krach

We are approaching the holiday of Purim, where the megillah is read in most cities on the 14th of Adar, but in walled cities it is read on the 15th. One of the terms for a walled city is krach כרך.

Until very recently, I would have told you that the origin of that word was fairly obvious. The root כרך means  to "bind, wrap, surround." The binding of a book is kricha כריכה, and so an individual volume in a series of books is kerech כרך. In the Pesach seder we read about how Hillel would wrap his matza (clearly not the hard matza eaten by most Ashkenazi Jews today), maror and the sacrificial meat. That wrapping - which today we duplicate by eating matza and maror together - is called korech כורך. From here we get the official word for sandwich in modern Hebrew - karich כריך.

So I assumed (as Klein writes) that a krach is so called because the walls surround it. However, I recently started studying the Talmudic tractate Megilah, and on the first page, Steinsaltz notes that a krakh is a large, generally walled city. He mentions the theory that it derives from the root כרך as we mentioned before, but only as the second possibility. The first possibility I had never heard before.

This theory (also brought first by Even Shoshan) says that krach derives from the Greek charax, meaning a fortification - a location defended by reinforcing walls. There were many places known as Charax in the Greek world, some of which can be found here. The word charax originally meant the pointed stake used to make the walls, and later came to mean the fortification itself. In this way it is very similar to the word palisade, which means a "a fence of wooden stakes forming an enclosure" but originally meant the stake itself. In fact, many translate charax, and even krach, as palisade. (A synonym of palisade is rampart, and after looking that up I now know what that line meant in the Star Spangled Banner.)

A couple of familiar English words are cognate with charax. One that sounds similar, but with an unusual etymology is "character":

mid-14c., carecter, "symbol marked or branded on the body;" mid-15c., "symbol or drawing used in sorcery," from Old French caratere "feature, character" (13c., Modern French caractère), from Latin character, from Greek kharakter "engraved mark," also "symbol or imprint on the soul," also "instrument for marking," from kharassein "to engrave," from kharax "pointed stake," from PIE root *gher- (4) "to scrape, scratch." Meaning extended in ancient times by metaphor to "a defining quality."

A less obvious cognate is "gash":

1540s, alteration of Middle English garce "a gash, cut, wound, incision" (early 13c.), from Old North French garser "to scarify, cut, slash" (Old French *garse), apparently from Vulgar Latin *charassare, from Greek kharassein "engrave, sharpen, carve, cut," from PIE *gher- (4) "to scrape, scratch"

In this case, the foreign etymology of krach seems more convincing to me, although I'm sure most Hebrew speakers would find it difficult to believe. Perhaps to educate them, we can start calling the stake-like toothpick or skewer (used to hold a karich together) a karach?

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simcha

We're all familiar with the word simcha שמחה - "joy" (and hopefully with the concept as well!). This noun is based on the verb שמח - in the kal form samach - "was happy" and in the piel form simeach - "made happy" (the hifil השמיח appears once, in Tehilim 89:43, but isn't used in Modern Hebrew). The noun is formed by adding a heh - similar to other feelings such as ahava אהבה - "love", yirah יראה - "fear" and chemda חמדה - "desire". In addition to joy in general, in Talmudic Hebrew it began to refer to a joyous occasion as well. There is also the adjective sameach שמח - "glad", although Avineri (Yad Halashon 601) points out that it is appropriate to say that person is sameach, but to say that an event was sameach is a Yiddishism (better to say there was simcha there).

Klein writes that the root שמח is related to the Ugaritic shmh - "to be glad, rejoice", the Arabic shamaha - "was high, was proud" and the Akkadian shamahu (samahu) - "to sprout, flourish". It is therefore related to the root tzamach צמח - "to sprout, spring up, grow", and so is similar to the English word "elated" (meaning both "happy" and "lifted up").

This meaning is particularly felt in Mishlei 13:9:

אוֹר-צַדִּיקִים יִשְׂמָח;    וְנֵר רְשָׁעִים יִדְעָךְ.

The Koren Tanach translates this as:

"The light of the righteous rejoices; but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out."

Translating yismach as "rejoices" is common - but it doesn't make much sense. How does can light be happy? And if it meant to say the light will make (others) happy, then it should have been yisameach, not yismach. Kil, in the Daat Mikra commentary, says that yismach here means "will grow" and is therefore close in meaning to יצמח - "will spring up". He quotes Ibn Janach as saying the root שמח means "increase", and the Meiri on this verse as saying "it will increase every day".

Jonas Greenfield in his book Al Kanfei Yonah: Collected Studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on Semitic Philology develops this idea further. He writes that another meaning of שמח can be "to shine" (like the English "to brighten" means "to make happy"), as in the Syriac צמח (Klein also mentions the Mandiac ציהמא). This can explain a number of very familiar verses, such as  יִרְאוּ יְשָׁרִים וְיִשְׂמָחוּ - "the upright will see and be radiant" (Tehilim 107:42) and  אוֹר, זָרֻעַ לַצַּדִּיק;    וּלְיִשְׁרֵי-לֵב שִׂמְחָה. - "Light is sown for the righteous, radiance for the upright" (Tehilim 97:11, New JPS translation, apparently influenced by this approach. They follow this approach in our verse above in Mishlei as well, and translate it as "the light of the righteous is radiant". ).

After discussing the various Semitic languages where the root can mean "to grow" and/or "to glow", he writes:

From the point of view of Hebrew alone one must say that a phonic distinction based on meaning has taken place within the root complex צמח - שמח. Etymologically - considering Arabic shamaha and Akkadian samahu - the ש (sin) is primary. While שמח now bears the meaning "to be high, to glow, to rejoice," צמח has been differentiated and means primarily "to grow.". In Aramaic where שמח has disappeared entirely, צמח has variously assumed both "to grow" and "to glow".

He also points out that the root נצץ can mean both "to blossom" and "to sparkle", and the Hebrew and Aramic זהר means "to shine", but in Aramaic it also means "to grow" and in Arabic "to blossom".

While Greenfield doesn't mention it, I am inclined to assume there's a connection understood between simcha as "joy, happiness" and as "light, radiance" (perhaps even a play on words)  in the verses in Esther (8:15-16) -  וְהָעִיר שׁוּשָׁן, צָהֲלָה וְשָׂמֵחָה.   לַיְּהוּדִים, הָיְתָה אוֹרָה וְשִׂמְחָה, וְשָׂשֹׂן, וִיקָר - "The city of Shushan rejoiced (tzahala) and was glad (samecha). The Jews enjoyed light (ora) and gladness (simcha), happiness and honor". The root צהל also can mean "to shine" as well as "to rejoice".

Purim Sameach!

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pereg

We just dealt with some words for crops of debated identity - here's another one, but with a Purim connection. Early in this site, we discussed the Purim food hamentaschen, which literally mean "poppy pockets". The Hebrew word for poppy is pereg (sometimes parag) פרג. It is found in the plural - פרגין - in the Mishna (Sheviit 2:7, Chalah 1:4) and in the Talmud (Rosh Hashana 13b), listed together with other crops that aren't full grains like shumshum¹ שומשום - sesame and orez אורז - rice.

Most of the commentaries do identify pereg with poppy. For example, the Aruch defines it as the Latin papaver, and Rashi on Rosh Hashana uses the Italian word maco, whose cognates are found in a number of European languages. The Rambam on Sheviit translates pereg as khashkhash - the Arabic word for poppy. Many of the later European rabbinic works use the German (and Yiddish) word mohn.

However, some more modern scholars disagree with this assumption, and say it is a type of millet. Ben Yehuda quotes Hrozny (found here in the original German) as saying that pereg derives from the Sanskrit word priyangu, meaning "foxtail millet" (or "panic seed".)  Feliks has two more reasons to choose sorghum millet over poppy: pereg is mentioned in the mishna as a summer crop, and is used to make bread, both of which fit millet much more than poppy. And he also quotes Rabbi Natan Av Hayeshiva (one of the Eretz Yisrael Geonim, whose text was found in the Cairo Geniza) who identified pereg as dura דורה - sorghum, described here as a "summer crop of millet."

The above arguments seem pretty convincing to me, but it doesn't take away the Purim connection to poppy. Luckily the name hamentashcen was never Hebraicized to kiseipereg...

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1. However some European Jewish scholars did identify shumshum as poppy. See Responsa Melamed Le-Ho'il 1:87, Encyclopedia Talmudit "chametz" footnote 709, and Jastrow on שומשמא.

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bira

Purim is coming up, so let's talk about the word bira בירה. No, I'm not talking about the Hebrew word for "beer" - although I will mention that Avineri in Yad HaLashon writes that it would be better if we used the Biblical shekhar שכר for beer. He also doesn't know why the letter heh was added to the end of bira - no European language calls it bira, so we may as well have called it "beer".

No, I'm talking about the unrelated word bira - which in modern Hebrew means "capital (city)". However, the word meant something different originally. It derives from the Akkadian birtu, meaning "fortress", and according to the Encyclopedia Mikrait entered Hebrew via the Aramaic בירתא. We find it in the later Biblical books - Nechemiah (1:1, 2:8, 7:2), Divrei HaYamim I (29:1,19) where it referred to the Beit HaMikdash or the fortress protecting it, Daniel (8:2) and of course frequently in Megilat Esther as Shushan HaBira שושן הבירה.

The meaning in the biblical passages is up to some debate, but is generally understood to mean fortress, citadel or palace. My own theory is that perhaps it is equivalent to armon ארמון - which only appears in the earlier First Temple books (see also Radak, Sefer Hashorashim pg 42.)

Prof. Paul Mandel in his article "Birah as an Architectural Term in Rabbinic Literature" in Tarbiz 61 (1992) shows how by the time of Talmudic Hebrew, the word bira came to mean "a large building" or an insula. This is the sense used in the midrash where Avraham is compared to someone seeing a bira (mansion) on fire, and looks for the ba'al habira בעל הבירה (master of the mansion).

The idea that bira meant some kind of fortress (either one building or a compound) seems to have been universally accepted by both commentaries and translations until relatively recently. For example, Ibn Ezra on Esther 1:2 distinguishes between the city of Shushan and the bira of Shushan (see here for an extensive discussion of the Ibn Ezra in English, along with diagrams). This distinction seems quite necessary, since we see twice (3:15, 8:14-15) that both the city and the bira are mentioned - indicating two separate entities. This article by Avraham Korman (based partially on Reuvein Margolies in HaMikrah v'Hamesorah, which is also quoted here) points out a number of difficulties that our distinction helps resolve:

• In 1:5 it says that the king made a banquet in his garden everyone who lived in Shushan HaBira. If it referred to the entire city, it would be hard to understand how thousands of people could fit in his garden. But if it was only for the king's fortress, it is a reasonable (although still impressive) number. The assumption is that within the royal fortress lived approximately 1000 people.
• In 2:5 it mentions that a Jew lived in Shushan HaBira - Mordechai. This seems to indicate that he was the only Jew. How is that possible - there were many Jews in the city of Shushan? However, he was the only Jew in the king's compound. The Vilna Gaon points out in his commentary that this is mentioned to highlight the miraculous nature of the story, where Mordechai was fortunate enough to be in the king's stronghold.
• In 9:6, it says that the Jews killed 500 men in Shushan HaBira. In 9:15 it describes how after receiving permission from the king, the Jews killed 300 people in Shushan. This indicates two different incidents.
• He also quotes Rabbi Meir Mazuz as pointing out that Shushan is always spelled with a kamatz, whereas Shushan HaBira is always spelled with a patach.

This is also confirmed by more modern archeological research (famously done by Dieulafoy), for example here:

The fortress ... This distinguishes the acropolis, in which the palace lay, from the less strongly fortified surrounding "city of Susa", which lay on the other side of the river Choaspses.

(It's interesting to note the the midrash in Megillah 15a notes that Mordechai had to cross a river in order to pass the message from Esther - who was in the bira - to the Jews in the city of Shushan.)

So if bira is distinct from "city", when and how did it come to mean "capital"? The linguist Yosef Klausner wrote in a 1912 essay that the use of bira as "capital" was common in literature, but should be abandoned, since the original meaning was "fortress". He says that this is a relatively new usage in any case, as it only began during the period of the Haskala - the Jewish Enlightenment.

And indeed if we look at the Biur, the Biblical commentary written by Mendelssohn and his students, we see that they deliberately gave the word a "new" definition. (Thanks so much to S. from On the Main Line for his help finding the Biur as well as other sources in this post.) According to this book, "the commentary on Esther (1788) contains a German translation by A. Wolfsohn and a Hebrew commentary by J. Lowe". Lowe (also known as Joel Bril) writes the following in his commentary on Esther 1:2 -

"the city where the king sits is called bira, and according to the Ibn Ezra, the meaning is palace"

Why they felt the need for this change is not clear to me. But it is evident that they "knew what they were doing". This wasn't a natural progression of meaning - it is a clear rejection of the Ibn Ezra, who represented the consensus.

The Biur's explanation seems to have had a major influence on Isaac Leeser, who wrote one of the first Jewish English translations to the Bible. According to this article

The Jewish prototype for the Leeser Bible was Zunz's Die vier und zwanzig Bucher der Heiligen Schrift (1838). Leeser even used the English equivalent, The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures, for his Bible. "As respects the translation," Leeser wrote in the postscript to his Pentateuch, "he feels it his duty to acknowledge that he has received the greatest aid from the Pentateuch of Arnheim, and the Bible of Zunz, even to a greater degree than from the works of Mendelssohn, Hochstatter, Johlson, Heineman, and several anonymous contributors to our biblical literature.

However, in this case, Leopold Zunz translates bira as burg, meaning "castle", whereas Leeser translates Esther 1:2 as

In those days, when this king Achashverosh was sitting on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the capital

Leeser apparently had a great impact on future Jewish translations. For example, Koren's The Jerusalem Bible, translated by Harold Fisch, draws on Leeser as well as the later Jewish Family Bible by Friedlander. All three use "capital" for bira.

A comparison of Google search results is helpful here:

• "the fortress shushan" - 121
• "the capital shushan" - 159
• "shushan the capital" - 1,080
• "shushan the fortress" - 1,730
• "shushan the palace" - 12,900
• "shushan the castle" - 274
• "shushan the capitol" - 158

Now I'm sure that the high number of "shushan the palace" is due to it being used in the very popular KJV translation. But what I find interesting is that from looking at the examples of "shushan the capital" (and "the capital shushan") is that they are nearly all from clearly Jewish websites. Even very Orthodox sites use this "non-traditional" translation. I have a feeling that this is not only due to the influence of Leeser, but also from the impact of teaching and speaking Modern Hebrew, even in English speaking countries. Everyone knows now that Yerushalayim is the bira of Medinat Yisrael - so it is logical that Shushan would be the capital of Persia.

If you noticed, one of those search results is a little strange. "Shushan the capitol"? As a reminder, capital and capitol are not synonyms. From The American Heritage Book of English Usage:

Capital and capitol are terms that are often confused, mainly because they refer to things that are in some ways related. The term for a town or city that serves as a seat of government is spelled capital. The term for the building in which a legislative assembly meets is spelled capitol.

So who called Shushan the "capitol"? If I'm not mistaken, this was first used by Artscroll, in their very first publication, an English edition of Megilat Esther. Here's an excerpt from that book. They translate Esther 1:2 as:

that in those days, when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne which was in Shushan the capitol

But in the commentary, they write:

Shushan the Capitol
This was the palace surrounded by the less fortified עיר שושן, the residential part of Shushan where the Jews lived. [The capitol was separated from the city by a river.]

Even after considering this for a while, I haven't been able to figure out what Artscroll was going for here. Was capitol a spelling mistake and they meant to write "capital"? That doesn't seem likely, as they clearly identified Shushan as a palace in the commentary. In the introduction to the volume, they explain how their translation is more in tune with tradition than the JPS 1917 translation. That translation uses "Shushan the castle.". Maybe they figured they could appear different from the JPS, while also staying connected to tradition by giving it the name of a building? And so perhaps they appropriated the term capitol for bira? Not sure. And why do they jump between upper and lower case?

In any case, in this later book, the Interlinear Megillah - they use the more common "capital".

So what we have here, is an innovation that should have been rejected by both the traditional Orthodox: כָּל אִישׁ שֹׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ "every man should wield authority in his home" as well as the Modern Hebrew linguists - וּמְדַבֵּר כִּלְשׁוֹן עַמּוֹ - "and speak the language of his own people". But in the end - וְנַהֲפוֹךְ הוּא - the opposite occurred...

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shoshana

Purim is coming up soon, and I was recently asked about the meaning of the phrase שושנת יעקב shoshanat yaakov, found in the piyut sung after the reading of the megila.

I grabbed the siddur closest to me, an Artscroll, and it gave the translation "rose of Jacob". However, the Sacks translation in the new Koren English siddur has "lily of Jacob". A number of other siddurim have either "lily" or "rose", so I thought perhaps Birnbaum could break the tie. He actually translates the phrase as "Jews of Shushan", which probably is closest to the figurative sense of the phrase, but doesn't help us as to the question of whether a shoshana שושנה is a lily or a rose. (Just to make it clear, there's no etymological connection between Shushan and shoshana. However, the folk etymology is ancient - going all the way back to the Babylonian conquest of the city. So it certainly makes sense that the anonymous author of the piyut would make a poetic connection between the two terms.)

So let's look at the dictionaries. Here's there is much more uniformity. Klein has two entries - one for שושן (shoshan or shushan) and the other for shoshana -both primarily based on Ben Yehuda. First shoshan:

lily. (Some scholars identify shoshan with the lotus, others with the ranunculus Asiaticus, still others with the cyperus papyrus.) [Related to Aramaic שושנתא (whence Ugaritic twt, Arabic sausan, Vulgar Arabic susan), Akkadian sheshanu (=lily), Syriac shishno (=butomus flowers). Several scholars derive these words from Egyptian sshshn and sshn, Coptic shoshen (=big flower; lotus). According to others the above words go back to Akkadian shushu (six-sided), shishshu (=sixth). Greek souson, whence Latin Susanna, are Semitic loan words.]

As you may recall, we discussed the connection between shoshana and six in our post on shesh. I mentioned there that Ibn Ezra connects shoshana to shesh in his commentary on Shir HaShirim 2:2 -

It is a white flower of sweet but narcotic perfume, and it receives its name because the flower has, in every case, six [shesh] petals, within which are six long filaments.

Klein continues with his entry on shoshana:

1. lily. 2. Post Biblical Hebrew: flower 3. PBH knot of a nail 4. New Hebrew: erysipelas (disease). 5. NH rose [a collateral form of שושן]

Steinberg identifies both the shoshan and shoshana as a lily, and Kaddari specifies the lilium candidum, the shoshan hatzachor שושן הצחור - the flower on the one shekel coin. (He does say that it could be referring to the lotus in Melachim I 7: 22, 26). Amos Chacham in his Daat Mikra commentary on Shir HaShirim, distinguishes between the shoshana bein hachochim שושנה בין החוחים - lilium candidum (2:2), and shoshanat ha'amakim שושנת העמקים - narcissus tazetta (2:1), also known as the narkis נרקיס (which also has six petals). The Encyclopedia Ivrit (quoted in this interesting article about shoshana) goes so far as to say that when the lilium candidum was found growing wild in the Galil and Carmel - the long debate about the identification of the Biblical shoshana was over.

So if the Biblical shoshana referred to a kind of lily - when did it become associated with the rose? Ben Yehuda writes that in Talmudic Hebrew, shoshana came to indicate "flower" in general. Paul Romanoff, in this article, writes:

The lily, shoshanah, is used generically, as it embraced other related flowers. Lilies had grown on hills and in the field. The choicest of lilies were those that grew in the valleys, in the proximity of water. Perah - flower in the Bible - is often rendered shoshanah - lily in the Targum.

In a footnote, he notes Targum Onkelos to Shmot 25:31-34 and Bamidbar 8:4 as examples of perach being translated as shoshana.

He then goes on to discuss Jewish coins with flowers on them, including one with what looks like a rose. He explains this as follows:

This seeming inaccuracy is explained by the generic term of shoshan which might have included such flowers as the lotus and even the rose. In fact, the Midrash contains a few passages which speak of a soft lily, and the excellent of this kind is the lily of the valley, paralleling the rose of the valley. Besides these allusions, the Midrash specifically mentions a shoshanah shel wered -a lily-rose - which grows in orchards, this species of lily-rose being the symbol of Israel.

So we see from this example from Vayikra Rabba (23:3), that the shoshana shel vered שושנה של ורד was a subset of the more generic shoshana. Vered is a post-biblical word, to which Klein gives the following etymology:

Aramaic ורדא, borrowed from Iranian *wrda, whence Greek rodon, whence Latin rosa (=rose)

Ben Yehuda says that the association of the rose with the shoshana eventually led to later commentators to identify the shoshana with the rose in general. He gives two reasons: a) because they viewed the rose as the most beautiful flower, and b) the rose was well known to them, whereas they had difficulty identifying the Biblical shoshana. This Safa-Ivrit article mentions two other reasons: a) the shoshana is described as the queen of the flowers - which could apply to the rose, and b) the word vered doesn't appear in the Tanach, so they didn't need to say that shoshana = lily and vered = rose. I would also add that in no verse is the color of the shoshana or shoshan mentioned - leaving room for it to be either the white lily or the red rose. (Shir HaShirim 5:13 does mention שפתותיו שושנים - "his lips are like shoshanim". However, that does not necessarily mean color - as Ibn Ezra points out it could refer to the fragrance of the shoshanim, or as suggested by the Daat Mikra, the shape of the leaves.)

Rashi in particular reinforced the identification of shoshana with rose in his commentary on Shir HaShirim 2:2, where he describes it as always remaining red (although he doesn't mention the word rose or vered.) It also appears that the Zohar identifies the shoshana as a rose.

As the Safa-Ivrit article points out, immigrants to Israel from Europe with names related to Rose - Raisel, Rosa, etc - generally used to adopt the name Shoshana. So while vered was still known to be "rose", I'm guessing it was more of a technical term, and less of a popular one. However, now the name Vered is also popular - which I think came in parallel to the flower being more popularly known as vered.

So which translation is right? In a way, this is similar to the phenomenon we've seen before, such as in the question of what is the nesher. We now live in a scientific age, where every plant and animal is classified and sub-classified into genus and species. So we expect that the Hebrew names should reflect that level of precision. But the ancients weren't as concerned with that level of detail as we are today, and therefore shoshana could refer to a number of different flowers - even those fairly distantly related botanically.

So while both the Biblical and modern shoshana mean "lily", it could be that the author of the piyut was actually thinking "rose." So maybe Birnbaum had the safest translation after all...

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almog and coral

[This post is dedicated to the memory of Isaac Meyers, a regular commenter on this site. יהי זכרו ברוך.]

In the previous post, we discussed ahal / aloe. The Yerushalmi (Ketubot end of chapter 7) and Midrash (Bereshit Rabba 15a) identify the aloe tree (agarwood) אלוים - with almugim אלמוגים. This tree appears in Melachim I (10:11) and Divrei HaYamim II (2:7, 9:10) where it is called algom אלגום. It is also variously identified as red sandalwood by Gesenius and others or brazilwood (from where the country Brazil gets its name) by Radak. All of those trees are common to India.

However, in the Babylonian Talmud (Rosh HaShana 23a) it is identified with red coral - the skeleton of a sea animal. This also seems to be the meaning in the Mishna - Kelim 13:8. That is the common usage today.

How did this word come to mean two different things? Which was the first meaning? There are a number of different opinions, many of which use the etymology of the word to help find an answer.

First of all, as Kil points out in the Daat Mikra on Melachim, the Biblical usage cannot be referring to coral, since the almog is described as being used for harps, lyres and ramps - appropriate for wood, not for coral. On the other hand, in Kelim (the Mishna and Tosefta), it mentions that they made beads and rings from almog - which does make sense for coral.

Low identifies the almog with the Akkadian elammakku - a tree mentioned in the Gilgamesh epic. He writes that as building material it was called almog, and when used for incense was called ahal. Kaddari adds that in Ugaritic we find a tree called almg. Greenfield, however, here says that this etymology proves that this was not an Indian tree like the sandalwood, but rather a tree from Lebanon - like the cedar. This works well for the verse in Divrei Hayamim, which has the wood coming from Lebanon, but not for the one from Melachim, where it comes from Ophir, generally identified as India.

A possible solution to this is suggested by the Jewish Encyclopedia:

the simplest solution seems to be that Algum and Almug were originally two different trees—as already suggested by Celsius—which have been confused with one another.

However, most sources say that the letters gimel and mem were simply transposed due to metathesis.

To return to our original question - how due we have one word (or two similar words) for both a kind of tree, and coral?

Stahl writes in Motza HaMilim that a common theory is that both the sandalwood tree and corals share a common reddish color. That, and the tree like shape of the coral (Rashi on Rosh Hashana even calls the coral a "tree"), would seem to indicate that the almog first referred to a tree, and later became identified with coral.

Ben-Yehuda, on the other hand, reverses this theory. He connects the word almog to Latin margarita, Greek margarites and Aramaic marganita מרגניתא meaning "pearl". He suggests the following development:
אלגם, ארגם, ארגן, מרגן

He claims that the tree got its name from having a similar color to the coral. While Ben-Yehuda is in the minority in regards to almog, that does seem to be the case in English: one of the synonyms for the red sandalwood tree is coralwood. In this case certainly coral gave its name to the tree, and not the opposite.

If we're already discussing coral - what is the origin of the English word? The Online Etymology Dictionary provides this etymology:

c.1305, from L. corallium, from Gk. korallion, probably of Sem. origin (cf. Heb. goral "small pebble," Ar. garal "small stone"), originally just the red variety found in the Mediterranean, hence use of the word as a symbol of "red."

Klein writes that the Hebrew goral גורל originally meant "a small stone for casting lots". We find the word used in the Bible in a number of occasions used to determine the outcome of an unclear choice or future - a goral was placed on each of the goats in the Yom Kippur ceremony (Vayikra 16:8) and the Land of Israel was divided among the tribes according to lots (Bamidbar 26:55). (The English word "lot" meaning "plot of land" has the same origin. The word lottery also originally meant "to draw lots". ) From here the word developed into the more general concepts of fate or fortune.

But in perhaps the most famous use of the goral in the Bible, another word was substituted in most of the text. When describing the lot that Haman cast (literally threw the stone), it tells us that pur פור means goral גורל. Pur is an Akkadian word synonymous to goral (not Persian as I mistakenly wrote here. Akkadian was the lingua franca of the Middle East at the time). And of course this is where we get the name of the holiday of Purim.

Happy Purim everyone!

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zecher and zachar

This shabbat is Parshat Zachor, where we must remember (זכור) what Amalek did to us on our way out of Egypt. Is there any connection between zecher זכר - "remembrance, memory" and zachar זכר - "male"?

Klein says that some scholars make a connection. They claim that the root זכר originally meant "to pierce". From here we get the concept of memory - "to pierce" -> "to fix in one's mind" -> "to remember". Zachar as "male" is anatomically associated with piercing (think of the biological symbol for male), just as the word for "female", nekeva נקבה - is related to נקב - "to puncture, pierce".

Steinberg points out that the Aramaic for זכר is דכר, which is related to דקר - also "to pierce".

Until fairly recently I confused zachar and zachor: I mistakenly thought the Friday night gathering before a brit was a shalom zachor (connected to rememberance) and not shalom zachar (welcoming the male child).

From the gemara in Bava Batra 21b, we see that Yoav made a similar mistake. It says there that:

David sent his commander Yoav to fight Edom, and Yoav killed all the males. David asked why he did that, and Yoav answered because of the pasuk *Timche et Zachar Amalek (you shall wipe out all of the MALES of Amalek - Devarim [Deuteronomy] 25:19). David ... explained that it's Zecher Amalek (...the MEMORY of Amalek) , not Zachar.

Rav Mordechai Breuer here quotes Rav Meshulam Roth as saying that this story is hard to accept. How could Yoav have confused zachar and zecher? And here it was in the construct state (smichut) - so it would have been zchar amalek - even further away from zecher! But Rav Roth continues that there are some words where in the construct state they become like zecher - for example, ashan עָשָן becomes eshen עֶשֶן. So from here he learns that Yoav learned the word zecher with two segol marks. Had he learned it correctly, withe a tzerei instead of the first segol, he wouldn't have made the mistake. This is important, for there is a rabbinic disagreement as to whether the word zecher is with two segol marks, or one tzerei and one segol. Rav Breuer's article states that we must be faithful to the Masoretic text, which indicates the word should be marked with the tzerei - and reading the verse twice casts doubts on this text and should not be done!

Rav Breuer passed away this week. A number of bloggers have written about him: see here, here, here and here for example. During my time in Yeshivat HaKibbutz HaDati I merited hearing Rav Breuer speak on a number of occasions. I was always impressed with his sharp wit, his unbending passion for truth and his originality that was so convincing you couldn't believe you never thought of it before. I have since purchased his books Pirkei Moadot and Pirkei Bereshit, and have continued to learn much from them.

In 1998 the magazine Deot had an interview with him. To explain his method of study, he gave the following example:

There was a disagreement between the Sages as to whether the mezuza should be placed horizontally or vertically. As a compromise, it was placed on an angle.

The lesson to be learned from this, is that if one was to come and look at the mezuza without knowing the background, he would think that it was placed on an angle as the ideal state. But someone who knows the story, is aware that there is nothing ideal about the angle, but the significance lies in the disagreement between the horizontal and vertical positions.

This insight has much to do with what I'm trying to do with this site. Everyone can see the mezuza on an angle - I'm trying to see the back story, how it should be seen as both vertical and horizontal - concurrently! (This is why you should excuse any apparent contradictions in my writing...)

Rav Breuer's daughter, Elisheva was the ulpan teacher in the yeshiva, in my first year out of high school. My knowledge of Hebrew was practically zero. I don't remember particular lessons from her class, but I'm sure some of my passion for Hebrew comes from her. And her husband, Rav Avia Hacohen was my Torah and Tanach teacher - and again, much of my love of learning the Bible derives from his teaching.

May the memory of Rav Breuer be a blessing, and may his family be comforted in the building of Tzion.

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evyonim

On Purim we are obligated to give matanot l'evyonim מתנות לאביונים - "gifts to the poor". The more common word for a poor person is ani עני, and the etymology is clear: it derives from the root ענה meaning "to humble, oppress, afflict" and is related to such words as anav ענו - "humble", taanit תענית - "fasting" and inui עינוי - "torture". But what is the origin of the term evyon אביון?

The midrash in Vayikra Raba (34) provides the following etymology: אביון - שמתאב לכל "evyon - because he longs for everything". Steinberg provides a similar origin - he relates it to the the root אבה - "desire", which is related to the root תאב that the midrash brings. He also connects אבה to the root אוה, of the same meaning. From that root we get ta'ava תאוה "longing, passion".

Klein does not connect אבה and אוה (he says אוה is of unknown etymology.) But he does write that evyon:

Probably from אבה and originally meaning "desirous, longing, yearning', compare Ugaritic 'bjn. Late Egyptian and Coptic ebien are borrowed from Hebrew.

Kaddari doesn't even accept Klein's theory. He says the Hebrew evyon is borrowed from the Egyptian ebyen - "wretched". He says the attempts to connect evyon with אבה are not convincing.

I have to say that instinctively I find Steinberg convincing - אבה , אוה and אביון all look similar enough and the meanings seem very close. But perhaps that's the problem with linguistic coincidences - we "desire" the connections so much, we end up as "evyonim"...

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yayin and wine

When my bilingual six year old is offered a drink at kiddush, she would like to know if it is grape juice or "wayin". She obviously senses the similarity between the Hebrew yayin יין and the English "wine". Are the words related?

According to most scholars, yes. What isn't clear is how. The Hebrew yayin is clearly related to the other Semitic words - Ugaritic yn, Arabic wayn, Akkadian inu. The Indo-European words are also connected - Greek oinos, Latin vinum, Albanian vone, Armenian gini - as is the English word "vine".

The words are all similar enough - what isn't clear is if the Semitic borrowed from the Indo-European, the Indo-European borrowed from the Semitic, or both borrowed from somewhere else. A popular theory is that wine making began in the Caucasus - in modern-day Turkey and Armenia, and the word originated there, perhaps the Hittite wiyana. There are those that connect this fact to the first story of wine in the Bible - Noah's planting a vineyard after landing on Mount Ararat, which is in that region (Bereshit 9:20).

And what of my daughter's wayin? According to Kutscher, this was probably the earliest Semitic form of the word - וין. Why did it change to yayin in Hebrew? Because of a general rule in Hebrew (as well as Aramaic and Ugaritic) that a vav in the beginning of a word becomes a yod. Arabic and Ethiopian do not have that rule, and we can see this in the Arabic word for boy - walad, which in Hebrew becomes yeled.

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medina

(I did a number of Purim related words last year - you can see them in the category "Purim". If you can think of any others to discuss, feel free to let me know in the comments or by email.)

The word medina מדינה appears in the book of Ester many times. According to Kutscher (Milim V'Toldotehen 20-21), in the Bible (Ester as well as Melachim, Yechezkel, Daniel, Ezra, Nechemia, Kohelet and Eicha) - medina, both in Hebrew and Aramaic, always (or almost always) means "province" or "district".

However, in Rabbinic Hebrew, Kutscher writes that the word usually means "city".

How did this change come about? In this article, Professor Charles Torrey writes that there is evidence of medina meaning "city" as far back as the 5th century BCE. He describes the difference in meaning as follows:

The regular Aramaic word for 'city' in both Western and Eastern dialects was medina. This was certainly true during the period of Persian rule in Western Asia and thereafter, whatever may have been the case at a still earlier date. There is no clear evidence that the word was ever used in any other meaning outside of the Hebrew territory. The borrowing by the Hebrews seems to have taken place in the way which is illustrated in countless other instances in the history of language, the new word being given a new meaning by the borrowers. Having a fixed term of their own, עיר, for 'city,' as well as the locally used קריה, they adopted the Aramaic מדינה (literally, 'place of government,' 'seat of jurisdiction') giving it the meaning 'province,' 'sphere of jurisdiction' (equally justified etymologically), for which they had no other term; this signification was very possibly suggested by an old native use in the sense 'capital city' of an administrative district, the same use which we find adopted by the Persians and employed in Egypt. Thenceforward the word meant 'province' in Hebrew-Jewish writings, until at some time in the early Christian period its use in this sense was crowded out by the regular and original native Aramaic use.

So according to this theory, the word medina originally meant "jurisdiction" (from din דין - law) in Aramaic, with the sense of "city", was borrowed by Hebrew to mean "province", and then as the Aramaic influence on Hebrew grew, came to mean "city" in Hebrew as well.

This helps us understand the midrash in Ester Rabba 1:1

כל מקום שנאמר שדה - הוא עיר. עיר - מדינה. מדינה - אפרכיה

"Whever you find (in the Bible) the word field (שדה) it implies "city" (עיר), wherever you find city (עיר) it implies a medina ("metropolis" according to the Maurice Simon translation or "capital" according to Jastrow), wherever you find metropolis (מדינה) it implies province (אפרכיה)."

For those people reading the midrash when it was written, there was a need to explain why the word medina in the book of Ester did not mean city, but rather province.

Arabic adopted the word medina as "city" from Aramaic, and Kutscher points out that this is where the Arabian city Medina gets its name. Stahl writes that this name was originally given to the city by the Jewish residents. This Philologos column also discusses the issue:

We thus know that whoever settled in Yathrib and gave it its non-Arabic name of “the Medina” or “the city” were originally Aramaic speakers from elsewhere. At first this was just a local usage employed by these immigrant Medinians for their town, just as New Yorkers, when talking among themselves, call New York “the city,” too. (If you come from Philadelphia, on the other hand, you call New York “New York,” just as other Arabians went on saying “Yathrib.”) This usage must then have spread to the Arabic-speaking population of Yathrib, which attached the Arabic definite article to make it “Al-Medina” (as Arabs call Medina to this day), a form then adopted by the Aramaic speakers when they eventually switched to Arabic themselves. And it is highly likely that these immigrants were Jews from Palestine or Babylonia, both Aramaic-speaking areas in the early centuries C.E., because we also know from Arab historians that, in Muhammad’s time, three large Jewish clans — the Banu-Nadir or “Sons of Nadir,” the Banu-Korayzeh and the Banu-Kainuka — dominated the city. In addition, there were in Medina two large non-Jewish clans, the Aws and the Khazraj, whose origins were in Yemen.

So we've seen medina meaning province and city. What about the modern meaning of "state"? Daniel Elazar writes:

There is no generic term for state in the Bible or the Talmud. The Hebrew term medinah, now used for state, appears in both; in the Bible it refers to an autonomous political jurisdiction (the equivalent of a Land in German or one of the fifty states of the United States), that is, a territory under a common din (law), whose identity is marked by having its own political institutions but not politically sovereign in the modern sense. In the Talmud, the term is used even more vaguely from a political perspective, as in medinat hayam, roughly translated as some distant jurisdiction. Only in modern times did medinah come to be used to describe a "sovereign state."

Both Kutscher and Torrey relate to the Greek translation of the word medina in their efforts to understand its meaning at the time. A common translation is "polis" - the Greek word for "city-state". Since the Greeks blurred the boundaries between cities and states, perhaps any translation of the Hebrew/ Aramaic medina would be similarly blurred.

In any case, modern Hebrew uses both medina and "polis" - we have mediniut מדיניות - for "policy", but politika פוליטיקה for "politics". And while medinai מדינאי and politikai פוליטיקאי - are basically synonyms, medinai - statesman sounds a bit more noble than politikai - politician.

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besumei

It's well known that there is an obligation to get drunk on Purim. The source is the gemara in Megila (7b):

מיחייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי

Interestingly, the verb for intoxication isn't from the root שכר, but rather l'besumei לבסומי. This word comes from the same root as perfume or fragrance - בסם or בשם - bosem. This is an ancient word in Hebrew, and appears in the description of the incense brought in the Temple. It is also familiar to us from the besamim we smell at Havdala, after Shabbat.

The root bosem made its way into English as well. The balsam tree got its name from the Greek balsamum, which derives from the Hebrew basam. Later, balsam led to the word balm, and balmy - fragrant or mild weather.

What about the other meaning of balmy - insane or foolish? There seem to be a few theories. One theory claims that it is a corruption of the name of a lunatic asylum by the name Barming Asylum in Kent, Britain. A different approach is that it comes from the word "barm"- the frothy, foamy head found on a glass of beer or ale, which derives from the Old English word "beorma." "Barmy" first appeared in the 16th century in a literal sense meaning "foaming," and by 1602 was being used to describe someone acting in an excited or irrational way whose head seemed to be filled with froth.

So while you might be feeling balmy while you are m'vusam - there might be a connection, but it's not etymological.

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hamentaschen

The etymology of hamentaschen is fairly well known. They did not originally refer to Haman (and therefore the Hebrew אוזני המן oznei haman - came much later.) These pastries were originally called "mahn-taschen". Mohn means "poppy" in German, and tasch is a pocket. When you add the Hebrew definitive article ha, they become ha-mahn-taschen, which is easy to associate with Haman. Of course there are many "midrashim" (really Purim torah), that expound on the connection: that Haman had three-cornered ears like the pastry, or had a three cornered hat, or a new one for me, that it refers to המן תש - "Haman became weak."

But here at Balashon, we go deeper. What is the origin of tasch and mohn?

From here we see that tasch from comes from Middle High German tasche, and earlier from Old High German tasca. Tasca is related to the English word "task", and both are related to "tax". What's the connection between task, tax and pocket? The Online Etymology Dictionary explains as follows: "amount of work imposed by some authority," to "payment for that work," to "wages," to "pocket into which money is put," to "any pocket." (A connection between Haman and taxes can be seen in the more recent custom to boo at the reading of the word mas מס - tax in the Megila, the same way as Haman is booed.)

Mohn in German is related to the Dutch maan, and has a number of related words in Indo-European languages, including the Greek mekon.

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esther

In Megilat Esther there are a number of words that are mentioned first in Akkadian, and then in Hebrew - pur and goral, and the names of the months, for example. The heroine's name is also given twice - Hadassah and Esther. In this case Esther is not a translation of Hadassah of course, but rather the Persian name she went by.

The name Esther - אסתר - is connected to the Babylonian deity Ishtar (yes, the same name as the notoriously unsuccessful movie.) They both derive from the Indo-European root ster, and the related Semitic root ctr which gave us the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Phoenician goddess Astarte עשתרת. That same root gives us the English words star, astral, stellar and disaster (not in the stars.)

The rabbis in Chullin 139b say that there is a hint to Esther's name in the Torah:
ואנכי הסתר אסתיר - And I will surely hide (Devarim 31:18). The idea that God is hidden in the story of Purim is well known. But were the rabbis unaware of the original etymology of the name?

Rabbi Josh Waxman in Parshablog has a good explanation:

"While Esther and Mordechai are indeed the names Ishtar and Marduk, that does not (nor should not) preclude the name Esther having Hebrew connotations.

It is only if you think that pshat means that a word can have one and only one meaning that you would think it could not have another connotation. Let me give an example. Say I were writing a story about a creative type and called him Art. It is a perfectly normal American name, but that should not stop someone from analyzing my story and (correctly) concluding that I intended a pun."

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dat

The word dat -דת appears approximately 20 times in Megilat Esther. The meaning in the megila is "law" or "custom". Over time the word was adopted into Hebrew as "religion", as discussed here. In modern Hebrew we have dati as religious, and the Ashkenazic pronunciation gives us dosim, which has a derogatory tone in secular Israeli culture.

Everyone agrees that the word dat comes from a Persian word - data. (In the Book of Ezra the word appears as such - דתא). Horowitz claims that the Iranian data led to our English data, as well as the English word date. While no one denies that the English words data and date are connected, is there really a connection between dat and data? Just how redundant is the site DosiDate?

Since Horowitz did not provide sources for his theory, I'm going to rely on Klein's research. Klein claims that the Persian word data derives from the Indo-European base dhe. This root means "to put, to place" or "to do, to make" and gives us such words as deed, the suffix -dom, edify and many more.

On the other hand, the English word data derives from the Indo-European root do, meaning "to give". From here we get the words date, doron (Greek for gift, later migrating into Hebrew), donate, dowry and dose.

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masecha

A friend recommended that another Purim related topic would be the word masecha מסכה - mask. He pointed out that it is related to the word masechet מסכת - tractate (of the Talmud.)

(Don't you love English words that are only used for Hebrew concepts? Tractate means treatise, and they both come from the Latin tractare, meaning "manage, handle, deal with" and originally meant "drag about" and therefore is also the source of the English words tractor, trace, train, retreat and extract.)

According to Klein, masecha and masechet are related - both come from the root נסך - to weave. Masechet originally meant a "web of the loom". Klein points out that in English there is a similar development from the Latin texere (to weave, and the root of the word textile) and textus (meaning structure, and the root of the word text.) He claims that נסך is related to the root סכך - the source of the words sukkah and musach מוסך - garage.

Interestingly, Klein writes that there is another meaning to the root נסך - to pour out, and it is not related to the root meaning to weave. This is the root of the words ניסוך nisuch - libations, נסיך nasich - prince, and מסכה - masecha, but this time meaning "molten images" - as in the prohibition of "elokei masecha" or the עגל מסכה egel masecha- molten calf.

What about the word mask? It sounds similar to masecha. Well, it doesn't come from the same Hebrew root (although Klein claims that while masecha originally meant "covering", the modern meaning of mask was influenced by that English word.) What is the origin of the word mask? Most sources say it (and the word mascara) comes from the Arabic maskhara meaning "clown or buffoon", from sakhira "to ridicule." With clowns wearing masks or make-up, this is a logical development. From what I've managed to find on the web, sakhira also means "to falsify" - so I'm going to guess that it's related to the Hebrew root שקר sheker - to lie.

There is another theory as to the root of the word mask - in the root סקר - to paint red. I was able to find the first page of this article, but only the first page, so I can't fill you in on all the details. Does anyone happen to have the entire article?

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tachposet

With Purim not far away, it's time for the the annual event: the search for costumes for the kids. But this time there's an etymological search as well: Is there a connection between חיפוש chipus - search and תחפושת tachposet - costume?

It turns out there is. The root חפש (or in Aramaic חפס) means to search or to dig. In Biblical Hebrew we find the root also meaning to disguise oneself - but only in the hitpael (reflexive) form - התחפש hit'chapes. One example is in Shmuel 1, 28:8, where it describes how King Saul "disguised himself (התחפש) and wore different clothes." Yehuda Kiel, in his commentary Da'at Mikra, explains that the root is from חיפוש chipus - search: he made others search for him (the reflexive.)

Only later did the word develop into a non-reflexive form - לחפש l'chapes (to disguise someone) or תחפושת tachposet - costume.

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butz

The rabbis discussed how Purim and Yom Kippur are similar - they even use the play on words that Yom Kippur is Yom HaKippurim - כ-פורים - like Purim. While the lots are the most obvious connection, from reading the mishnayot of Yoma, I've seen another. Both Yoma and Esther mention the fabrics of the priestly garments. One that particularly caught my eye was the term for fine linen, בוץ -butz. How could such special fabric share the same name as the Hebrew word for mud - בוץ - botz?

Lets look at the word butz (linen). It originates from a Semitic root meaning white, and that also led to the word for egg - beitza ביצה. When Eliezer ben Yehuda was looking for a word for the metal zinc, he chose אבץ - avatz. He based it on the Aramaic word אבצא, which referred to tin. However since there already was a Hebrew word for tin (בדיל - b'dil), Ben Yehuda utilized the meaning of "white metal" to associate zinc with avatz.
Interestingly, an English word for linen, byssus, made its way from the Hebrew word butz.

On the other hand, Klein explains that the word botz, meaning mud or silt, derives from בצץ - to exude, and is related to the Akkadian word for sand, basu. The Hebrew word for swamp, בצה - bitza, is related to botz as well.

What about בצבץ - bitzbetz - to exude? Here we have a machloket (disagreement) between two major scholars. On the one hand, Klein in his Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, claims that bitzbetz is related to bitza, swamp, in the way that mud oozes out of a swamp. However, today I picked up a wonderful new book, Motza HaMilim, by Avraham Stahl. Stahl writes that bitzbetz means to shine, and derives from the "white" of linen and eggs.

Who was right? Far be it from me to decide. But maybe one of the readers has some additional information?

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megillah

In a couple of weeks we will be reading from Megilat Esther. Where does the word megila - מגילה - (scroll) originate?

The origin is from the Hebrew root גלל - GLL - to roll. Other words from this same root include gal גל - wave, galgal גלגל - wheel, and גליל galil - district. What we call the Galil (the Galilee), a large area in the northern part of Israel, was originally called "Galil HaGoyim" (Isiah 8:23) - the district of nations, apparently because many tribes and small nations lived there.

Klein points out that English has a similar development: The Latin word volumen (meaning a roll, a book, and the source of our "volume") derives from volvere (meaning "to roll" and the source of our "revolve".) Volume meaning bulk derives from the "bulk or size of a book."

The concept that a book or scroll is noted for its size is the source of an expression in English - "the whole megillah." Originating with the Yiddish phrase gantse megillah, it meant a large complicated story. It still has that meaning in modern Hebrew (although Rosenthal claims that the slang term derives from Ladino, not Yiddish). In English it has now come also to mean "the whole nine yards", or even just excitement in general.

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adar

This morning the upcoming month of Adar was announced. The original names of the Hebrew months were numerical starting with the month of Pesach, so Adar was known simply as the twelfth month. But during the Babylonian exile, the Jews began adopting the Babylonian names, and later, according to the rabbis, the "names of the months went up (made aliya) from Babylonia." These are the names we are all familiar with today.

What is the meaning of the name Adar? There are two primary theories. Jastrow claims that it derives from an Assyrian word - adaru -meaning cloudy or dark. I suppose this is connected to the fact that Adar falls during winter.

A more popular theory is that Adar comes from the Akkadian word iddar, meaning threshing floor. It's unclear why Adar would be associated with a threshing floor, but one guess is that this was the month that the threshing floors were prepared for the upcoming spring harvest.

While Jastrow doesn't suggest an iddar - Adar connection, he does give some interesting possible origins to the word iddar. He translates it as a "place cut off, circle...whence threshing place, barn". The word אידר would then derive from the root dor - דור - meaning to go around in a circle. Dor is the root of many Hebrew words, most notably cadur - כדור - "like a circle." Due to the substitution of Z for D in Hebrew and the related languages (for example נדר and נזר), we can add a few more words - zira זירה (arena) and zer זר - wreath.

According to this site, the Biblical place name Adoraim also derives from the same root - threshing floor. Adoraim was several kilometers south of Hebron, and the name is preserved in the Arab town of Dura.

One place name that certainly doesn't come from the month of Adar is the town of Har Adar. Har Adar was originally a British radar station, and had the name "Radar Hill" (Givat Haradar). When the town was built, the name transformed from ha-radar to Har Adar.

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