khnun and chanan

What is the origin of the Hebrew word for "nerd" - חנון khnun? 

At first glance, it might seem that chnun is related to the Hebrew word for a gifted student - מחונן mechonan. That word derives from the root chanan חנן. Chanan in turn, derives from chen חן - "grace." Chanan can mean to act graciously or mercifully, as in the verse: 

  וְחַנֹּתִי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר אָחֹן וְרִחַמְתִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר אֲרַחֵם׃

"...I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." (Shemot 33:19)

That meaning gives us such words as chanun חנון - "merciful, gracious" (as in the above verse); chanina חנינה - "favor" in Biblical Hebrew (Yirmiyahu 16:13) and "amnesty" in modern Hebrew; and the words techina תחינה and tachanun תחנון, both meaning "supplication for favor."

By extension, chanan can also mean "to grant" in general (in a gracious sense). This is how it used in Bereshit 33:5 -

הַיְלָדִים אֲשֶׁר־חָנַן אֱלֹהִים אֶת־עַבְדֶּךָ

"...they are the children who God kindly granted your servant"

It is also found in the fourth blessing of the weekday Amidah prayer:

אַתָּה חוֹנֵן לְאָדָם דַּעַת 

"You grant man knowledge"

From here we get the word chinam חינם - "gratuitously, for nothing, free", since something chinam was given for nothing. And it is also where the word mechonan - "gifted" comes from, since someone "gifted" was "granted" or "endowed" with a talent or knowledge.

But this is actually not the origin of khnun. Rather, it derives from a slang term, borrowed from Moroccan Arabic, sometimes spelled xnuna (or hnuna), meaning "nasal mucus" (snot). A snot-nosed kid was considered, as in English, a brat, or weak and teased for his condition, and from there it came to mean "nerd" as well. Perhaps that later meaning was influenced from an association with mechonan, but it wasn't the original derivation.

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lama and madua

A reader asked about the origin of and difference between the two Hebrew words lama למה and madua מדוע, both generally translated into English as "why". Let's take a look.

Madua appears in biblical Hebrew (but is not found in rabbinic Hebrew). Klein provides the following etymology:

Contraction of מה ידוע ma yadua (=what is known? i.e. 'for what reason').

And reflecting that etymology, it refers specifically to the cause (in the past) of a thing, event, etc.

Lama has a wider background and usage than madua, and is used more frequently today (madua is considered much more formal). Lama is also found in biblical Hebrew but appears in rabbinic Hebrew as well. It also can refer to the cause of a thing, but can also ask "what is the purpose, aim". Its etymology shows that flexibility, for it is a contraction  of ל-מה "for what". Lama asks about cause in Bereshit 4:7, 12:18 and about purpose in Shemot 5:22 and Iyov 30:2.

In this way, lama is indeed similar to the English "why", which contains both aspects - past and future. In other languages, there are different words for each meaning. For example, German has warum for "cause" and wozu for "purpose", and the same phenomenon can be found in other European languages.

Creating a dichotomy between lama and madua (even if it's not always faithful to the biblical lama, as we have seen), allows for some powerful interpretations about how we understand the world.

For example, in this fascinating video, Rabbi David Fohrman confronts the question that Moshe asks God after the sin of the golden calf (Shemot 32:11) לָמָה ה' יֶחֱרֶה אַפְּךָ בְּעַמֶּךָ - "Why (lama), God, should you be angry at your people?" Rabbi Fohrman asks:

What is he talking about? Why should you be angry at your people? They are  supposed to be accepting the Torah, and they are dancing around a golden calf, an idol that they have made with their very own hands, and you have the chutzpah to ask God, ‘Why should you be angry with your people?’ What is he talking about?

But then later he answers:

So here you have to understand the crucial distinction between the two Hebrew words for ‘why’, lamah and madua. Why would one language have two words for ‘why’ unless they didn’t mean the same thing? Madua, from the word mada, is the scientific ‘why’. It means what happened in the past to cause the present state of affairs? When Moses looked at the burning bush, madua lo-yivar hasneh, what is it about this bush that causes it not to burn? It is a question about the past that would explain the present. But that is not the only kind of ‘why’ that you can ask. You can ask a different kind of ‘why’. A lamah kind of ‘why’. Lamah is a contraction of ‘le mah’, to what, for what, for what purpose. It is a question about the future.

Yes, I understand what happened to make you angry, God. That’s not my question, we all get that. The question is, where will this anger take you? Let’s read the rest of the words. Lamah yechereh apcha be’amecha. Moshe says, ‘why should you be angry with your people?’ Don’t say it is my people, it is your people. You are attached to them whether you like it or not.

In that case, by using the word lama, Moshe was challenging God - and in the end was successful. A different case, where we need to make sure we ourselves are asking lama and not madua is found in this powerful story:

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I found myself on the uptown campus of Yeshiva University. As it was for the entire country and for much of the world, initial reactions to the attacks on the World Trade Center were little more than shock and disbelief. Particularly for those located so close to the disaster, it was difficult to absorb what transpired that morning.

In response to the events of the morning, student leaders at Yeshiva quickly organized an outdoor Mincha and Tehillim rally. The main speaker at this rally was Rabbi Norman Lamm … There is one thought that he stressed that I have not forgotten. David Hamelech exclaims in Tehillim "keili keili lama azavtani?".  [“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”]  Rabbi Shimshon Rephael Hirsh explains that in Hebrew, one can ask "why" with the use of the word madua or of the word lama.  The word madua means why in its purest sense, wanting to know the reason behind something, what caused it to happen. On the other hand, lama comes from the words "le ma," literally "to what," trying to figure out not what caused something to happen, but rather what is the purpose that is meant to come out of the occurrence. And so when David Hamelech feels deserted by Hashem, he does not ask madua. It is not his place to question the causes of the actions of Hashem. Rather he asks lama. What is meant to come out of the actions of Hashem? What responsibilities do they place upon me? 
        
This must be our response to tragedy as well, explained Rabbi Lamm to the hundreds of students and faculty assembled on the lawn outside of Rubin Hall. It is futile to try to understand the reasons or causes for such a horrible occurrence. What we can do, however, is to try our best to figure out the ends to which events such as the attacks of September 11th are meant to bring about in our lives.

In general on this site, I focus on the "madua" - why words came to take the meanings they have. But it is important not to forget the "lama" - what purpose words can have. In the week between Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) and Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for Israeli soldiers and victims of terror), this is indeed a very appropriate message.

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cinnamon

A reader asked what the connection is between the English word "cinnamon" and the Hebrew kinamon (or qinamon) קינמון.

Well, the English word comes from the Greek kinnamomon, which in turn was borrowed from the Hebrew / Phoenician. This etymology is rather old - the famous Greek historian Herodotus mentions it here, in discussing spices from Arabia:

Still more wonderful is the mode in which they collect the cinnamon. Where the wood grows, and what country produces it, they cannot tell- only some, following probability, relate that it comes from the country in which Bacchus was brought up. Great birds, they say, bring the sticks which we Greeks, taking the word from the Phoenicians, call cinnamon, and carry them up into the air to make their nests.

I had assumed that Hebrew and Phoenician were similar enough to simply share the word kinamon. However, Philologos writes that the Phoenicians probably borrowed the word from Hebrew:

The Greeks indeed had no clear idea of what the source of cinnamon was. Herodotus, according to whom the Greek word kinnamomon was borrowed from Phoenician traders, knew only that the latter purchased it from “the Arabians,” who “do not know where it comes from and what country produces it.” In the same breath, however, he then fancifully related that these same “Arabians,” by whom he presumably meant the Nabateans living in what is today Israel’s Negev and southern Jordan, collected the spice from the nests of large carrion-eating birds built of cinnamon bark and mud on “mountain precipices… which no man can climb.”
...


Phoenician, the West Semitic language of the seafaring peoples living along the Mediterranean coast north of Palestine, was closely related to Hebrew, and since Hebrew kinnamon occurs in the Bible while no parallel Phoenician text has survived, Hebrew is commonly given as the word’s source. Indeed, since cinnamon probably reached the Phoenicians from the Nabateans via a land route crossing Palestine, it is just as likely that the word entered Phoenician from Hebrew as the other way around.

So now the question needs to be asked: Where did the Hebrew word kinamon come from? Klein curtly notes that it is a "word of foreign origin".

One etymology mentioned here, suggests that:

English cinnamon, German Zimt, Lithuanian cinamonas, Belarusian cynamon [цынамон], Serbocroatian cimet [цимет], Yiddish tsimering [צימערינג] and Armenian ginamon [կինամոն] all derive from Latin cinnamomum, which was in turn a loan from Greek kinnamomon [κιννάμωμον]. The Greek had borrowed the word from a Semitic tongue, cf. Old Hebrew kinamom [קנמון] and Aramaic qunimun [ܩܘܢܝܡܘܢ]. However, these words can hardly be native Semitic, and their further origin is not known; it has been suggested that they ultimately stem from early Malaysian language and are thus related to modern Indonesian kayu manis “sweet wood” (although this is a problematic assumption).

The Malaysian origin is supposedly mentioned in the BDB - unfortunately, I no longer have access to that book. Can anyone confirm?

In the article I quoted above, Philologos rejects this theory:

For one thing, cinnamon, which is prepared from the bark of the young branches of an Asiatic tree, seems to have reached the Mediterranean world in ancient times not from Malaysia or Malay-speaking Indonesia but rather from China, in which it was known as kwei, and Sri Lanka, in whose native Singhalese language it is called kurundu. And for another thing, no other Eastern or Central Asian language listed by Katzer has a word resembling either kayu manis or “cinnamon” — which is qurfa in Arabic, darchin in Persian, durusita in Sanskrit, tuj in Gujarati, ilavangam in Tamil, op cheuy in Thai, chek tum phka loeng in Khmer, yuhk gwai in Cantonese, rou gui in Mandarin and so on. Even if the ancient Greeks had gotten their cinnamon from Malay speakers, it would have had to pass through many other hands on its way to them; how, then, would a Malay word for “cinnamon” have reached them without leaving its imprint anywhere else?

That makes sense to me, and in fact, most sources that quote the Malaysian theory go on to reject it.

In the end of the article, Philologos (can I call you Phil?) sticks with his theory that "our English word 'cinnamon' can be etymologically traced back no further than Hebrew kinamon."

However, I think that one of the points he made could actually help us find an earlier source. He mentioned that cinnamon originated in China. Kaddari writes that Loew (Die Flora der Juden II:107) rejects the suggestion that kinamon derived from the root קנה (reed) or קנמ as suggested by Delitzsch (as well as Jastrow and Gesenius.) Instead, he feels that the word refers to China - "Kina" in Hungarian (Wikipedia points out that it is so spelled in many Northern and Eastern European languages - Swedish, Norwegian, Hungarian, Danish, Bosnian, Serbian etc.)

I don't have access to Loew's works and couldn't read them in their original German even if I did. (If anyone out there can do both - please tell me!). But I'm guessing that he was influenced by this article by W. Desborough Cooley from 1849.

Cooley discusses the Chinese origin of the spice:

But we cannot suppose the Chinese to have been equally heedless of the riches scattered by nature over their hills, or remiss in turning such advantages to account; and indeed there is good reason for presuming that they were the earliest dealers in this spice. The Persian name for cinnamon is Darchini, which signifies Chinese wood; and as this name has been adopted in the languages of India with little or no change, it is evident that the article so called arrived in the latter country by the overland route, or through Persia.

He then goes on to take apart suggested etymologies (some of which we've seen before):

The Hebrew word kinamon is said by some to be derived from the Arabic verb kanima, to have a strong or foul smell - a derivation the flagrant absurdity of which is inconsistent with the fundamental laws of language.


...


But again, we are told that cinnamomum is derived from the Malayan kashiomanis, which signifies sweet wood. Now, to say nothing of the torture and mutilation necessary to change the latter word into the former, what can be more ridiculous than to seek the derivation of a word used on the shores of the Mediterranean 3000 years ago, in the Malayan, which we know only as a modern language ? Or how did this solitary Malayan term find its may into Phoenicia, without leaving a trace of its passage through India, Persia, or Arabia?


...


Cinnamomum. cardamomum and costamomum are apparently compound words, denoting so many species of amomum ... With respect to the first syllable of this name, Dr. Vincent supposed it to he derived from keneh (קנה), a cane, pipe, or tube, as if kinamomum signified pipe-amomum. But to this it may be objected, that the name in question, to whatever language it belongs, ought to serve the ends of language, by marking distinctly the object so named, but cinnamon appears to have been brought to market in early times in unpeeled twigs; and if, on the other hand, it were peeled off, then it had the rolled and tubular form in common with
cassia, so that in neither case could it have been appropriately called pipe-amomum.


...


An ingenious, and by no means unlikely, explanation of the fables in which the origin of cinnamon was involved by the early Greek writers, who relate that it was taken from the nests of birds, which had collected it in unknown regions, is suggested by Bochart. He supposes that the Greeks were deceived by some popular Phoenician etymology playing on the word קנן (kinnen), to build a nest. The fable, in short, originated in a quasi derivation, and proves at once the antiquity of the word, and the foreign origin of its first and disputed element.

And then he offers what he believes to be the most convincing etymology:

The only explanation then of the word cinnamon which does not savour of arbitrary etymological fancies, and which accords strictly with the principles regulating the formation of words, is that which considers it as meaning simply Chinese amomum or spice, and thus differing only by a slight and natural modification from the Persian name darchini, under which the spice in question was probably received by the Hebrews and Phoenicians.

While it might seem far to get from China to the Land of Israel, it should be noted that the word kinamon appears only three times in the Bible. Once (Shmot 30:23), is referring one of the spices in the incense, that was used in the Temple. The other two quotes - Shir HaShirim 4:14 and Mishlei 7:17 - are both from books attributed to Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon), who was certainly known for trading with distant lands...

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halva

Last year we discussed the origin of etrog. But I've recently found out that not only was the etrog used for a mitzva on Sukkot, but also had medicinal value as well.

In the gemara on Shabbat 109b, there is a discussion of antidotes if a person drinks uncovered water (where there is a concern that perhaps a snake would come overnight, drink some of the water, and inject its venom.) Rav Huna bar Yehuda suggests taking a sweet etrog, scooping out the inside, filling it with honey, and placing it on burning coals.

Interesting ancient medicine aside - why am I discussing this here? Because of the word for "sweet", describing the etrog: halita חליתא. The Aramaic adjectives חלא and חלי mean "sweet".

A certain relative of the Aramaic is the Arabic hilu, meaning sweet. From here we get the name of the sweet confection halva, which has entered into Hebrew, English, Turkish and many other languages.

Another related Arabic word that entered into Hebrew - this time slang - is אחלה achla, meaning "great, excellent", but originally meaning "sweet". (I used to think the phrase achla gever אחלה גבר - "a great guy", meant "(he's) the brother of a guy". I guess to figure out things like that I needed to buy the books, that got me to start the blog, so you all benefit.)

So far we've seen Aramaic and Arabic roots meaning "sweet". Are there any Hebrew words with the same etymology?

We discussed once before how there is a theory that the word challah חלה might get its name due to its sweetness. When I wrote that post, I quoted Stahl. I now see that he probably got the idea from Ben Yehuda, who mentions the theory, but notes that "challah is not specifically sweet."

Klein writes that the biblical words for jewelry: chali חלי (Mishlei 25:12, Shir HaShirim 7:2) and chelya חליה (Hoshea 2:15) - also derive from the root חלה meaning "sweet". This too appears in Ben Yehuda who says that חלה can also mean the related "pleasant", as well as "sweet".

Lastly, we have the verb חלה - meaning "to implore", often found in the expression חילה את פניו chila et panav. The midrashim (Devarim Rabba 3:15) identify this root with "sweetness", and scholars (Ben Yehuda, Kaddari) do as well. The idea here is that by imploring to a person, or praying to God, the anger is sweetened, and reduced.

However, Kaddari does say that there is another theory - that the anger is weakened, softened. It would therefore be connected to the root חלה meaning - "to be weak, to be sick".

But even here, perhaps there's a connection to sweetness. Jastrow says the root חלה means "to soften" - which can apply in a positive sense - "to sweeten", or in a negative sense - "to be sick".

So going back to the gemara quoted in the beginning, I wonder if there wasn't some play on words by having a healing etrog called "halita"...

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chalila and chas

In this weeks parasha, Avraham argues with God over his plans to destroy Sdom. When he claims that the killing of the innocent would be unjust, he says (Bereshit 18:25)
חָלִלָה לְּךָ מֵעֲשֹׂת כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה

"Chalila lecha to do a thing like this"

What does chalila mean here? A very popular explanation is based on the Gemara (Avoda Zara 4a, Berachot 32a) - חולין הוא לך - "it would be chulin for you". This gemara is also subject to interpretation. Most explain chulin as "sacrilege, profanation, desecration" - in other words "beneath your honor" (this also fits with Steinberg, who derives chalila from the root חלה - from which we get choleh חולה "sick" - and means "to be low") . Rashi, however, on Ber. 18:25 explains chulin as "usual or ordinary" - this would seem to be the way God acted with the generation of the flood and the generation of the tower of Bavel. However, while this may work where Avraham is speaking to God, it does not fit the many other examples of chalila where one man is speaking to another.

Ben-Yehuda, in his dictionary, has difficulties with the Gemara's explanation. He writes that "the scent of drush (midrash) wafts too strongly from this (explanation) and it is difficult to believe that in ancient times they would use a metaphor such as this. The origin of this usage has not been explained well."

Ibn Ezra has a slightly different explanation. He says it means "impossible", perhaps deriving from the word חלול halul, meaning "hollow", something with no content.

Amos Chacham in the Daat Mikra on Iyov 34:10 writes that chalila always appears in the Bible as a form of oath (perhaps to damn?), where a person forbids himself or another to do a certain action.

Onkelos, who in his translation makes great efforts to protect God's honor, would clearly have difficulty having Avraham accuse God of a desecration. And therefore he translates chalila lecha as קֻשְׁטָא אִנּוּן דִּינָךְ - "your laws are true". However, in a different location where chalila is used - where the brothers are speaking to Yosef's steward (Bereshit 44:7) - Onkelos has no such reservations. And here his translation is interesting: חַס - chas.

Rashi quotes Onkelos in his commentary on 44:7 and writes:

חלילה לעבדיך - חולין הוא לנו, לשון גנאי. ותרגום חס לעבדיך, חס מאת הקב"ה יהי עלינו מעשות זאת והרבה חס ושלום יש בתלמוד בלשון הזה:

"It would be profane for us (Avoda Zara 4a); an expression of disgrace. Onkelos translates; 'chas to your servants' as, may there be chas from the Holy One, Blessed is He, upon us from doing this. There are many examples of this word in the Talmud as chas v'shalom"

This brings up a number of questions. What does chas mean? And does Rashi's first explanation agree or disagree with Onkelos?

The Rashi HaShalem edition (published by the Ariel Institute) has three possible answers:

a) Chas comes from the root חוס and means "pity". (Another possibility is that it comes from the root חסה which means "to protect". According to Klein, the two roots don't seem to be related - something I should have paid more attention to in this post.) Onkelos disagrees with the Gemara, and believes that chalila actually means "pity" - perhaps based on midrashim that explain ויחל משה (Shmot 32:11) as "he asked for pity and mercy". This is the explanation of the Lifshuto Shel Rashi by Rav Shmuel Gelbard, but the Rashi HaShalem rejects it for grammatical reasons. (The Mizrachi also explains the translation of Onkelos on 18:25 as due to a need to show that God doesn't need pity.)

b) Chas means "pity" but Onkelos is not giving a literal translation of chalila, but rather using an expression with the same meaning. If chalila is an oath, then chas would be more of a prayer, as the Mizrachi explains chas v'shalom - "may God bring mercy and peace upon us to prevent this from happening". (Rav Gelbard- as quoted in the Margolin Chumash Rashi - has a slightly different translation - "Have pity [on us that it should not happen] and [then] peace [will be with us].")

It also could be here that Onkelos would agree with Ibn Ezra (above) and not Rashi, and doesn't see chalila as associated with "disgrace".

c) Onkelos agrees with Rashi, but chas here means "desecration, disgrace" - like chalila. This is the opinion of Kohut in Aruch HaShalem (entry חס ). He writes that chas is related to an Arabic root meaning "contemptible". He rejects the opinion of the Mizrachi by saying that God is not mentioned anywhere in the verse (and therefore it should not be seen as a prayer.) He also writes that the shalom in chas v'shalom does not mean "peace" but "completely" and therefore the expression should be translated "completely disgraced".

Rashi HaShalem seems to find the second explanation the least forced, and I think I agree.

So we can see a development of the phrases meaning "God forbid" or "Far be it from me". The Tanach has chalila and the Talmud has חס לי and chas v'shalom. In the Middle Ages we begin to see chalila v'chas חלילה וחס and in more modern Hebrew we see chas v'chalila חס וחלילה .

It should be noted that the phrase chozer chalila חוזר חלילה - meaning "and so forth", referring to going around in a circle or loop, isn't related to chalila as desecration, but from the root חול meaning "to move in a circle." (We've seen some etymological confusion between those two meanings before.)

And after such a heavy post, I'll end with a joke brought by Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish.

Two Jews decide to assassinate the czar. They bring sharp knives and conceal themselves behind trees in a park where the Russian leader takes his daily stroll. Hours pass, and the czar fails to appear. At sundown one of them worries: “I hope nothing happened to him, chalila."

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kapara

We're now up to the third term of forgiveness - kapara (or kapparah) כפרה. This is the most complicated of the three for a number of reasons:

1. Unlike selicha and mechila, there are a number of different words in the Tanach that share the root כפר , and it is not always clear if they are related.
   
2. The meanings of selicha and mechila were fairly clear - the debate was over the etymologies. With kapara, there is much disagreement amongst the rabbis and modern scholars over the actual meaning of the root and words.
   
3. The root כפר is the base of Yom HaKipurim יום הכיפורים - and therefore receives much more attention, and many more drashot about the root come in to play.
   

With so much discussion about kapara it will be hard to cover everything in one post. I will make an effort to be comprehensive, but I will recommend checking out "inside" the sources and links I present.

Here are some of the words with the root כפר :

• כופר - kofer: pitch, asphalt (hard to believe this is the third time I've discussed asphalt on this site)
• כופר - kofer: ransom
• כפורת - kaporet: the cover of the Holy Ark
  
• כפור - kfor: frost
• כפיר - kfir: a type of lion
• כפר - kfar: village
• כפירה - kefira: to deny

And of course there is the root כפר - which is variously defined, as we shall see.

Ronen Ahituv discusses the opinions of Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Ramban as to the meaning of כפרhere (and here in the original Hebrew):

While awaiting the encounter with his brother Esau, our father Jacob sent him an offering. It is explained with these words:

For he reasoned, "If I propitiate him with presents in advance, and then face him, perhaps he will show me favor. And so the gift went on ahead, while he remained in the camp that night. (Bereishit 32:20-21)

The expression propitiate [akhaprah panav] appears here in Scripture for the first time. The commentators disagreed about its meaning. Rashi writes: "propitiate - I will end his anger,... it seems to me that the word kaparah when conjoined with avon [transgression] and het [sin], and panim [face] - all are expressions of wiping away, and they are Aramaic... Scriptural language also refers to the holy fountains as kipurei zahav, since the priest cleans his hands in them, in the lip of the fountain." Rashi explains kaparah as wiping out anger. The gift is intended to wipe out Esau's anger.

Ibn Ezra interprets it differently: "The meaning of akhaprah panav is I will cover-up and hide." It is not a matter of ending the anger permanently, but rather of temporarily hiding it, and especially, canceling its destructive outcome. Esau's anger and enmity are not cancelled; instead, they will be temporarily held off by the gift, saving the lives of Jacob and his household for the time being.

The RaMBaN takes pains to reopen the discussion of the meaning of kaparah and disagrees with Rashi:

The connotation of "wiping away" attached to forgiveness [kipur] is not valid in the Sacred Language but rather in the Aramaic tongue... for the word kaparah is never used in association with sin [het], meaning wipe away, but instead Scripture says: lekhapeir [to make atonement] for your souls (Shemot 30:15); lekhapeir for him, and he shall be forgiven (Bamidbar 15:28), i.e., for his soul. And Scripture also says: akhaprah [I shall make atonement] for your sin (Shemot 32:30). All of them are related to the expression, Then shall they give every man kofer for his soul (Shemot 32:12), which means a ransom. (Chavel translation)

According to the RaMBaN, the Hebrew language does not contain the concept of kaparah for a sin, but rather only kaparah for a soul. Kaparah is ransom for a soul, a replacement for death. Jacob is saying that he himself deserves to die upon seeing Esau, and the gift is being given in exchange for his life.

So we have three options for כפר : wiping, hiding/covering, and atonement/ransom. However, I have found a fourth explanation, which I find very convincing. Rav Menachem Leibtag explains in this article how כפר always means "protection". The article is too long to quote here, but it discusses how protection is an accurate definition for most of the words I quoted above, and also offers an explanation of the meaning of Yom HaKippurim. Take a minute and read the article.

However, while there is disagreement as to the meaning of kapara, it is less of an issue in regards to the etymology. As Klein writes:

The meanings 'to wash away, wipe off, cover, expiate' are interrelated, and, accordingly, etymologically connected.

I would add protection to the above list as well. (By the way, the English word "cover" is not related to kofer - it actually is a compound of two seperate roots.)

However, it should be noted that Levine, in the JPS Leviticus (4:20) sides with Rashi above, and claims there is a real difference between "wipe off" and "cover". He writes:

The Akkadian verb kuppuru, which corresponds to Hebrew kipper, means "to wipe off, burnish, cleanse". In cultic terms this means that expiation is conceived of as cleansing, as wiping away impurity, contamination, and, by extension, sin itself. This interpretation differs from the concept endorsed by many scholars that the verb kipper means "to cover, conceal" the sin or impurity from God's view. Such an idea is of course well known in the biblical literature, as it is in most other religious traditions, but is not the idea conveyed by the verb kipper.

What about some of the words that Leibtag does not discuss? Klein writes that kfir perhaps is related to the meaning "to cover" and denotes "a lion already covered with a mane".

Steinberg suggests that kfar means "a place covered with tents in a field".

Klein does not offer an etymology for kefira, but Jastrow writes that it means to wipe out the truth, and this site, discussing the cognate Arabic term kuffir, suggests "to cover or to conceal" the truth.

A related question: why is kippurim found in the plural in the Torah, and why do we more commonly say Yom Kippur (in the singular)? EMC gives the following answer:

Kippurim is a tantum plurale ("only plural") in Biblical Hebrew, a word occurring only in the plural. Pluralia tantum are often used in Hebrew to denote abstract notions, like "atonement," alumim, "youth," tanhumim, "consolation." etc. They are less frequent in later forms of the language, which might account for the eventual changeover to the singular in yom kippur.

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dibrot

On Shavuot we celebrate the giving of the Torah at Sinai, and read the Ten Commandments. Or do we?

First of all, the "Ten Commandments" is not a good translation. As Philologos wrote:

Let's start with No. 1. What is called "The Ten Commandments" in English and other European languages, a phrase translated from the Latin Decem Mandati, is known in Hebrew as Aseret Ha-dibrot, "the ten dibrot." A diber (singular of dibrot) is not a mandatus or commandment; rather - a noun deriving from the verb daber, to speak - it means an act of speech or an utterance, as in the verse in Jeremiah, "And the prophets shall become wind and the utterance [diber] is not in them." The Aseret Ha-dibrot in Jewish tradition are thus "The Ten Utterances," not "The Ten Commandments."

Why is the singular of dibrot דברות diber דיבר? Dr. Eliyahu Netanel explained in his column, Lashon Limudim, in Shabbat B'Shabbato, Bamidbar 5766. He writes that diber is masculine, and the plural is dibrot (which appears feminine) and this is similar to kise כסא and kisaot כסאות - chairs. Here's a list of many more, and an explanation to the phenomenon.

Netanel also writes that where the term diber was used in Eretz Yisrael, in Bavel they would say dibur דיבור. This helps to explain a midrashic saying (Shvuot 20b; it also appears in the song Lecha Dodi) - שמור וזכור בדיבור אחד - shamor v'zachor b'dibur echad. This refers to the fact that the fourth diber - the mitzva of shabbat - appears with the word shamor in Sefer Shmot and zachor in Sefer Devarim. Generally, it is assumed that this means that they were spoken - dibbur - at the same time. But if dibur is the Bavli term for diber, than it means they were in the same fourth diber- also miraculous, according to the midrash, but a slightly different understanding.

However, if we go back even further, we see that in the Torah itself (Shmot 34:28, Devarim 4:13, Devarim 10:4), they weren't called aseret hadibrot, but עשרת הדברים aseret hadvarim. This leads some to think that the Greek term decalogue - "ten statements" or "ten words" - is the most accurate option for use in English.

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