segula, segel and mesugal

 Way back in 2006, I mentioned briefly the etymology of segulah:

segula סגולה - "property" is related to the Akkadian word sugullu - herd of cattle

And a few months later, I pointed out that segula is not related to segol סגול - "violet, purple" (for a more in depth discussion see Elon Gilad's article here.)

But segula deserves much more attention. It's a word with a fascinating history, that has led to many different meanings. Let's take a look.

Much of what I'll be discussing here is based on an article (in Hebrew) by M.Z Kaddari, in his book The Medieval Heritage of Modern Hebrew Usage (Dvir, 1970). Here's a section of the English abstract which summarizes his extensive discussion Hebrew about segula:

An instructive instance in the dialects of emotional connotation is the word segula. In Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, this word was an emotional one ('valued property', 'peculiar treasure'); however, it seems to occur as a pure concept word also ('treasure', 'fortune'). This emotional change happens similarly in the language of the Piyyutim (Liturgical Poetry) and in Medieval Hebrew. Later on in Middle Hebrew, influenced by Arabic, the word designated 'characteristic feature' too, without any emotional overtone (the former emotional overtone had disappeared). But it had been used in special environments (designating objects endowed with the power of recovery); consequently, an emotional secondary meaning had developed in it ('magic quality'), which has survived up to our days in some vernacular usages. However, due to the last generations's alienation from misbeliefs, sometimes this renewed emotional meaning of segula has been suppressed: hence the word is used simply as a term of 'character,' 'quality'. In Modern Hebrew, we find segula in both meanings: the general and literary languages have its notional meaning ('quality'), while the substandard vernacular (influenced by the Musar and Hasidic literature, and by Yiddish) keeps carrying its emotional meaning ('magic quality').

I can't transcribe all 14 pages here of his Hebrew essay, but I'll try to summarize the main developments of the word.

1. As I mentioned in my original post, segula meant "herd of cattle" in Akkadian, and that probably was the original meaning in Hebrew as well.
2. From there, the word came to mean "property". As I pointed out in my 2006 post, the development from cattle to property can also be found in the Hebrew words rechesh רכש, kinyan קנין, and neches נכס. It is used with this meaning in Kohelet 2:8 and Divrei HaYamim I 29:3.
3. In the Torah, Israel is described as God's segula (Shemot 19:5; Devarim 7:6, 14:2, 26:18). While it clearly indicates a close relationship between God and Israel, ultimately it indicates that the nation is His property -  a suzerainty. In the biblical context, segula does not imply any inherent advantages or positive traits. (Shemot 19:5 is noteworthy in this regard, because the nation becoming God's segula is dependent on following the laws.)
4. In Rabbinic Hebrew, segula continues to mean "property." This is where we first find the verb סיגל sigel - meaning "to acquire property" and mesugal מסוגל - "belonging to."
5. Once the verb sigel became widely used, segula was understood to be its gerund, so it also took on the meaning "what one acquires for oneself" - i.e. treasure.
6. This sense of "treasure" was expanded beyond the sense of property, and came to mean something "dear" to someone. So a person could also be a segula to someone else. 
7. In the piyuttim, a number of these meanings were combined, and so Israel is described as a segula, meaning "dear treasured nation" or "dear possession." The piyyutim literally had "poetic license," and they created new words and grammatical structures. So they created the new word segel סגל, synonymous with segula. As Yaakov Etsion discusses here, one of the phrases found in a Rosh Hashana piyyut is segel chavura סֶגֶל חֲבוּרָה. The phrase literally means that Israel is an "association of segula, a treasured group" The author flipped the semichut (construct form), as Etsion describes. This phrase was used in other contexts as a fancy, poetic expression. But over time, it was assumed to have "normal" semichut, and eventually the chavura was dropped. Today, as a result, segel means "corps, cadre, senior staff" in Modern Hebrew.
8. In Medieval Hebrew, segula came to mean something of great importance, and particularly something "select, chosen." This is how it is used in the writings of Yehuda Halevi, for example. (Much of these Medieval uses are borrowed from parallel phrases in Arabic, which I won't go into here.) 
9. This led to a distinction between the masses and special people, who became known as yechidei segula יחידי סגולה.
10. Following its Arabic parallels, segula also came to mean "characteristic feature." This goes back to its early meaning of "property." The same phenomenon can be found in words in English (deriving from Latin), like "peculiar" which means "belonging exclusively to one person; special, particular", but derived from a word meaning "private property", and even further back - "cattle." The English word "property" also means both "possession, thing owned" and "nature, quality." We find this use of segula in the translations of Rambam's Arabic writings into Hebrew.
11. Over time, segula didn't just mean "characteristic" but specifically a "positive" characteristic. (Think of how in English, we tell someone to "behave", but we mean "behave well.") It specifically became attributed to the positive attributes plants and other objects had in providing healing and health. 
12. This association with medicine and the natural world, eventually expanded to the supernatural and the magical. A "segula", in this context, is a kind of charm or ritual, that would bring good fortune or protect from harm. 
13. As Kaddari mentioned above, as the Jewish world became more secularized, the belief in magical segulot faded, but the word remained. Just as a segula had magical abilities, once stripped of that belief, it just became an ability. And this was particularly found in the verbal. If a person is מסוגל mesugal, he is able or capable (of performing an action). And in the hitpael form, הסתגל, means "to adapt oneself" and histaglut הסתגלות is "adaptation, acclimation."

For me, watching a word develop that way is simply beautiful. That simple root has followed the speakers of Hebrew since antiquity, always adapting to the where the nation was at the time. Truly an am segula!

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bar mitzva

As you may have noticed, I have not written a post in several weeks (actually a few months). While life always has other distractions (like work), this time my biggest reason for not writing was my son's Bar Mitzva - both the preparation for it and recovery from it took up a lot of time. It was a wonderful event and we're very proud of him. And so in honor of the occasion, I thought I'd discuss the phrase a bit.

Since bar בר means "son" (primarily in Aramaic, but also in Hebrew, see Mishlei 31:2), and mitzva מצוה is generally translated as "commandment", a popular translation for bar mitzvah בר מצוה is "son of the commandment(s)", which would be understood as "a son, a boy, to whom the mitzvot apply (since he reached the age of 13)."

However, that translation isn't actually the best one. Bar, as well as ben בן (the more common Hebrew term for "son"), is a prefix found in many phrases with a meaning that is hard to pin down, but includes such senses as "belonging to", "worthy of", "capable of" and the one most relevant to us, "obligated in".

While in many cases mitzva can refer to an individual commandment, there are many times in the Torah where it refers to the Law as a whole, and actually is a synonym for the word "Torah". See for example Devarim 5:28 and 6:25. where we find the phrase כל המצוה. Some translations aren't consistent here, such as the Living Torah, who translates the phrase in the first verse as "all the rules" (despite the fact that it says "hamitzva" and not the plural "hamitzvot") and in the second as "the entire mandate". The JPS, however, uses the word "Instruction" throughout, noting that while the word mitzva literally means "commandment", here it refers to the entire legal corpus. In his JPS commentary on Devarim 4:1, where the additional synonyms חוקים ומשפטים chukim and mishpatim - "laws and rules" are found, Tigay explains them as well as edot עדות and mitzva. He then writes, regarding all these terms, that the Torah "employs the terms without distinction, just as English uses phrases like 'rules and regulations' and 'laws and ordinances'."

So bar mitzva simply means "one who is obligated in the Torah". (We might think that the phrase ben torah בן תורה or the Aramaic equivalent בר אוריין bar orayan would be synonymous, but they diverged into a different sense, with the meaning "one who has learned much Torah, a scholar"). And this meaning of bar mitzva is how it first appears in the Talmud, as in Bava Metzia 96a, where it compares a messenger who is a bar mitzva (i.e. obligated in the mitzvot of the Torah) to a slave, who is not a bar mitzva, since he is not obligated in the mitzvot. (We also find the the phrase bat mitzva בת מצוה in the Talmud, for example Bava Kama 15a, meaning a woman obligated in mitzvot.)

Only late in the Medieval period do we find bar mitzva refer to the boy who has turned 13. But the phrase always refers to the person himself - "he is a bar mitzva". I don't know when it first began to refer to the event or the celebration, but I suspect it is a Yiddishism.

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segen and samal

In our post discussing sochen סוכן - "agent" - I wrote that it "is connected to segan סגן - in Biblical Hebrew a government prefect, and later in Rabbinic Hebrew a deputy." While segan as "deputy" (or "vice", as in "Vice President" - סגן נשיא) is still used in Modern Hebrew, it was adapted for army use as segen meaning "lieutenant." This is an appropriate translation, as lieutenant originally meant "one who takes the place of another."

Klausner (Ivrit Hachadasha U'Bayoteha, p. 191) thought that segen was the original pronunciation, not segan. Avineri (Yad Halashon, pgs. 403, 480) disagrees, writing that segen only appeared in piyutim, but segan was the prominent usage. He says that segen was adopted in the army either a) due to similarity to seren (see below), or b) to show that this was not specifically the position of a deputy, which segan indicated.

Another word created for the Israeli army was samal סמל - "sergeant".  However, the word was originally an acronym (including segen), as Klein writes:

Originally spelled סמ"ל and formed from the initials of the words סגן מחוץ למניין, corresponding to N.C.O. (= Non-Commissioned Officer); later the word סמל samal was regarded as a derivative of סמל semel.

The word semel here refers to the Biblical word (Devarim 4:16, Yechezkel 8:3,5, Divrei HaYamim II 33:7,15) meaning "image, likeness", and in modern Hebrew "symbol". Kutscher writes that this mistaken derivation was due to an assumption that samal was inspired by the rank "ensign", which derives from a French word meaning "symbol". However, Kutscher finds that the earliest usage was indeed the acronym, and points out that if we have such a hard time figuring out the etymology of words that were coined in our generation, we should be cautious about guessing the etymology of words that were first used thousands of years ago.

From semel we get the adjective simli סמלי - "symbolic" and the verb סמל - "to symbolize". However, neither the English words symbol nor similar are related to semel (they both have Indo-European origins, whereas semel is purely Semitic). However, it does appear to me that "symbol" has influenced the usage of semel in modern Hebrew.

Likewise, the word signon סגנון isn't related to segan. It was borrowed from the Greek signum meaning "sign", and originally meant "sign, ensign, banner", and later came to mean "style, form, way".

But just in case you think that no Hebrew army terms actually are related to Greek words - take a look at our old post on the word seren סרן - "captain". We see at least one theory that it is related to the Greek tyrannos...

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schwa

In the past few months, I've become more aware of the distinction between the vowels shva na (voiced) and shva nach (unvoiced). (For a good introduction to the concept, read the beginning of this post and this Philologos article.) While there are some words where the proper pronunciation affects the meaning (for example, the word וְיִירְאוּ in Tehilim 67:8), I think in general it is a good idea to improve my reading, particularly in prayer. I have also recently become aware that there are disagreements among the scholars as to the whether a particular shva is na or nach - some of which come in rather important sections of prayer. For example, in the Kriyat Shma, Devarim 6:7, there are those who say that the first bet in וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ has a shva na, others say a shva nach. How do we properly recite this word in the regular prayers? This is an issue I'm still researching; maybe I'll have a post about it in the future.

But while I've only recently become curious about the Hebrew shva, I've been aware of the English cousin "schwa" for many years, ever since I noticed the interesting rotated "e" back in elementary school:

However, until I started this blog, I had never thought about how strange it was that this English word would have been borrowed from Hebrew. How did this happen?

From the Oxford English Dictionary, we see that the word "schwa" entered English in 1895, borrowed from German. But English had other forms of the word for the Hebrew vowel, such as:

• Like to a silent Hebrew Scheua (1589)
• the Sheva of the Hebrews (1818)
• When no vowel is expressed, then as in the Hebrew, a Sheva..will be implied and read accordingly (1837)

There are similar older quotes in French and German.

But the question remains - why would European linguists borrow a Hebrew word? The word shva only shows up in Medieval Hebrew, so it didn't have any of the Biblical sentiment that the Christian scholars might have attached to it. My guess? It was a matter of necessity. Until more recent linguistics, European languages could suffice with the Latin letters for all of their vowels. But when they "found" a vowel that couldn't be represented by any of the existing letters - it was convenient to use a foreign word. And here the Hebrew shva was a perfect fit. I'm still curious to see exactly what Hebrew texts were read by Christian scholars when they discovered the word, but that may be lost to history...

What about the etymology of the Hebrew word shva? The most well-known etymology (as suggested by the OED) is that it comes from the Hebrew שוא shav - "nothing, vanity" (also "lie, falsehood".) However, Klein provides a different source:

borrowed from Syr. שויא (= the seven points), lit.: ‘even’ or ‘equal’ (points) ... related to Hebrew שוה (was even, smooth, or like)

But Ben-Yehuda, while providing the same theory as Klein, does also mention the "nothingness" theory in the name of earlier Hebrew scholars. And I admit, it's what my first guess was...


(Thanks to my new friends at the Wordorigins.org Discussion Forums, for helping me find some of the sources.)

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totafot

Sometimes when I want to write about a word, I'm surprised that so little has been written about it. This is not one of those times.

When it comes to the word totafot טוטפת (or טוטפות) it seems that absolutely everyone is getting into the game. I'm not sure how to organize the discussion, with so many opinions. So bear with me if it seems a little scattered today.

The earliest source that discusses the etymology of totafot is Sanhedrin 4b:

והתניא (שמות יג) לטטפת (דברים ו) לטטפת (דברים יא) לטוטפות הרי כאן ארבע דברי ר' ישמעאל ר"ע אומר אינו צריך טט בכתפי שתים פת באפריקי שתים

[Translation from here]:

We learned in a b'raita: "Totafot," "totafot," "totafot."
[Ex 13:16, Deut 6:8, and Deut 11:18 describe the tfillin worn on the head as "totafot." The third time, the word is spelled with a "vav" after the first "tet" and before the final "tav," a plural form.]
That makes four [compartments within the tfillin box]; these are the words of R. Yishmael.
R. Akiva said: We do not need (this exegesis): "Tot" in Coptic means two, and "Fot" in Afriki.

As we've seen before, Rabbi Akiva is not afraid to derive biblical words from languages other than Hebrew. (However there is a lot of apologetics out there, saying that there is of course no way that a biblical word could come from any language other than Hebrew). Steinsaltz writes that the Coptic word is "aft" meaning "two", and "Afriki" means Phrygian in which פת means "two", and is connected to the Greek bathos, meaning "both".

Aryeh Kaplan in The Living Torah, also writes:

According to Talmudic tradition, the word totafoth alludes to the four boxes in the head Tefillin, since tot in a Caspian dialect is two and foth or poth is two in African or Phrygian (see note on Genesis 10:2; Menachoth 34b). The word tot appears to be cognate to 'two,' and possibly also to the Latin totas, and hence the English 'total.' Poth is cognate to the Gothic bothe, the English 'both,' and the Sanscrit botto.

Significantly in ancient Egyptian, ftu or fot means four, while tot can denote a gathering, resemblance, divine, or hard leather. Hence, totafoth may have had the connotation of a fourfold amulet, made of leather, as the Tefillin indeed are.

Rashi on Shmot 13:16 quotes Rabbi Akiva as well as another opinion:

This word means "tefilin". Because they are made of four compartments, they are called totafot. For tat in the Kaspi language means two, pat in the Afriki language means two. Menachem (ben Saruq) in his notes (connects it) with: והטף אל דרום "And speak" to the south." (Yechezkel 21:2) and אל תטיפו "Don't speak" (Micha 2:6). These are terms for speaking, like "and a reminder between your eyes" (Shmot 13:9) which is said in the first section, for whoever sees them tied between the eyes will remember the miracle and speak about it.

The Ramban on the same verse rejects Menachem's approach. He writes (Chavel translation):

No affinity is known to this word. Linguists (meaning Menachem), however, associated it with the expressions: 'v'hateiph' (And speak) to the south; And my word 'titoph' (dropped) upon them. The figurative usage thereof is based on the verse: And the mountains shall drop (v'hitiphu) sweet wine. Thus the verse is saying that you should make the exodus from Egypt a sign upon your hand,, and between your eyes a source for discourse distilling as the dew upon those who hear it. Our Rabbis, however, have called an object which lies upon the head totapoth, just as they have said (Shabbat 57a): "[A woman] many not go out [on the Sabbath] with a totepeth or head-bangles." Rabbi Abahu said: "What is totepeth? It is a forehead-band extending from ear to ear". Now it is the Rabbis [of the Talmud] who are the [true Hebrew] linguists, as they spoke the language and knew it and it is from them that we should accept [the explanation of the word ultotaphoth].

Why was the Ramban so critical of Menachem? The Ibn Ezra on Devarim 6:8 gives us a clue. He writes that the Karaites say that totafot derives from the root הטף (as we've seen Menachem say). He claims this is not possible, for the root of הטף is נטף - and totafot has no nun and two tets.

(Without getting into a major polemic, it is interesting to note that the issue of totafot was and still is central to the debate between Karaites and Rabbinic Judaism. The Karaites do not believe there is a commandment to wear tefilin, and that seems to be the concern of the Ibn Ezra and Ramban. On the other hand, those trying to prove the existence of the Oral Torah often write that with out such a tradition, we could never understand the meaning - and practice - of totafot.)

In regards to the Ibn Ezra's proof from the difference between נטף and טוטפת, Tigay (also the author of the JPS Devarim) discusses in this comprehensive article, On the Meaning of T(W)TPT how there is a precedent for such a shift in letters. He gives the example of לבלב becoming לולב, and the Ugaritic kbkb being related to the Hebrew כובב.

However, just because the root is נטף, it doesn't mean that totafot didn't refer to something physical, worn on the head. While הטף does mean "to preach", the earlier meaning is "to drop, drip" from where we get the word טיפה tipa - drop.

Amos Chacham in the Daat Mikra says that jewelry worn on the head would "hang, drop down", and we find jewelry called netifot נטיפות in Yeshaya 3:19.

Tigay also suggests "headband", but derives the word totafot from the Arabic tafa - "go around, encircle". (From this root we also get taifa, the Spanish districts under the Moslems.)

And with all this said, I still haven't scratched the surface. Rav Kasher, in the appendix to Torah Sheleimah Parshat Bo, has an article that lists eleven explanations to the word totafot. (Tigay quotes another article that has 21).

Aside from what we've already discussed, Kasher quotes the Chizkuni and others who say it may be related to the Aramaic word מטייפין - "will see". (Maybe this is an example of an alternation between tet and tzade - צפה also means "to see".) Kasher connects this theory to the opinion that a blind person is exempt from tefilin.

I think I'll leave it here for now. Maybe I'll come back to it for Parshat Vaetchanan...

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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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