimately cease and lead to sin."
If both derech eretz and melacha here mean work, then there is unnecessary repetition. Safrai gives each clause a distinct function: the first combines Torah with moral action, and the second says that Torah must be accompanied by a livelihood.
However, Safrai accepts the meaning of "livelihood" in other cases, such as Avot 3:5 - עֹל דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ - "the yoke of derech eretz" means a worldly occupation.
Both Safrai and Flusser focus on the phrase דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ קָדְמָה לַתּוֹרָה - "derech eretz preceded the Torah." While later explanations render the phrase in the present tense, "derech eretz precedes the Torah", indicating a sense of derech eretz as a prerequisite for Torah, the original source is a midrash, which emphasizes chronological precedence:
עֶשְׂרִים וְשִׁשָּׁה דוֹרוֹת קָדְמָה דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ אֶת הַתּוֹרָה
"Derech eretz preceded the Torah by twenty-six generations." (Vayikra Rabbah 9:3)
From this midrash, they learn that all humanity was subject to moral conduct since the days of Adam, long before the Torah was given at Sinai.
Safrai claims that the original meaning of the phrase was probably "the upright way that all human beings must follow," with work, social manners, marital relations, and morality all becoming aspects of that way.
Flusser proposes that the expression derech eretz was chosen because it described "the way a person must choose on earth." However, he concedes that the word eretz does not appear in the phrases from that early literature. For him, the concept is more of a historical inference than an actual definition.
However, for at least one sense of the phrase, there might be an earlier biblical antecedent. While the actual phrase derech eretz appears in Shemot 13:17 - דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים - "by way of the land of the Philistines" - that meaning has little to do with our phrase derech eretz. Yet there is a verse where the phrase nearly appears, and is much closer to our understanding. In the aftermath of the destruction of Sedom, Lot's daughters say:
אָבִינוּ זָקֵן וְאִישׁ אֵין בָּאָרֶץ לָבוֹא עָלֵינוּ כְּדֶרֶךְ כׇּל־הָאָרֶץ
"...Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to cohabit with us in the way of all the world [ke-derech kol ha-aretz" (Bereshit 19:31)
The daughters are referring to sexual relations with their father, but they are contrasting it with non-incestuous relations - normal human practice, "the way of the world." Euphemistically, derekh eretz was extended to marital relations in general, perhaps most familiar from the Pesach Haggadah:
וַיַּרְא אֶת־עָנְיֵנוּ. זוֹ פְּרִישׁוּת דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ
"And He saw our affliction: this refers to suspension of marital relations."
Rashi and Rashbatz in their Haggadah commentaries tie this midrash to the verse I cited from Lot's daughters.
One last meaning that we haven't yet mentioned is the one suggested by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. He identified derech eretz with "culture" and used that sense in his slogan Torah im Derech Eretz, which encouraged integration between Torah and the modern world.
Interestingly, I think that of all these meanings, the one that has persevered into Modern Hebrew is the sense of moral conduct. Other than citations from traditional sources, the senses of culture, livelihood, and marital relations are uncommon. Derech eretz can mean proper etiquette and manners, but it more broadly means acting decently. It's best captured by the Yiddish phrase menschlichkeit - to be a mensch. Being a mensch is essentially being a good human, that same requirement that applies to all people since the days of Adam.
