afikoman

The afikoman אפיקומן is perhaps the most misunderstood part of the seder meal. The Mishna in Pesachim (10:8) states:

ואין מפטירין אחר הפסח אפיקומן

Which can be loosely translated as "After the Pesach (sacrifice) one should not end with afikoman". To this there are two major questions. One, what is this afikoman? And two, isn't the afikoman actually the last thing we eat at the seder?

First, let's find out what afikoman means. While there are a number of midrashim and folk-etymologies, the most commonly accepted answer is that it comes from the Greek word epikomion, meaning the "festal procession after the meal". Epi means "after" (as in epilogue), and komos means "banquet, merrymaking" (and is the root of the word "comedy").

Professor Eliezer Segal explains here the development of this understanding of afikoman:

The reference is to a custom known as epikomion, a Greek word meaning "after dinner revelry" ... Normally this would involve going off to someone else's house, whether or not you have been invited, and indulging in another party.
What the Mishnah is saying is that, in spite of some of the apparent similarities between the seder and a pagan banquet, one should not treat it light-headedly as the Romans and Greeks would their own feasts. This meaning was understood by the Rabbis of the Palestinian Talmud, who lived under Roman rule. By contrast, the Babylonian Talmud (whose authors lived farther away from the Greco-Roman world) came to understand the afikoman as a "dessert," translating the Mishnah as "One should not eat anything after the Passover Afikoman."

So now the question remains, even if we accept the Babylonian Talmud's understanding that we are not supposed to eat after the afikoman, why do we call the last piece of matza we eat "the afikoman"?

It was accepted by most halachic authorities that in order to fulfill the intention of the above mishna, the last thing eaten at the seder should be a quantity of matza. In the times of the Geonim, there was no mention that this piece needed to come from the broken and hidden piece of the middle matza. But by the time of the Rishonim (Rashi, Rashbam and others), it was emphasized that the last piece of matza eaten should come from the broken and hidden piece. This is the origin of the siman (step) tzafun צפון - meaning "hidden".

Then, starting in the time of the Rishonim (Machzor Vitri, Sefer Rokeach, and others), the afikoman began to refer to the piece of matza eaten during tzafun.

So the meaning afikoman changed from a forbidden act of revelry, to a dessert, to a required piece of matza during the meal. Anyone who could have guessed that really deserves an "afikoman present"...

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maror

The etymology of maror מרור (in the Tanach, it never appears in the singular but rather as the plural merorim מרורים) is simple - it means "bitter herbs", from mar מר - "bitter".

What English word also derives from the same Hebrew root? The spice myrrh gets its name from the Hebrew word mor מור. This spice was burned at the altar in the Temple, and appears numerous times in Shir HaShirim. Rashi (Bereshit 22:2), following Onkelos, explains the etymology of Har HaMoriah as coming from the spice mor. While other explanations are given, Shir HaShirim (4:6) does mention Har HaMor.

This of course leads to the question: why would such a central spice be named after something so bitter? This site seems to give the answer:

Myrrh is a gum resin produced by trees and shrubs of the family Burseracea, most notably Commiphora myrrha, Commiphora abysinica, and Commiphora schimperi. The resin is obtained from Arabia and adjacent Africa, and is taken from the small, prickly gray-barked trees. Pearls of myrrh are brown, red or yellow, with an oily texture, becoming hard and brittle with age. It has a pleasing fragrance, very much like balsam, and a lasting, bitter, aromatic taste, hence the name mor, which signifies bitterness.

I'm sure there's a nice drasha that can be made about how mor is sweet to smell but bitter to taste. If someone knows of one, please let me know; otherwise feel free to write your own...

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hag'ala

A number of years ago I was working on a kibbutz, helping to prepare the kitchen for Pesach. One of the tasks was to rinse the vessels and utensils in boiling water - known as hag'alat kelim - הגעלת כלים. When someone asked me what I was doing, I said ani mag'il אני מגעיל - which also means "I am disgusting." While the story would have been funnier if I had not known the meanings of both words, the question remains - what is the connection between rinsing in boiling water and disgust/rejection? Does the root געל have one meaning or two?

Klein seems to indicate that there are two meanings, but doesn't fully explain the etymology of each. If I recall correctly, one of the kibbutznikim offered me a convincing explanation. Both words indicate repulsion. When something disgusts me or someone rejects me - I am repelled away. When I do ha'galat kelim - I repel, remove, the chametz from the vessel.

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hakheh

Many people are surprised by the violent answer to the wicked son in the Haggadah, when we are told to "hit him in the teeth". However, that is a mistranslation. The text says הקהה את שיניו - "blunt his teeth" - not הכה את שיניו - "hit him in the teeth." What is the meaning of the verb hakheh?

The root קהה means to "be blunt, be dull." The connection to teeth appears In Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 31:28-29: אָבוֹת אָכְלוּ בֹסֶר; וְשִׁנֵּי בָנִים, תִּקְהֶינָה - "Parents have eaten sour grapes and children's teeth are blunted." This blunting of teeth is referring to the opposite of the ideal state - healthy teeth are assumed to be sharp. The midrash in Yalkut Shimoni (Eicha) describes Yitzchak as הבן שנתן לו בקהיות שנים למאה שנה - "the son that was given to (Avraham) when his teeth were blunt (i.e. he was in his old age), when he was one hundred years old." Jastrow provides a number of examples of the use of the root קהה - and while they differ, they all derive from the same meaning - dull or blunt.

The root קהה seems to be connected to the similar sounding root כהה - which means "to grow dim, faint" and later "to become dark". Both קהה and כהה are according to one theory the root of a word that many strongly associate with Pesach - coffee. The American Heritage® Dictionary claims that coffee comes from the Arabic word qahwa meaning "dark stuff", and is related to the Arabic word kahiya, "to be(come) weak", which is connected to both קהה and כהה.

This is certainly not the only theory. Many others say that the word coffee comes from the Ethiopian region of Kaffa. Stahl and others say that qahwa originally referred to a type of wine. Now, imagine how awake you'd be after four cups of coffee at the end of the Seder!

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pesach

It might seem that the etymology of the word Pesach is so obvious that it doesn't deserve an entry here. Pesach = "pass over", no? Well, until I started researching it, I would have agreed. However, it turns out that the origin and meaning of pesach is one of the most complicated topics I've dealt with yet.

It is clear that Pesach is connected to the verb pasach פסח. But what does pasach mean?

Both pesach and pasach appear for the first time in Shemot (Exodus), chapter 12:

יא וְכָכָה, תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ--מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים, נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם; וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ בְּחִפָּזוֹן, פֶּסַח הוּא לַהשם.

יג וְהָיָה הַדָּם לָכֶם לְאֹת, עַל הַבָּתִּים אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם שָׁם, וְרָאִיתִי אֶת-הַדָּם, וּפָסַחְתִּי עֲלֵכֶם; וְלֹא-יִהְיֶה בָכֶם נֶגֶף לְמַשְׁחִית, בְּהַכֹּתִי בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.

In order not to influence your understanding of pasach, I won’t translate the phrases, but in short, verse 11 states that “you will have a pesach to God” and in verse 13, God says that “I will pasach over (or “on”) you.”

There are three main explanations to the word pasach – “to have compassion”, “to protect” or “to skip over.”

Let’s review each of the opinions.

To skip over - לדלג: This is the most commonly known definition. How did it become so popular? According to Nahum Sarna in Exploring Exodus (page 87), this translation became predominant because the Latin Vulgate version translates pasach as “pass over” – transire in Latin. (Interestingly, it was the 16th century Christian scholar William Tyndale who coined the term Passover. Previously pesach was translated by Christians as paschal or pask.) This understanding explanation was adopted by the Septuagint, Josephus, Rav Yoshaia in the Mechilta (who connects פסח with פסע) Rashbam, and Rashi brings it as one of the options (כל פסיחה לשון דלוג וקפיצה).

To have compassion לחוס : This is the translation provided by Onkelos, an unnamed source in the Mechilta (אין פסיחה אלא חייס) and Rabbi Yonatan in the Mechilta (פסחתי עליכם – עליכם אני חס) and is also offered by Rashi (פסחתי – חמלתי). Sarna feels this is the oldest and most reliable. Dov Rappel and others suggest that Onkelos translated פסח as חוס because it would not be respectful to describe God as “jumping”.

To protect להציל, להגן: This explanation appears in Tosefta Sota (Chapter 4), Targum Yonatan, the Mechilta, and is supported by Yishayahu (Isaiah) 31:5:
כְּצִפֳּרִים עָפוֹת--כֵּן יָגֵן ה' צְבָאוֹת, עַל-יְרוּשָׁלִָם; גָּנוֹן וְהִצִּיל, פָּסֹחַ וְהִמְלִיט.
“Like the birds that fly, even so will the Lord of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shielding and saving, protecting (פסח) and rescuing.”
There is certainly a strong connection between to protect and to have compassion, and one understanding might have developed from the other.

A word from the same root is piseach פיסח - meaning lame. Amos Chacham in Daat Mikra (Shmot) (and earlier the Radak in Sefer HaShorashim) quotes the verse in Yishayahu (35:6):

אָז יְדַלֵּג כָּאַיָּל פִּסֵּחַ, וְתָרֹן לְשׁוֹן אִלֵּם:
“And the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing out loud”
Chacham goes on to say that perhaps the sacrificial lamb itself is called “pesach” because it jumps and skips. However, Samuel Loewenstamm in The Tradition of the Exodus in Its Development rejects that explanation based on the same verse. He points out (page 86) that the verse describing a miraculous state, but it is not the way of the piseach to jump, just as the deaf do not usually sing. (A neighbor of mine suggested that perhaps piseach is related to pasach (to jump), but is used to describe a lame person in a euphemistic way.)

Loewenstamm mentions an Arabic root connected to pasach which means to expand. (He brings the root in Arabic, but unfortunately I can’t read Arabic.) He states that the same verb also has the meaning “to save” (and therefore is another proof for him that the translation “to protect” is the most authentic.)

Rav Uri Dasberg in Shabbat B’Shabbato quotes the same Arabic root to explain a difficult passage in the Hagada Shel Pesach. The Seder opens with the invitation:
כל דצריך ייתי ויפסח
This is generally translated as: “anyone who needs it may partake of the Pesach sacrifice.” However, the law states that the sacrifice is distributed only to those who reserved a portion before it was slaughtered. Once the seder has begun, it is too late to add participants.

Dasberg explains that the entire “invitation” is intended for non-Jewish foreigners. The Talmud states the Jews of Babylon were required by law to invite soldiers of the king into their homes in times of crisis. This is a reason that the invitation is in Aramaic. In order to avoid the prohibition of cooking for a non-Jew on a holiday, the invitation was extended after the meal had begun (since no more food could be added.)

According to Dasberg, perhaps the meaning of ויפסח was to make room (like the Arabic root), so the invitation said “we will make room for anyone who needs” and did not refer to the Pesach sacrifice at all.

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aviv

Today is the first day of the month of Nisan, which in the Torah was known as the month of Aviv (sometimes transliterated as Abib.) For example, Shmot 13:4 states "This day you are going out in the the month of the Aviv": הַיּוֹם אַתֶּם יֹצְאִים בְּחֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב

While in modern Hebrew aviv means spring, in the Bible it meant young barley. We see this in the plague of hail (Shmot 9:31) "the barley was aviv": כִּי הַשְּׂעֹרָה אָבִיב

Additionally, in VaYikra 2:14 we read about the Omer offering, which was barley poached in fire: אָבִיב קָלוּי בָּאֵשׁ. Since the Omer offering began in the month of Nisan, the barley connection to the original name is very logical.

Yet if we dig a little deeper, we see that aviv comes from the root אבב meaning to bring forth shoots, or to be fresh. For example, in Job 8:12 we have a related word: עֹדֶנּוּ בְאִבּוֹ - "while yet in its freshness". So the connection to spring is not only due to the barley harvest, but because of the general renewal of the season.

Two well known cities derive their name from the root aviv. Of course you will recognize the connection to the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. In 1910, Nachum Sokolow took the name - meaning "hill of spring" from the book of Yechezkel (3:15), where it actually refers to a Babylonian location.

The other city? The Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, meaning "new flower" or "new blossom". Addis comes from the same Semitic root as חדש chadash (new) and Ababa derives from the same root as aviv.

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cadencia

Well, after the elections in Israel I guess it makes sense to relate to a political term - kadentzia קדנציה. This is the Hebrew term for "tenure" or "term of office". If you're guessing it doesn't sound like native Hebrew - you're right.

It originates from same root as the English word cadence, meaning "The patterned, recurring alternation of contrasting elements, such as stressed and unstressed notes in music". The root is in the Latin cadere - to fall (as in falling notes of music.) It's easy to see how a term meaning rhythm could refer to a regular cycle like a term in office, but it's not entirely clear to me how it entered Hebrew. Cadence means term of office in French, and cadencia has that meaning in Spanish. French and Spanish aren't common sources for Hebrew words, so there's probably another stop along the way - but Klein doesn't mention it, and I haven't seen anyone else do so either.

Another term with a similar musical origin is trop (or trope)- the Yiddish term for the cantillation marks used in reading from the Torah. This site does a good job of describing the etymology of the term:

But one of my favorite not-exactly-Hebrew words is "trupp," simply because I spent years thinking to myself, "that doesn't sound like Hebrew" before I finally went and looked it up. It's not, of course; it's a slightly Germanicized pronunciation/transliteration of a Hebraicized version ("trop") of the Greek word tropos, "turn," which was adopted wholesale into Latin as tropus and from which we get English "trope" and a bunch of words ending in "-tropy."

"Trope" in English mostly means "a figure of speech," although those of my readers familiar with early music may also remember that a trope is a musical "turn," a cadence at the end of a melody.

So whether the election results are music to your ears or not, remember that it's part of a rhythm that will repeat itself every so often...

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sefarad

In yesterday's post, I discussed the Greek name of Gibraltar, Calpe. Today we'll travel across the sea in our exploration of Hebrew and its related languages.

When we look at the transfer of words between the Semitic languages and the Indo-European languages, we can notice two trends. The Jews were a minority in many lands, and adopted numerous words from their host countries. On the other hand, there were nations from the Semitic family who gave their names to locations, either as sea explorers like the Phoenicians or empire builders like the Arabs.

So to return to Gibraltar, the name comes from the Arabic Jebel el Tarik "the Mountain of Tarik." Jebel derives from the Semitic root גבל - the same as the Hebrew word גבול gvul - meaning border.

Far earlier, the Phoenicians (also known as Punics) explored the Mediterranean and gave many distant places Semitic names. Perhaps the most famous Punic colony was Rome's rival Carthage, whose name in Phoenician was Qart-Hadasht, related to the Hebrew kirya hadasha קריה חדשה - "new city".

According to a theory in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Phoenicians gave the name to Gibraltar's neighbor Spain (Hispania) as well. One theory claims that the name derives from tsepan - rabbit or hyrax (in Hebrew shafan שפן) and so another name could be "The Land of Rabbits". Another theory posits that Hispania comes from sphan - north (tzafon צפון in Hebrew) due to Spain being north of Carthage.

The Jews had a different way of exploring the world - they did not by ships, but by the text. The 20th verse of the Book of Ovadia states that the exile of Jerusalem in Sefarad (or: Sfarad) will inherit the cities of the Negev:

וְגָלֻת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, אֲשֶׁר בִּסְפָרַד--יִרְשׁוּ, אֵת עָרֵי הַנֶּגֶב

Researchers (D. Neiman, E. Lipinski) have suggested that Sfarad may have been Sardis (capital of Lydia in Asia Minor), suggested by a Lydian-Aramaic bilingual inscription that refers to Sardis as S-p-r-d in Aramaic. But as this article describes well, over time, Sefarad began to be associated with Spain. Targum Yonatan translated the term Sefarad in Ovadia as Espamia, and later the Radak explicitly identified Sefarad with Spain. Now of course, Jews whose families originated in Spain are known as Sefardim.

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kalpi

On Tuesday, Israelis will be going to the ballot box - or as they say in Hebrew, the קלפי kalpi. This word has been in Hebrew since the times of the Mishna. According to Klein, it originates in the Greek kalpe, the collateral form of kalpis, meaning "pitcher, box or urn for drawing lots." Klein states that the origin of kalpis is unknown, and I have not been able to find any thing online discussing its etymology.

I have however found some sites that discuss the exact nature of the kalpis. In Greek times there were two types of urns used also as ballot boxes - the hydria and the kalpis. This site describes the differences between the two, and has illustrations as well. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, the kalpis "was curved at the shoulder and had a smaller vertical handle" (than the hydria).

Interestingly, the Greek name for Gibraltar was Calpe or Kalpe. This site claims they named the "Rock" after an urn because of the similar shape, and even more detail is given here.

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strudel

Well, you certainly wouldn't want to have any strudel (or shtrudel in Yiddish) in your house before Pesach, would you? Well, if you use a computer in Israel, you just might.

In Hebrew, the "at sign" - @ - is called a shtrudel שטרודל. While in English it is known for its function, in many languages it gets its nickname from its shape. Here are some other examples:

• Czech/Slovak: zavinac "rollmops (a rolled fillet of herring)"
• Danish: snabel-a "a with an elephant's trunk" or, less common, grisehale "pig's tail"
• Dutch: apestaart/apestaartje "monkey tail" (the -je form is diminutive)
• Finnish: kissanhäntä "cat's tail"
• German: Klammeraffe "spider monkey (literally "clinging monkey"), Ohr "ear", Affenschwanz (Zurich) "monkey's tail"

While it might seem just cute that the Hebrew term comes from a word for apple pie, there's actually more to the word - and perhaps it's one of the most accurate. What is the origin of the word strudel?

The German word strudel literally means whirlpool - which is a very accurate description of the @ symbol. It derives from the Indo-European root *ser - "to flow". What other words have the same root? Serum (originally from a root meaning "watery fluid" or "whey" in Greek) and samsara (the eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth in Hinduism and Buddhism).

As an aside, the Academy of the Hebrew language has given the official name כרוכית kruchit to both strudel the pastry and the @ sign in Hebrew.

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itriya

Well, going through the pantry, we've found our next source of chametz: itriyot איטריות - noodles or pasta. This term goes back to the Jerusalem Talmud (Hallah 57d, Beitza 60d), which according to food historian Charles Perry, is the first clear Western reference to boiled noodles. The word itriya (or itrija) is not unique to Hebrew. It is also found in Arabic, and from Arabic it made its way into Italian (trii or tria) and Spanish (aletria). Perry also notes that:

By the tenth century, it appears, itriyah in many Arabic sources referred to dried noodles bought from a vendor, as opposed to fresh ones made at home. Other Arabic sources of the time refer to fresh noodles as lakhsha, a Persian word that was the basis for words in Russian, Hungarian, and Yiddish. (By comparison with these words, noodle, which dates from sixteenth-century German, originated yesterday.)

What's the origin of itriya? There are a few theories.

The most common is that it comes from the Greek word itrion, meaning a thin cake of sesame and honey. (The development of the word is discussed here.) Both Stahl and Klein accept this origin.

Another theory is that it comes from a Persian word meaning "shoe laces" or "string in quantities". I have not found anything to confirm or deny this.

Jastrow's approach is the most interesting in terms of Hebrew etymology, although I fear it may be the least likely. He says the word literally means "something preserved", "dough preserved" from the root נטר - to guard, to preserve.

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lechem

“Man cannot live on bread alone” - כי לא על הלחם לבדו יחיה האדם (Devarim 8:3)

While it is clear from the verse that there are more important things in life than lechem (or lehem/lekhem) לחם bread, by its placement it is also clear that lechem is of very high significance. What is the meaning of this staple word?

Well, first of all, it's not clear that it originally meant only bread. In Arabic lahm means meat, and as Ruth Almagor-Ramon points out here: http://msradio.huji.ac.il/wwwroot/INST/rega.doc
lechem meant "the main food". When flour was the basis of the main food, then lechem meant bread; for those who relied mainly on meat, then the same root took on that meaning.

Stahl explains the term similarly. He points out that Hebrew also preserves some of the non-bread meaning of lechem, as in the verse from Tzefania 1:17: וְשֻׁפַּךְ דָּמָם כֶּעָפָר, וּלְחֻמָם כַּגְּלָלִים - "their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung". Here l'chum refers to flesh, to meat.

In Hebrew, Bethlehem derives from Beit Lechem - the House of Bread. In Arabic, they call it Beit Lahm - House of Meat. (The English word bedlam derives from a London mental hospital called "Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem".)

What about two other words that share the same root with lechem - מלחמה milchama - war, and הלחמה halchama - welding? Both Stahl and Almagor explain that they are all connected. Welding brings things closer, and in war in ancient times, the combatants were very close to one another. And what about lechem? Almagor claims that man feels very close to lechem (food), whereas Stahl says that the flesh association is earlier, and explains that lechem (flesh) is very close to the bone.

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haredim

Today's post is about charedim חרדים - the "ultra-orthodox" Jews. Aha, you think, he's got no more chametz words? Have some faith.

From what I've been able to see, the charedim took their name from the quote: "חרדים לדבר השם" - "tremble at the word of the God". Only thing is, I can't find a verse that exactly matches it. From Yishayahu 66 we have וְחָרֵד עַל-דְּבָרִי (verse 2) and שִׁמְעוּ, דְּבַר-השם, הַחֲרֵדִים, אֶל-דְּבָרוֹ (verse 5). I don't know when they first began using that term, but it does seem clear that the original singular was chared חרד, not charedi חרדי, and charedi חרדי was a later back formation of charedim חרדים.

What other group took their name from the same source? The Quakers. George Fox admonished his followers to "tremble at the word of the Lord". (Interestingly, the Online Etymology Dictionary states that "the word was used earlier of foreign sects given to fits of shaking during religious fervor". Perhaps the charedim were called such because of their shuckeling?)

Back in 1901, the Quaker Oats company was founded in America. It wasn't founded by Quakers, but rather they chose the name because of its association with honesty and integrity. They are one of the main manufactures of oatmeal, and when Israelis first saw oatmeal, they gave it the nickname based on a transliteration of the label on the box - kvaker.

You can now found 14,000 hits on Google for קווקר - but I wonder how many Israelis think of charedim when they eat their oatmeal...

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challah

Let's take a look at the type of bread commonly eaten on shabbat, challah.

Philologos does a good job of explaining the background of the word here. To sum up the points of the article:

• The root of the word is חלל - which can mean either round or hollow
• Challah is part of the biblical commandment of hafrashat challah הפרשת חלה - separation of the challah

But there's more to it than that. Stahl brings up both the theory that challah comes from the roots meaning "round" (the shape of the loaf) or hollow (the form of the loaf). He adds another possibility - that the bread was sweet, and therefore received its name from the same root as the Arabic hilu (from which the sweet sesame paste halvah derives.)

Stahl also expands on the connection between the Shabbat bread challah and the obligation to separate challah. He quotes Rav Shmuel Gelbard in the Otzar Ta'amei Haminhagim, who explains that during the week, people would buy bread from the baker, who would perform the mitzva of seperating the challah. But before Shabbat, the women would bake the bread themselves, and in order to remind themselves to seperate challah - the bread itself began to be called challah.

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idkunim

The etymology of idkunim עדכונים - updates isn't that complex. It comes from the phrase ad kan עד כאן - "until here" or "so far". It's a recent word, as is the English update, which first appeared only in 1948. I guess it makes sense for idkun and update to be of modern coinage...

Anyway, that term was just an excuse to let you all know of a few updates.

a) In my post about choten and chotenet, I mentioned an article that criticized Jastrow's definition of chatan. Well, thanks to Menachem Butler, I received a copy of that article. It was by Rabbi Salomon Alter Halpern, published in the journal HaMoreh in 1970. The part I remembered read as follows:











Rabbi Halpern is referring to Jastrow's example of chatan in Pesachim 113a, where advice is given to a husband to prevent contact between his wife and her first chatan. Jastrow seems to indicate it means a fiance, while Halpern claims that chatan always refers to a husband after the wedding.

b) Back in my post about teruma, I quoted the Rambam's introduction to Masechet Terumot, where he defends linguistic innovation. I did not, however, translate the quote into English. Well, Zackary Sholem Berger did the job for me, here. Thank you Zackary.

c) I will be traveling for most of the next 5 weeks. I do plan on continuing to add new entries here, but I obviously won't be carrying my entire library with me. So while the information might be less comprehensive than usual, I'm sure I can rely on the readers here to let me know if I've forgotten an important fact.

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pita

Well, Purim is over, and in my house that means it's time to start getting rid of the chametz. So in that vein, I'll try over the next couple of weeks to clear out some good chametz words.

Last year, Lethargic-Man wrote:

The Collins Concise English Dictionary gives the etymology of "pitta" as a Greek word for a cake; Jastrow's Dictionary of the Talmud (etc) gives פיתא pita as the Aramaic of Hebrew פת pat, a piece of bread (and the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives פַת becoming פִיתָה as an example of vowel transformation in Hebrew). The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology has nothing to say on the subject, neither does the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition).Can anyone resolve this conundrum and tell me whether the English word really does come from Hebrew, or Greek, or the Greek from the Hebrew, or whether we're looking at two unrelated words that just happen to sound the same and have similar meaning?

Well, I think I may be able to help. Stahl writes that פת pat appears in the Tanach and comes from the root פתת - meaning "to break into pieces, to crumble". This is the source of the modern Hebrew פתיתים petitim (small orzo-like pasta) and the Yemenite fried bread dish - fatut.

As far as pita, Stahl quotes David Gold, the editor of the Jewish Language Review and the University of Haifa. Gold claims that despite the common approach that pita comes from פיתא, there's more to the story. In Greek, the word pit meant "bran" as discussed here:

The two main variants of the Italian (and now international) term, pizza and pitta, correspond to two Greek names for 'bran bread', pētea and pētítēs, recorded by Hesychius, Latinized as *pittja and (with haplologic shortening) *pitta. The root morpheme is pit/pet 'bran'; the words are of Doric provenience and spread as Doricisms in southern Italy; the pizza was originally, in full accord with its Spartan Background, the poor man's bread.

Stahl goes on to claim that the Greek pitta was adopted by the Sefardic Jews living in Greece, and when they came to Israel, the Ashkenazi Jews adopted it as well. He says that pita should really be spelled in Hebrew with a "tet", but because people associated it with the Aramaic פיתא - the "tav" was used instead.

So when you eat your pita, think of pizza, not pat...

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asphalt

As we've discussed in the past, there are a number of Hebrew words that have made their way into Indo-European languages such as English. Since the passage of words from one language to another often happened thousands of years ago, it is difficult to authenticate any particular claim. Today I'll bring up one that I find interesting - and I'd like to hear from the readers whether they agree, and particularly if there are any sources that back them up.

The English word asphalt comes from the Greek asphaltos. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

c.1325, "resinous mineral pitch found in Biblical lands," from L.L. asphaltum, from Gk. asphaltos, probably from a non-Gk. source, possibly Semitic.

Horowitz (p. 285) has an interesting theory. He claims that "an ancient name for the Dead Sea was 'Yam Shafelet' from the Hebrew word שפל shafel meaning 'low'."

He then continues: "Along the shores of the 'Yam Shafelet' was a tough, sticky, substance useful in road building. The Greek who dug it out called it 'asphaltos'. The Greek language has no 'sh' sound. This becomes the English word 'asphalt'."

There is no question that the Dead Sea is associated with asphalt. The Jewish Encylopedia gives the sea the following names:

The Dead Sea, known at present as "Bahr Lut" (Lot's Sea), is called in the Old Testament "Sea of Arabah" (R. V. Deut. iii. 17; Josh. xii. 8), "East" or "Eastern Sea" (Ezek. xlvii. 18; Joel ii. 20; Zech. xiv. 8). and "Salt Sea" (Gen. xiv. 3). The Talmud refers to it as "Salt Sea," or the "Sea of Sodom"; and Josephus and Pliny call it "Lake Asphaltites." The name "Dead Sea" is used by Pausanias, Justin, and the Church Fathers.

So we see that even in ancient times it was known as "Lake Asphaltites". And it's true that shafel means low and that Greeks replaced "sh" with "s". But I can't find any source that called the Dead Sea "Yam Shafelet". So where does this leave Horowitz's theory?

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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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rekhesh

An interesting phrase appears in Megilat Esther: רוכבי הרכש - rokhvei harekhesh - translated as "riding steeds" (Esther 8:10). Rekhesh here certainly seems to be referring to a type of horse. But what is the connection between rekhesh and rekhush רכוש - property?

Horowitz points out (p. 61), that cattle and horses were among the most common forms of wealth. Besides rekhesh and rekhush, we have the following:

• mikne מקנה - cattle has the root kana קנה - acquire
• segula סגולה - property comes is related to the Akkadian word sugullu - herd of cattle
• nekhesim - נכסים - property is related to the Aramaic root for killing נכס - and meant "cattle to be slaughtered"

The word rekesh is also related to the root רכס - "to bind, to fasten", which was of course done to cattle, horses and camels. We see the verb in this weeks parsha (Tetzaveh) וירכסו את החושן - "the breastpiece shall be held in place" (Shmot 28:28). This root gives us the word rekhes רכס - for mountain ridge (the mountains are fastened together), and rokhsan רוכסן - zipper.

There is one more related word that is used so frequently in modern Hebrew that I would guess most of you would assume it has ancient roots - I know I did. The word merkaz מרכז - center only entered Hebrew in the Middle Ages. According to Klein, it derives from the Arabic markaz - meaning foothold, stand, center, which in turn comes from the Semitic root רכס - to bind. The root רכז came later, as a back formation of מרכז.

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cider

As we've discussed before, while in some ways both modern English and modern Hebrew are very new languages, they both draw their roots from much more ancient sources. English is a child of the Indo-European language family that produced Persian, Greek, Latin and German. And of course Hebrew is related to the other Semitic languages.

It does not appear to most linguists that Indo-European and Semitic have a common ancestor. But many words are borrowed from one family to the other. Much of this may have been through trade between nations - that is how the Semitic alphabet passed on to the Greeks. Another interesting way that some Hebrew words entered Greek (and later made their way to English) was by the translation of the Bible into Greek. When the translators could not find an equivalent Greek word, they would transliterate from the Hebrew.

In Hebrew, the word שכר shekhar - refers to an alcoholic beverage that is not wine. (It is often paired with wine, as in Numbers 6:3.) The Akkadian cognate sikru referred to beer, but it later came to mean liquor also formed from corn, apples, honey or any other fruit. This same root led to the words for intoxication - שיכור, השתכר. (Any connection between this post and Purim is purely circumstantial.)

When the Greeks came to translate shekhar, they created the word sicera (or sikera?). The same word was used in Latin, and in Old French was called cisdre. Over time the "s" was dropped, and the word was spelled cidre in French, and "cider" in English. By this time the word cider only referred to an alcoholic beverage made from apples, but gradually it began to include non-alcoholic drink as well. (For the difference between cider and apple juice, read Cecil Adams' column.) Hebrew readopted this word - and you can find סיידר in all supermarkets here, and even visit the factory of "Cider HaGalil" in Kiryat Shmona:

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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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tenufa

Today is 7 Adar - the day that Moshe Rabeinu died. We don't know the location of his grave, and in that spirit, my story today will include a number of items whose precise location is hidden...

After discussing teruma last week, Parshat Tetzaveh includes the concept tenufa תנופה. (Shmot 29:24,26,27). The meaning of tenufa is debated - some say it means "raised up" (similar to teruma, and the Aramaic translation uses the same root), others say "waved".

The root נוף (or נפנף) as "wave" leads to the word for banner, according to Klein "that which is moved to and fro". Horowitz points out an interesting development here. In both English and Hebrew, when "N" is the second letter of a syllable, it is difficult to pronounce and often dropped. Therefore in English we say "illegal" and not "inlegal", "irreligious" and not "inreligious". In Hebrew the letter nun is known as a "weak letter", and falls out of many words - nofel נופל in the future becomes e'pol אפול. Horowitz gives a long list of words where the nun falls out (How the Hebrew Language Grew, pgs 32-38). One of the examples he gives is the word for banner. If the root is נוף, the noun should be manpa מנפה. But the nun fell away (our first hidden item), and we're left with the word מפה - mapa. Mapa can mean banner, and also map and tablecloth.

Horowitz points out that "because maps were painted on cloth, mappa in Latin came to mean map. In French the word became nappa, that gave rise to our word napkin." In English the word became napron, and one was called "a napron". But the N fell out again, and instead of calling it "a napron", we began to call it "an apron". (There are a number of cases like this: "an ewt" became "a newt", "an ickname" became "a nickname".)

The third hidden item isn't etymological, but just a funny story. I started researching this entry after coming home late last night from work. I tried looking for the root נוף in my Hebrew Concordance and couldn't find it. Over and over again I looked, and thought my failure was due to my exhaustion. Turned out that my book was missing the exact page of that root...

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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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b'diavad

B'diavad (alternatively spelled bidiavad)- בדיעבד literally means "after the event", and in Latin "post factum" or "post facto" (I know no Latin grammar so I can't tell you the difference.) It generally refers to a situation where a less than ideal action has occurred, and there is a need for a halachic decision.

The Eastern European pronunciation is "b'dieved" (or bidieved), and while I don't have anything to add on the etymology of the word, it's Adar, so I thought this was a good opportunity for a joke (thanks RL):

A man proposes marriage to a woman.
Woman: Look, you're an ok guy, but I'm quite lazy and I don't like housework. I'll marry you on condition that you provide me with a servant that will be at my beck and call, to perform all the housework and do my every wish.
Man: As you wish.
They marry, and when they arrive home the man introduces his bride to her new servant, who is quite well-mannered and courteous, but also happens to be 3 feet tall.
Woman: You call that a slave? I've been deceived -- I want a divorce.
They go to the rabbinical court, and the woman explains that her marriage was on false premises -- a mekach ta'ut -- and thus it is invalid.
The rabbi examines the servant -- all 3 feet of him, strokes his beard utters a few "hmm"s and "aah"s, and says:
"Look, it's a little bitty eved, but the marriage is valid."

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teruma

Commenter Avi Shmidman mentioned an interesting point about the language of Chazal:

For instance, take the famous example of the mishnaic term להתרים, which was decried by all of the 18th and 19th century Biblical language purists - since the root תרם does not exist in Biblical language; rather, the Biblical term would be להרים תרומה, where the ת in תרומה is no more than a grammatical prefix. Yet, in our language, we have maintained the 'newfangled' chazali root of תרם as an upstanding member of the language. Biblical purism is no longer in fashion.

This is a very important point, and what better time to remind you all then on Parshat Teruma. I'd just like to add that the Rambam brings up the same point in the introduction to his commentary on Masechet Trumot. He's not worried about "18th and 19th century Biblical language purists", but the author of the Machberet, Menachem ben Saruk (920-970) - who he calls the "בלשנים החדשים" (new linguists)! The Rambam writes:

"אמרם בכל המשנה תרם ותורם ויתרום מקשים עליו הבלשנים החדשים, ואומרים שהעיקר הרים ומרים וירים. ואינו קשה באמת, כיון שהעיקר בכל לשון חוזר למה שדברו בו בעלי אותו הלשון ונשמע מהם, ואלו בלי ספק עבריים בארצם, כלומר בארץ ישראל, והנה נשמע מהם תרם וכל מה שהופעל ממנו. וזו ראיה שזה אפשרי בלשון, ושזה מונח מכלל המונחים העבריים. ועל זה הדרך תהיה תשובתך לכל מי שחושב מן החדשים שלשון המשנה אינו צח ושהם עשו פעלים שאינם נכונים באיזו מלה מן המילים. והיסוד הזה שאמרתי לך נכון מאוד אצל המלומדים השלמים המדברים על העניינים הכלליים הכוללים כל הלשונות כולם".

Zackary Sholem Berger provided the following translation here:

"[The rabbis] said, throughout the Mishnah, 'taram', 'veturam,' 'veyitrom' [all forms of 't.r.m.', 'to make a contribution']. But modern linguists have difficulties with this, saying that the true words [lit: the basic thing, ha-ikkar] are 'heyrim,' 'meyrim', and 'yarim'. [all forms of a different root, 'to lift up']

"Really though there is no difficulty. The basic expressions of every language always derive from what was spoken by the people of that language and what was heard from them. [In this case}, these are without a doubt the Hebrews in their land, that is to say the Land of Israel -- for from these people one hears "t.r.m." and all the verbal conjugations derived from it. This then is a proof that [such a thing] is possible in this language, one of the terms proper to those in Hebrew.

"This should be your answer to anyone who thinks, according to the moderns, that the language of the Mishnah is not eloquent, and that [the Rabbis of the Mishnah] created verbal forms that are not correct by using some word and not others.

"This principle I have told you about is quite well-founded among all established scholars who discourse on general matters pertaining to all languages."

To summarize, the Rambam is stating that linguistic innovation is legitimate, by saying that all languages change naturally by the people speaking them.

By the way, Klein calls this type of transition (from הרים to תרם) a "secondary base formation". Other examples he gives are:

• תחל from תחילה
• תרע from תרועה
• תנב from תנובה
• תנע from תנועה

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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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istenis

Here's a word that I've come across a few times this week - istenis (alternatively transliterated as istnis, istinis and istanis.) - איסטניס (or אסטניס). It means a person who is (overly) sensitive, squeamish and finicky. It usually is refering to a person who is particularly sensitive about his bathing or eating needs, and the rabbis often allowed leniencies on his behalf. For example, people in mourning are not allowed to bathe, but an istenis has permission.

What is the origin of this unusual sounding word? It comes from the Greek asthenes (weak), from a (=not) and sthenos (=strong). The root sthenos is used in a number of medical terms, but to most of us is familiar from the word calisthenics -- kallos "beauty" + sthenos "strength."

Going back further, there are those that connect it to the Indo-European root segh, the root of such strong words as hectic, schema, and persevere. Certainly not the qualities of an istenis.

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mosaic

I recently discussed how pesifas פסיפס - mosaic - isn't connected to the words payis or piyus. A commenter wanted to know more about the development of the word pesifas. I wrote that "Pesifas comes from the Greek psephos, meaning pebble. Interestingly, the word for the study of elections, psephology, comes from the same root, since they would count pebbles when voting."

However, what about the English word mosaic? Any connection to Moses?

Take Our Word For It gives the following explanation:

This word means, etymologically, "of the muses". It comes from Greek mouseion "of the muses". In medieval Latin it was changed to musaicus/mosaicus and passed via Italian mosaico and French mosaique into English as mosaic. The Indo-European root from which mosaic, muse, museum, and music derive is men- "to think". Different forms of the Indo-European root refer to different states of mind and kinds of thought (some other derivatives are mind, mental and amnesia). Mosaic is an entirely different word, etymologically and otherwise, from Mosaic with a capital M which means "of Moses".

The Word Detective gives a bit more background on the Muses:

The root of "mosaic" is the Medieval Latin "musaicum," meaning "work of the Muses," itself ultimately from the Latin "Musa," or "Muse." In Greek mythology, the Muses, as I'm sure we all recall, were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. The Muses were (and still are, at least metaphorically)regarded as the inspiration of all art and music.The logical connection between the Muses and mosaic artwork is a bit uncertain, but it may be that Medieval mosaics were so often dedicated to the muses that the form and the inspiration became inextricably associated. Or it may be that ancient temples dedicated to the Muses ("mouseion" in Greek, source of our modern "museum") were often decorated with mosaic murals.

So it would seem that there's no connection between Moses and mosaics.
However...
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, in his commentary, The Living Torah, has this note about Moses's name:

Other ancient sources claim that Moses' name was preserved among the Gentiles as the legendary Musaeus, teacher of Orpheus, from whom the Muses obtained their name (Artapanus, in Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica 9:27).

I'm not sure how likely that is, but I suppose it does leave some room for a possible connection...

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yishar koach

I recently received an email from Ruth Almagor-Ramon, the editor of Kol Yisrael’s program
Rega shel Ivrit. She wished me "Yishar Koah" on this blog. That's quite an honor - so I figured the best way to repay her would be to write an entry on that phrase.

Yishar Koah, or Yasher Koach, יישר כח means congratulations. My cousin, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, writes about it here:

When congratulating someone who has had the merit of performing a mitzvah or other worthy task in Shul, we say Yasher Koach, or the shortened form of Shkoach.The words literally mean, "May your strength be firm". The first reference is in the Talmud (Shabbat 87a), quoted in Rashi's concluding commentary on the Torah. When Hashem refers to the first tablets of the Decalogue which Moses broke, He mentions asher shibarta - the tablets which you broke. In a play on the word asher, our Rabbis explain that it was as if Hashem was saying to Moses, Yasher Koach for breaking the tablets! Moses here received Divine appreciation for the way in which he reacted to the nation's worship of the Golden Calf.Yasher Koach was originally intended to be used exclusively for one who had read from the Torah. Scholars explain that in ancient times, the Torah scroll was held upright during its reading so that those surrounding it could follow as it was being read (in pre-printing press days, Synagogues did not have many Chumashim). With this in mind, Sephardi communities made Sifrei Torah in cylindrical cases, which were self-standing. In Ashkenazi Synagogues, however, the Ba'al Koreh required a lot of strength to keep the Torah scroll upright while he was reading from it and often he was helped by those standing alongside him. We can now understand why he, in particular, was blessed with Yasher Koach - may your strength be firm!

Eliezer Segal also explains the history of the phrase here, and points out the irony that while we use the phrase to wish strength for those holding the Torah, the original midrash refers to a case where the Torah was thrown down.

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payis and piyus

In the following Mishna that I learned (Yoma 2:2), there was a very familiar word - פיס payis, meaning lottery (more about words related to lottery in a few weeks.) A similarly sounding and spelled word is פיוס piyus - conciliation. Are the two related?

According to Klein, not only are they unrelated, they are associated with opposite meanings.

Let's start with payis. The definition of payis is a lot, an allotted portion. The literal meaning was "broken piece" - assumedly that's how they made the lots. The word derives from the base פסס (a collateral form of פצץ). What other words come from this root?

פס - pas = strip
פסה - pisa = piece
פספס - fisfes - originally crumbed or separated, now means to miss (a bus, a lecture, etc.)
(Not related - אפס - efes = zero, פסיפס - pesifas = mosaic)

What about piyus? Klein explains that it is borrowed from the Greek peisis meaning persuasion, from the Indo-European base bheidh (or bhidh). That same base led to the Latin word fidere (to trust or confide in.) What English words derive from this root? Bid, federation, faith, confidence, fiduciary, fidelity, fiance, affidavit, and many more.

So while payis is connected to breaking apart, piyus is related to coming together.

By matter of complete coincidence, English has two words that also sound similar with the same opposite meanings, and even sound like our payis/piyus : piece and peace. But there's no connection between any of the four.

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matz'bia

I started a new masechet of Mishna today, and found the origin of a very topical word in Israel these days.

The first Mishna of the second chapter of Yoma discusses which kohanim would perform certain parts of the Yom Kippur service. If two kohanim competed for the same task, whoever got there earliest would have the privilege. But if they both got there at the same time:

הממונה אומר להן הצביעו

"The administrator would say to them 'put out a finger' (hatzbiu)".

The kohanim would stick one or two fingers out, and the administrator would then choose between those who stuck their fingers out. Why did they stick their fingers out, the gemara asks? Because it is prohibited to count Jews (who were promised to be uncountable), so they counted their fingers instead.

The verb hatzbiu comes from etzba אצבע - finger. This of course, led to the modern Hebrew term to vote - l'hatz'bia.

I had previously thought that perhaps the origin of l'hatzbia as voting came from צבע tzeva - color. I guess I connected it with the way the Iraqis and Afghans voted in their first election - by dipping their fingers in ink.

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schmooze and shul

I guess a better title would be "don't schmooze in shul".

As I've mentioned before, I don't know a lot about Yiddish. But many Yiddish words have entered Jewish English, or English in general. It's interesting to analyze their etymologies, since Yiddish derives from two separate languages families - Hebrew, which I speak in Israel, and German, which is related to my native tongue, English.

Let's look at two common Yiddish words.

Schmooze (or shmooze) - this one comes from Hebrew. The Hebrew word for rumors, שמועות shmu'ot, led to the Ashkenazi pronunciation schmues, which led to our schmooze - to chat.

Shul (or schul or schule) - as in synagogue, comes from the German word schuol, which is also the source of our English word school. According to this site, the association of synagogue and school goes back to Roman times - children were often taught in the same building as the synagogue.

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chotenet and chamot

In this week's parsha, Yitro is referred to as the choten חותן of Moshe - his father-in-law. In proper Hebrew, there is are different terms for the husband's parents and the wife's parents. Until I started writing this - I could never remember which was which. When I would refer to my inlaws in Hebrew, I would avoid the issue by saying "my wife's mother" or "my wife's father". But now I have a public forum and I need to know what's what.

Safa-Ivrit does a good job of explaining the issue. To summarize - choten and chotenet חותנת are the wife's parents, and cham חם and chamot חמות are the husband's parents. The site offers this tip to remember which is which - the choten and chotenet marry off - mechatnim מחתנים - their daughter, and the cham and chamot welcome their new daughter-in-law warmly - b'chom בחום.
Chamot has the same structure as achot אחות - sister. So while it sounds plural, it's really singular. (So the joke about שפך חמתך (shfoch chamat'cha) being an excuse to throw your mother-in-law out of the house during the seder doesn't work - it would need to be שפך חמותך - shfoch chamot'cha.)

In any case, if you do mix it up, you don't need to worry much. Even in the time of the Talmud, there were cases where the distinction was blurred.

Now everyone agrees that the word for son-in-law is chatan. However, years ago I came across a pamphlet that was trying to show how Jastrow's dictionary was not a serious work. (Perhaps it was this one by Shlomo Alter Halperin? I really don't recall.) The only proof that I remember was from Jastrow's definition of chatan, where he writes: "connection, son-in-law; bride-groom". The author of the pamphlet claimed that Jastrow was including a Yiddishism, apparently as a joke. I didn't understand the argument then - and I certainly have trouble now, not having seen it in print in years. Do any of the readers have the pamphlet, or otherwise understand the argument?

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yotzei dofen and rachamim

It's interesting to compare how words and phrases develop in two different languages.

Let's look at the surgery used to deliver a fetus via the abdominal wall.

In English it's known as a Cesarean section. That term derives from the legend that Julius Caesar was born in that fashion. In modern Hebrew it is also known as a נִתּוּחַ קֵיסָרִי, but the Mishnaic term was yotzei dofen יוצא דופן (lit. "go out from the wall.") That term is now used in Hebrew for exceptional or abnormal.

Another more stark difference relates to words that derive from the term for womb. The English word hysterical derives from the Greek term for womb, for it was felt that the neurotic condition was caused by disturbances in the womb. Contrast that with the Hebrew word rachamim, mercy, which derives from the Hebrew word for womb, rechem.

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brouhaha and copacetic

While I view etymology as a window into Jewish and world history, there are those who feel that if a language is the primal source for other languages, it somehow indicates that the same nation/culture is has primacy over all others. This was actually how the Nazis adopted the term Aryan, based on the linguistic view that there was a primary language with that same name.

Now I have no doubt that Hebrew is one of the most ancient languages, and has contributed an incredible amount to the world's language pool. But I don't think that we need to show that every English word comes somehow from Hebrew to justify our place in history. A number of years ago, I read an article that had a list of English words that came from Hebrew, and it was ridiculous, to put it frankly.

However, there are some words that real linguists claim to derive from Hebrew. And yet, I still have a hard time buying it. Here are two:

Brouhaha - When I was a kid, a friend and I heard this word for the first time, and couldn't stop laughing every time we said it. Only much later did I read that there is a theory (also here and here) that it came from the greeting "Baruch HaBa" at the beginning of a wedding. Supposedly the non-Jews saw such a ruckus at the wedding and associated it with the phrase "baruch haba". They quote the Italian word barruccaba as having a similar origin. I don't know - having been to many Jewish weddings, it never seemed like the reciting of Baruch HaBa was particularly rambunctious. Maybe they really knew how to party back in the Middle Ages...

Copacetic - Growing up in San Francisco, you get used to seeing and hearing strange things. I remember a man standing in the middle of the street shouting "I'm not going anywhere until I get a copacetic reality!" Copacetic means - excellent, satisfactory, going just right. There are no shortage of possible origins for this word (look at 1, 2, 3, 4). Anyone of them could be OK, but the ones I have the biggest problem with are those that claim it comes from "kol b'seder" or "kol b'tzedek". As some of the letter writers in Safire's first On Language book pointed out, hakol b'seder is Hebrew, not Yiddish and wouldn't have been spoken by Jewish immigrants in the South in the turn of the century. (Klein says the Hebrew phrase "hakol b'seder" derives from the Yiddish ס'איז אלץ אין ארדענונג - from the German Alles in Ordnung). And kol b'tzedek (which actually sounds more like copacetic) - well, no one says that! (See also here.)

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asimon

Here's a way to tell how long someone has been in Israel (or how old they are). Ask them if they know what an asimon is. Well, for those that don't recall, they were tokens for pay phones that were used until the early 1990s. They were later replaced by phone cards (which are still in use today), and now of course are overshadowed by the cell phone.

They looked like this:












What's the origin of the word? Well it originally meant uncoined metal. The first mishna of the fourth chapter of Bava Metzia states that "uncoined metal (אסימון) acquires coined metal (מטבע)". The gemara (47b) goes on to ask: What IS ASIMON? Said Rab: Coins that are presented as tokens at the baths.

According to Klein, the root is the Greek word asemos. A= not, without, and sema = sign, token (as in Hebrew siman, and the english semantics.) So while originally the difference between a coin and an asimon was the token had no sign (symbol) at all, it was later used to indicate a token that could not be used as money.

What is left of the asimon today? Well, besides in the boxes of coin collectors, and this Shlock Rock song, we have the phrase "yarad lo ha'asimon" or "nafal lo ha'asimon" - which means "he finally understood it." This phrase came to us from the English "the penny dropped" - which has a similar meaning. They both describe how the machine/phone wouldn't start working until the coin/token had dropped.

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charsina

This is in honor of my cousin who is currently visiting China.

Did you know that the Hebrew word for Chinaware or porcelain, חרסינה - charsina comes from the Hebrew words חרס cheres (earthenware) and סין Sin (China)? Well, maybe you did, but I didn't.

You can read more about it in the Ynet Encylcopedia (in Hebrew). That article also references the origin of the word porcelain (here in English). Maybe not for our younger readers.

And in case you were wondering, the Yiddish phrase "Hak mir nisht ken tshaynik" doesn't have a China connection, depsite how I heard it as a kid ("don't hock me to China.). The literal translation is "Don't knock me a teakettle", which according to Michael Wex's new book Born to Kvetch means ""you don't have to shut up completely, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop rattling on about the same damned thing all the time." I first figured that perhaps tshaynik meant tea kettle because it was made of porcelain, but according to this site, it comes from the Polish/Russian word for tea, chai. Chai derives from the same Chinese word for tea that gave us the English word for tea (as well as for most other Western languages.)

For those interested, here's further discussion about tshaynik and China.

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waradi

Slang is one of the most difficult things to remain current on, especially for a new immigrant. I've been in Israel for nearly ten years, but have never fully caught up on all the slang here. Now some of the slang I can figure out on my own. Much new Israeli slang comes from English, and even when it's pronounced with a strong accent, I can still figure out what סו פאר סו גוד means. Another main source of Israeli slang is Yiddish. Not only were my parents born in the US, but my grandparents as well. So I didn't hear almost any Yiddish growing up. But some Yiddish has entered the American slang lexicon, so it isn't a far stretch to realize that l'najez has the same meaning as "to nudge".

The other main source of Israeli slang is Arabic. Here's a language I didn't hear at all growing up, and my exposure to it hasn't grown much since moving here. When I worked in an English speaking environment, I didn't hear much Arabic based slang either. But when I started working in an all-Israeli company, I would hear it all the time, and never understood what they were talking about. Some of it I picked up over time, but until I found Rubik Rosenthal's Dictionary of Israeli Slang I never knew the origins of the phrases. Now after all these years - I finally understand what my coworkers were saying.

One phrase which originated in Arabic that I learned the meaning of via Rubik's book is ya waradi. This exclamation was popularized by the character Omleta on last year's season of the hit TV show Eretz Nehederet. What I found interesting about the listing of the phrase in the slang dictionary is that the origin is actually in Italian. Ya Waradi, according to Rosenthal, seems to mean "Watch out!". And the source is the Italian word guardia.

What's the connection between waradi and guardia? Well, it turns out there's a connection between W and G in English as well. As explained here, the German language had a W sound that didn't have a match in Romance languages, and was subsituted with G. English is a combination of both language families, and therefore has words beginning with both letters: guarantee/warranty, guerrilla/war, guile/wile, and of course our guard/ward(en).

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amarkal

I carry around a pocket Kehati mishna in order to have something to learn in my downtime. I often find interesting words there, particularly ones that I find used in modern Hebrew as well. From time to time, I’ll share here words that I find there.

Today I was studying Masechet Shekalim, Perek 5, Mishna 2. The Mishna mentions that there must be seven אמרכ(ו)לין – amarkalin – to supervise the finances in the Temple. Common translations are officers, trustees or supervisors. I’m familiar with the term from my work in a government ministry in Israel, where the office managers were called amarkalim.

What’s the origin of the word? Klein claims it is probably a Persian loan word, which is supported here. Jastrow seems to claim that it comes from the word melech (king), and the lamed was replaced with a resh. This type of switch is not uncommon in Hebrew – sharsheret/shalshelet, as well as many other languages (it’s particularly evident in Japanese, where the sounds for L and R are closely related.)

The rabbis give a different explanation. Rabbi Yehuda in the Tosefta for Shekalim (2:15) and Rav Hisda in Horayiot 13, explain the origin as “מר על הכל” – he who commands all. That was certainly the case of the amarkalim where I worked!

One word that it does not seem to be connected to is מרכלת – markolet, meaning market place. That word has an origin in the Bible – Yechezkel 27:24. The source for markolet is רכל, to trade, and is connected to the word for gossip, רכילות – rechilut. When I first moved here I often got makolet (grocery) and markolet mixed up, but haven’t heard the term markolet much recently.

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tiras

I enjoy food. (Does anyone not?) I think it's likely that food will be a common topic for posts here, particularly since names for food have an interesting way of passing from one language to another.

Today we'll start with the Hebrew word for corn, tiras.

The grain we call corn was first discovered by Europeans in Central America. So why then do some older translation of the Bible translate dagan as corn? See Genesis 27:28 - "plenty of corn and wine".

Well, originally corn meant any grain - which matches well the Hebrew word for grain, dagan. When the settlers to the New World found a crop grown by the Indians - which they called maize (the scientific term is Zea mays.) Europeans still use that term. The British also called maize Indian corn, but the new immigrants to America called it simply "corn." (Read more here.)

Once corn became almost exclusively identified with maize, the Bible translators began to use the word "grain" for dagan. This confusion also had halachic consequences, particularly for those of us Ashkenazi Jews who don't eat corn on Pesach. How did this come about? Rabbi Zushe Yosef Blech explains in Kitniyos in the Modern World:

The cornucopia of new foods from the New World brought new items – such as maize and potatoes – to the fore. Both quickly became staple foodstuffs in the Old World, and although clearly not technically legumes, the question arose as to whether they should nevertheless be included in the category of Kitniyos. As it turns out, maize is generally considered to be Kitniyos whereas potatoes are not. Interestingly, the etymology of the names of these foods may give us some insight into this dichotomy. While the common name for maize (from the Tahino word “mahis”) is “corn” – and in the United States this usage is quite clear –the origin of the word “corn” is something quite different. The word “corn” can be traced back to the ancient Indo-European word “grn”, which literally meant a small nugget. In German, this word became “korn” and in Latin it became “grain”, both of which include any edible grass seed. In practice, these terms refer to whatever the predominant grain happens to be in a given country. In the Americas, it referred to maize. In Scotland, it referred to oats, and in Germany it referred to wheat or rye. Indeed, old English translations of Pharaoh’s insomniac premonitions refer to "seven sheaves of corn". Columbus had not yet discovered America during the time of Pharaoh, so Pharaoh was clearly not dreaming of corn on the cob. The "corn" to which he referred was rather one of the five grains. Yiddish speakers are similarly prone to this confusion, since they often use the term "Korn" to refer to grain. It seems, however, that the popularity of corn – and its resulting assumption of this sobriquet – was sufficient for the minhag of Kitniyos to extend to this new “grain”. Potatoes, on the other hand, were never regarded by people as a grain, and therefore generally considered to have escaped the Kitniyos categorization. [It is interesting to note that the Chaye Adam was of the opinion that potatoes should indeed be considered Kitniyos. Much to our general relief, however, this opinion was definitely not accepted.]

So now the question remains. Why did the Jews in Europe adopt the term tiras for maize/corn?

Rabbi Ernest Klein, in his "Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language" (which I'll be referring to often), has an interesting history:

In the Bible תירס is the name of one of the sons of Japhet. Far and forced is the way in which this proper name came to denote 'maize' or 'corn'. The Talmud renders תירס by בית תרייקי. In the period of the Haskalah (1750-1880) it became customary to identify תרייקי - merely because of the similarity in sound between תרייקי and תורקיה - with Turkey. Furthermore, since maize is called in many languages 'Turkish wheat' (cp. e.g. Ger. turkischer Weizen - whence Yiddish Terkische weiz - It. granturco, Hungarian torokbuza, etc.) תירס was and still is used to denote maize in Hebrew. The identification of תירס with maize on the basis of the above reasoning cannot be accepted. Before all בית תרייקי cannot be identical with Turkey, because the Babylonian Talmud was concluded about the end of the fifth century and the Talmud Yerushalmi, in which תירס is rendered by תרקא, was concluded even earlier, whereas the Turks appear in history for the first time in the thirteenth century. Furthermore, the Biblical name generally used for Turkey is תוגרמה (the modern name is טורקיה). In consideration of all this I suggest to call maize in Hebrew either חטת-טורקיה or חטת-תוגרמה, i.e. 'Turkish wheat', which are a simple loan translation of Ger. turkischer Weizen, etc.

Unfortunately, Klein, who passed away in 1983, did not succeed in his fight for a new Hebrew name for maize. However, the childrens song "bim, bam, bam, tiras cham" would certainly have less rhythm as "bim, bam, bam, chitat turkiya chama"...

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first things first

I've always loved language. Back around 5th grade, a friend bought me William Safire's first book in the On Language series. I found it fascinating then, and I still love his columns now.

The main difference between Safire and myself is that he actually knows about language, whereas I'm just an amateur. But I think through this blog I can share some interesting things I've found, and hopefully learn a lot along the way.

I started learning about Judaism as a teenager, and so many concepts that others take for granted were somewhat new to me. I also moved to Israel from the States, and so had to learn not only the language, but the slang, abbreviations, technical terms and more. Judaism and Hebrew will be the main focus of what I'm writing about.

The title of the blog - Balashon - is a combination of the Hebrew word for detective, balash, and language, lashon.

I have quite a few resources available to draw from, but I will really appreciate any ideas for things to research. And of course, I welcome criticism, suggestions, etc.

Looking forward to exploring the Hebrew language with you!

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