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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timyon

What does the word timyon טמיון as in the phrase yarad l'timyon ירד לטמיון mean? The phrase means "down the drain, lost forever" - so it would seem that perhaps the word timyon relates to that. For example, this site translates Aharon Appelfeld's novel Timyon as "Abyss".

But the truth is, the word means something else entirely. The definition is actually "government treasury". Then why does the phrase mean "lost for good"? Because from the taxpayer's point of view, anything paid to the treasury will never be seen again...

The word is Greek in origin. Klein provides the following etymology:

Greek tameion, related to tamias (= one who distributes, dispenser, steward), originally 'one who cuts up portions for the sake of distributing them', in gradational relationship to temnein (= to cut), tomos (=piece cut off, section).

Tamias is the name of the genus of the chipmunk, for it is like a steward, storing food in its mouth.

From temnein we get a number of words with a component meaning "to cut", such as dichotomy, anatomy and atom.

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orech din

When we discussed the terms for lawyers and advocates - praklit, sanegor, kategor - we saw that all of them derived from Greek. This is not a coincidence. Prof. Dov Frimer points out in this article, that unlike the American legal system which is an adversary system, "trial by combat", where lawyers are necessary, the traditional Jewish legal system was different. Here the judge or judges were required to ask the questions of the parties and witnesses - in both criminal and civil cases, and the power of the oath was significant enough to cause the litigants to speak the truth. There was simply no need for a lawyer, who would only act as an intermediary between the judges and the truth.

Frimer writes:

Moreover, in the absence of face to face confrontation, the Rabbis feared that there would be greater litigation and less compromise. The personal and emotional factors which are so often critical in preventing a case from coming to court or, if it does get to court, in bringing about a satisfactory compromise, will be lacking if not totally absent. This concern is exacerbated by the realization that the monies at stake do not belong to the attorneys themselves. The Talmud (Shevuot 31a) frankly expresses its attitude on this matter when it applied to lawyers the verse:

For he oppressed his father and robbed his brother and did that which is not good among his people. (Yechezkel 18:18)

Further evidence to the disdain the Rabbis had for lawyers and their tactics is brought by Frimer from Avot 1:8

יהודה בן טבאי אומר אל תעש עצמך כעורכי הדינים

This is commonly translated as: "(Judges), do not make yourselves like orkhei hadayanim - lawyers." The Rambam and others explain this as meaning "Do not teach the litigants what to say in order to win your case, as lawyers do". The modern Hebrew term orech din עורך דין - would seem to originate in this early mishna.

However, Kutscher does not accept this interpretation. First of all, he points out that the mishna says orchei hadayanim - not orchei hadinim. The identification of lawyers as "arrangers of din (the law case)" does not fit with hadayanim - "the judges".

Kutscher then brings a number of proofs from manuscripts that the original version of the mishna was actually archei hadayanim - ארכי הדיינים. The Greek arch / arkhi means "chief" and is found in such English words as archbishop, patriarch, and architect. A number of commentators on the Mishna (some with the version ארכי, some with ערכי ) explain the term to mean "the greatest of the judges". According to them, the mishna is teaching not to act like those judges who know the law so well they don't need to study it before a ruling.

Another proof that Kutscher brings is from Bereshit Rabba on Bereshit 19:1, where it says that Lot sat in the gates of Sdom, and the midrash says that on that day he was made a judge - ארכי דיינים. Interestingly, the midrash also includes such synonyms as archiiudex (arch + Latin judicem - judge) and archikrites (arch + Greek kritikos - judge, source of "critic".)

Why then, did some manuscripts of the mishna have the version עורכי הדיינים? Kutscher believes they were influenced by Iyov 13:18 - הִנֵּה-נָא, עָרַכְתִּי מִשְׁפָּט - "See now, I have prepared a case". (A similar phrase is also found in Iyov 23:3). He believes that the transcribers at some point replaced the unfamiliar ארכי with the more familiar עורכי. (Additionally, in Talmudic Hebrew, din דין is much more popular than its synonym, mishpat משפט.)

Aviad Hacohen discusses Kutscher's theory in this article. By and large, he accepts the theory, although he points out that already by the times of the Amoraim, the term עורכי הדיינים had come to mean "lawyer", not judge.

In Masechet Ketubot (52a and 86a) we find examples of rabbis who gave advice to their relatives about how to get money according to the law, but later regretted it, because they were acting like orchei hadayanim.

Hacohen and Frimer both quote the gemara in Shabbat 139a:

אמר ר"א בן מלאי משום ר"ל מאי דכתיב (ישעיהו נט) כי כפיכם נגואלו בדם ואצבעותיכם בעון שפתותיכם דברו שקר לשונכם עולה תהגה כי כפיכם נגואלו בדם אלו הדיינין ואצבעותיכם בעון אלו סופרי הדיינין שפתותיכם דברו שקר אלו עורכי הדיינין לשונכם עולה תהגה אלו בעלי דינין

Frimer explains and translates:

Secondly, there exists in Jewish law a deep-seated suspicion that lawyers are somewhat less than totally honest, truthful and forthright. For example, we find the prophet Isaiah chastising the Jewish people in the Diaspora saying:

"For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue muttereth wickedness (Yishaya 59:3)"

According to the Talmud, the Third Century C.E. rabbinic scholar, Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish, interpreted this verse homeletically as applicable to a corrupt legal system:

"For your-hands are defiled with blood," - these are the judges;
"and your fingers with iniquity" this refers to the judges' scribes;
"Your lips have spoken lies" - these are the legal counselors;
"Your tongue muttereth wickedness" - these are the litigants.

Hacohen points out that from this gemara we can see that the phrase orchei hadayanim עורכי הדיינים cannot be referring to (the greatest of) judges, for they are third in the hierarchy - just where lawyers should be.

Hacohen writes that the famous piyut read on Rosh HaShana - לאל עורך דין - L'El Orech Din - is referring to God as the greatest of judges, not a lawyer. However, later commentaries, unfamiliar with the original meaning of the word, describe God as an advocate, defending the Jewish people on their day of judgment.

When do we first see orech din for lawyer (and not orech hadayanim)? According to the Hebrew Wikipedia article, it was in 1872:

"ויינתן לו הרשיון (דופלום) להיות עורך דין (אדווקאט)" (אהרון יהודה ליב הורוויץ, תולדות בנימין פרנקלין פיצצאטי, ירחון "הכרמל", תשרי תרל"ב).

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acharei rabim l'hatot

In this week's parasha (Mishpatim) we find a verse (Shmot 23:2) with a familiar phrase:

לֹא-תִהְיֶה אַחֲרֵי-רַבִּים, לְרָעֹת; וְלֹא-תַעֲנֶה עַל-רִב, לִנְטֹת אַחֲרֵי רַבִּים--לְהַטֹּת.

The phrase acharei rabim l'hatot אַחֲרֵי רַבִּים--לְהַטֹּת is often translated as "follow the majority", and in addition to being the basis for a majority rule in a court, it also is used as an early basis for democratic rule.

This understanding of the phrase is based on Talmudic sources such as Chullin 11a and Bava Metzia 49b. Based on this, Kaplan's Living Torah translates the verse as follows:

"Do not follow the majority to do evil. Do not speak up in a trial to pervert justice. A case must be decided on the basis of the majority."

However, in his footnote, he provides two alternate translations:

"Do not speak up in a trial, leaning toward the majority to pervert justice" (Mekhilta, Rashbam, Abarbanel)

"Do not speak up in a trial to turn aside, following a majority to change someone else's decision" (Chizzkuni)

Other translations also follow this approach of acharei rabim l'hatot being a prohibition instead of an instruction:

"You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong - you shall not not give perverse testimony in a dispute so as to pervert it in favor of the mighty - (verse 3) nor shall you show deference to a poor man in his dispute" (Sarna, JPS)

"You are not to go after many (people) to do evil. And you are not to testify in a quarrel so as to turn aside toward many - (and thus) turn away." (Fox)

"You shall not follow the many for evil, and you shall not bear witness in a dispute to go askew, to skew it in support of the many." (Alter)

"Do not be a follower of the majority for evil; and do not respond to a grievance by yielding to the majority to pervert [the law]" (Artscroll Stone Chumash)

Even Artscroll here is willing to reject the halachic obligation to follow the majority in order to present the plain meaning of the text. But they have a good precedent. Rashi does the same:

You shall not follow the majority for evil There are [halachic] interpretations for this verse given by the Sages of Israel, but the language of the verse does not fit its context according to them. From here they [the Sages] expounded that we may not decide unfavorably [for the defendant] by a majority created by one judge. They interpreted the end of the verse: אַחִרֵי רַבִּים לְהַטֹת, “after the majority to decide,” [to mean] that if those [judges] voting [that the defendant is] guilty outnumber those voting [that the defendant is] innocent by two, the verdict is to be decided unfavorably according to their [the majority’s] opinion.

...

I, however, say, [differing from the Rabbis and Onkelos] that it [the verse] should be according to its context. This is its interpretation:

You shall not follow the majority for evil If you see wicked people perverting justice, do not say, “Since they are many, I will follow them.”

and you shall not respond concerning a lawsuit to follow, etc. And if the litigant asks you about that [corrupted] judgment, do not answer him concerning the lawsuit with an answer that follows those many to pervert the judgment from its true ruling But tell the judgment as it is, and let the neck iron hang on the neck of the many. [I.e., let the many bear the punishment for their perversion of justice.]

Why is Rashi so compelled to reject the halachic approach? It would seem to be due to the teamim (the Biblical cantillation notes and accents). This site quotes Ibn Ezra as saying "that any interpretation of a verse that doesn’t agree with the Teamim should not be listened to."

Michael Pearlman, a great scholar of taamei hamikra, published a number of lessons explaining how understanding the teamim was very important to a proper understanding of the text. In his lesson on our verse, he shows that the halachic approach divides the second half of the verse into two sections:

וְלֹא-תַעֲנֶה עַל-רִב לִנְטֹת
אַחֲרֵי רַבִּים--לְהַטֹּת

each containing a separate imperative. But the teamim show that achraei rabim l'hatot is parenthetical to the earlier part of the verse. I don't have the text with the teamim (or a scanner handy to show Pearlman's work) but here is my rendition of his diagram:



Pearlman then goes on to quote Mendelssohn's Biur as saying that Rashi and the Rashbam's approach is based on the teamim.

One aspect of this discussion I find interesting, but haven't found anyone who talks about it, is the meaning of rabim. I think it's significant that Sarna translates "mighty", Fox and Alter use "many", and Artscroll and Kaplan use "majority". It changes the understanding of the entire verse - and perhaps knowing what the proper (earliest?) meaning of the word would provide the most authentic translation.

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kategor

As we mentioned earlier, kategor קטגור is a Talmudic term for "accuser, prosecutor". It appears as the opposite of praklit in Avot 4:13, and as the opposite of sanegor in Rosh HaShana 26a. Its verbal form - "to accuse, denounce" is קטרג, and developed through metathesis. In modern Hebrew neither is widely used, and instead we find the term (both verb and noun) tovea תובע for "prosecute, prosecutor".

Klein's etymology is:

From Greek kategoros (= accuser; literally: "one who speaks against somebody before an assembly", from kata (= against), and the stem of agoreyein ( = to harangue, assert; literally: 'to speak in the assembly'), from agora (= assembly)

We saw other words related to agora in the post about sanegor; kata, meaning "down, against", appears in such English words as catapult, catastrophe and catalog.

If the word kategor seems to you like the English word "category" (and the modern Hebrew word קטגוריה kategoria) - it's no coincidence. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary's entry for "category":

Original sense of "accuse" weakened to "assert, name" by the time Aristotle applied kategoria to his 10 classes of things that can be named.

This site gives another possible path of development:

In ancient Greek "kategorein" is a concept of legal terminology and means the reading of a list of accusations performed in the process of charging someone.

Horowitz (pg 268) has a note about the word kategor:

This word is clipped or rather shortened in the common idiom (kara tagar) -קרא תגר which means "call the prosecutor".

I at first found this rather far-fetched. A slightly different form of tagar - tigra תגרה appears in Tehilim 39:11, and a related verb appears in Devarim 2:24, and these sources certainly wouldn't be influenced by the Greek kategor.

However, my sources tell me that there might be a connection between kategor and the development of the phrase kara tagar (if not the individual words.) If anyone knows about this - please post in the comments. Otherwise I'll update the post if I find anything.

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sanegor

In the comments to yesterday's post, JFT asked:

So according to this Mishnah what is the difference between a praklit & a 'sanegor' which I believe is also a mishnaic word?

My response was:

From what I can tell, a praklit is more of a mediator, and a sanegor is like a defense attorney.

Well, we're going to be looking at legal terms in the next several posts, so we may as well start with sanegor סנגור. In Modern Hebrew, a sanegor is a defense attorney, and the סנגוריה הציבורית is the Public Defender's Office.

In Talmudic Hebrew, a sanegor is often shown as the opposite of a kategor קטגור - a prosecutor (we'll explore this term later).

Klein provides the following etymology:

Greek synegoros ( = advocate; literally: 'one who speaks for somebody before an assembly'), from syn ( = with, together with) and the stem of agoreyein (= to harangue, assert, literally: 'to speak in the assembly'), from agora (= assembly).

The Greek root syn appears in such words as synonym, synagogue, and synchronize - in which it means "together" or "same".

Agora is familiar from agoraphobia - "fear of open spaces" as well as allegory (literally "speak in the assembly").

In Israeli slang we find the noun sanjar סנג'ר - meaning something like errand boy or gofer, and the derivative verb סנג'ר - "to send someone to do menial errands". According to Rosenthal, this term derives from the English word "messenger". However, the Babylon site defines the verb סנג'ר as "to defend, plead for". I assume this is in error...

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praklit

In Modern Hebrew, a praklit פרקליט is an attorney - and the State Attorney's office is known as פרקליטות המדינה - Praklitut HaMedina.

However, in the Mishna, where it first appears, praklit means "advocate, intercessor", as in Avot 4:13 - העושה מצוה אחת, קנה לו פרקליט אחד - "Whoever does one mitzva, acquires a praklit for himself" and Sifra Metzora 3:3 - חטאת דומה לפרקליט שנכנס לרצות - "A sin offering is like a praklit that enters the (royal palace) to appease (the king)." It is also the translation by the Targum for the Hebrew melitz מליץ in Iyov 16:20.

The word derives from Greek, and Klein provides the following etymology:

Greek parakletos (= advocate), verbal adjective of parakatein (= to call to aid, summon, invite, console, exhort, encourage), from para ( = beside), and kalein ( = to call), which is cognate with Latin calare ( = to proclaim, call, shout).

Joel Hoffman in his book In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language points out that Klein's entry has a typographical error, and writes that "the Greek verb "to call" from which the word ultimately derives is parakalein, not parakatein."

The word made its way into English as well as paraclete - meaning "comforter", and is found in Christian and Moslem tradition.

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marzipan

Marzipan is a candy made of ground almonds, and the name of a famous bakery in Jerusalem. Is the name of Semitic origin? Mike Gerver thinks so:

Marzipan comes via Italian from Arabic mauthaban, “seated figure.” Marzipan originally came in fancy little boxes decorated with a picture of a Venetian coin showing Jesus sitting on a throne. The candy took its name from the coin, which was an imitation of Arab coins showing a seated king, called mauthaban. The Arabic word comes from wathaba, “sit,” which is from the same Semitic root as Hebrew ישב, “sit,” or “dwell.” (Note that ש in Hebrew corresponds to two different consonants in Arabic, either s or th, just as it corresponds to either ש or ת in Aramaic. The Aramaic word for “sit” is יתב.) Derivatives of ישב include שביתה, “strike” in modern Hebrew; מושב, a cooperative community with privately owned land, moshav in English; ישוב, “settlement” or “community;” and ישיבה, “place where people sit,” hence yeshiva, or “meeting” in modern Hebrew.

The Online Etymology Dictionary mentions this theory, and adds "Nobody seems to quite accept this, but nobody has a better idea."

This site says that marzipan might derive from a Persian word for governor, marzuban.

The Oxford English Dictionary presents another explanation:

What, then, is the ultimate origin of marzipan (and its cousin marchpane)? The original OED entry comments that 'Its etymology is obscure', and does no more than mention one scholar as having 'ingeniously' suggested a link with 'Arabic mauthabn "a king that sits still"'. Once again, recent scholarship allows the new OED entry to put forward a new derivation: in this case Italian philologists have furnished the basis for a link with - remarkably - the Far East. In Myanmar (Burma) there is a port, near the town of Moulmein, called Martaban, which was famous for the glazed jars which it exported to the West, often containing preserves and sweetmeats. Delicacies are often associated with the containers in which they are traditionally imported (ginger being an obvious example); it seems plausible enough that a name associated with a special container should transfer its association to the thing contained.

Plausibility would not, however, be enough were it not for a curious aspect of the words which correspond to marzipan in some of the other European languages: Italian marzapane, Spanish mazapán, French massepain. In each case the relevant word once also had another meaning, denoting various kinds of container - a casket in 15th-century French and 14th-century Spanish (specifically for confectionery in the case of French), and a container of a certain capacity in Venetian documents in the 13th. And then there is also the fact that Martaban is still known for its pottery: the same batch of recently published OED entries which contains marzipan also contains an entry for Martaban jar (sometimes simply Martaban), this being a kind of large glazed earthenware jar. (The same jars have also arrived in English via Afrikaans: the ships of the Dutch East India Company carried them to South Africa, where even English speakers came to call them Martevaans. By the same exacting criteria that separated marchpane and marzipan, we distinguish Martaban (jar) from Martevaan - the latter has its own entry in the OED, now published for the first time.)

If all the theories revolve around the container, I can't help wondering if perhaps the word somehow connects to the Talmudic word martzuf מרצוף , meaning "bag, sack". Klein provides the following etymology:

Latin marsupium ( = poudi, purse), from Greek marsypion, diminutive of marsypos, marsipos (=bag, purse), which is probably of Oriental origin.

If this somehow was the case, then you could connect marzipan to marsupial...

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genie

Is the word "genie" somehow related to Hebrew? Not exactly.

The word "genie" comes from the Latin genius, which in Roman mythology meant a "guardian spirit". From here the word developed to "spirit, incarnation, wit, talent" and much later came to mean "person of natural intelligence or talent".

But the French version of genius, genie, was used in the French translation of "Arabian nights" for jinni, the plural of jinn - "spirit" in Arabic. The Latin and Arabic words are not related, but in the past two hundred years the Arabic sense of the word genie has become dominant.

And where does jinn derive from?

Jinn (and majnun - "someone possessed by a spirit, crazy" also used in Israeli slang), comes from the Arabic root jn - meaning "to cover, conceal". This root is related to the Hebrew גנן - also meaning "to protect, shelter". From here we get magen מגן - shield, and hagana הגנה - defense (which according to Klein was coined by Rashi).

Surprisingly (to me at least), Klein and Kaddari do not connect גנן to gan גן - "garden". Jastrow, Steinberg and Stahl do make the connection. Jastrow defines gan as a "fenced-in place", and Stahl points out that the English words "guard" and "garden" are related as well. (However, neither the Online Etymology Dictionary (here and here) nor the American Heritage Dictionary (here and here) connect "guard" and "garden", so maybe this is just another coincidence.)

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tav

The 22nd and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet is tav (or taw). The Hebrew word tav תו means "mark, sign" and this was the early shape of the letter as well. David Sacks writes:

The word taw meant "mark", probably as in an agricultural identifying sign, like a cattle brand or the dye mark that modern Near Eastern shepherds daub on their sheep.

In Modern Hebrew tav can mean a musical note or a computer character. From the word tav we get the verb תוה - "to make marks, sketch, outline" - and this is the origin of the phrase tvay hagader תוי הגדר - "the route of the fence."

We have already noted that tav can alternate with the letters dalet, tet and shin. Additionally, Klein points out that tav as a prefix creates nouns and in doing so interchanges often with the letter mem: תרבית / מרבית , תוצא / מוצא.

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arsenal

The word arsenal derives from Arabic. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

1506, "dockyard," from It. arzenale, from Ar. dar as-sina'ah "house of manufacture, workshop," from sina'ah "art, craft, skill," from sana'a "he made." Applied by the Venetians to a large wharf in their city, which was the earliest meaning in Eng. Sense of "public place for making or storing weapons and ammunition" is from 1579.

Now I know that the Arabic dar - "house" is related to the Hebrew dira דירה. But is there a Hebrew cognate to sana'a - "he made"?

It took me a while to find it, but there is. Under the entry for the root צנע , Klein writes:

to be modest, be humble; to restrain; to reserve, preserve [Jewish Palestinian Aramaic צנע (= reserved, kept, guarded), צניע (= modest, discreet, chaste), Syriac צניעא (= shrewd, astute, crafty, cunning, sly). Perhaps related to Arabic sana'a (= he prepared), Ethiopian san'a (=he was strong)]

Kaddari also connects the three meanings - the Hebrew "modest", Syriac "cunning" and Arabic "expert, professional". It would seem that a humble person hides himself, while a cunning person hides his plans. And just as in English craft and crafty are related, so too does the astute person know how to prepare things.

Stahl quotes a theory that the origin of the capital of Yemen, San'a, got its name from the artisans who lived in the city.

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etz and ilan

With Tu B'Shvat coming up, lets look at two Hebrew words for tree: etz עץ and ilan אילן.

I actually discussed the etymology of etz in the comments on my post for lute, in response to the question whether the Hebrew עץ is related to the Aramaic אע (of the same meaning):

Klein's etymology for עץ :

"Related to Phoen. עץ (= wood), Aram. אץ (dissimilated from עץ) , Egypt-Aram עק, Ugar 's, Arabic 'idah, Ethiopian 'ed, Akka isu (= tree, wood)."

Klein doesn't mention אע, but perhaps he feels it developed from אץ.

Kutscher, on the other hand, writes that really the Aramaic word should have been עע, but two guttural letters couldn't stay next to each other, and due to dissimilation, the first ע became an א.

Steinberg connects etz to a root עצה meaning "to bind, attach, strengthen", and is related to such other words as עצה / עצם - "to close (the eyes)", עצם - "to be strong, mighty", יעץ - "advise, give counsel", and עצב - "give form, shape".

Ilan is originally an Aramaic word, only appearing in the Tanach in the Aramaic section of the book of Daniel. Klein writes that it is related to the Hebrew elon אלון - "oak" (as in Alon Shvut). Elon is related to ela אלה - also meaning "oak, terebinth", and Klein connects all of them to the root אול - meaning "to be strong". This is similar to Steinberg's etymology of etz, and it's not surprising - a tree was (and still is) a symbol of strength. From אול we get the animal names ayil איל - "ram" and ayal - "deer". Klein writes that many once derived el אל - "god" from אול, but he does not find the argument convincing.

Kutscher asks the question - "Why don't we call Tu B'Shvat 'Chag LaEtzim' instead of 'Chag LaIlanot' ?" His answer is that in Biblical Hebrew etz meant both "tree" and "wood". But in the times of Mishnaic Hebrew, ilan had entered into Hebrew from Aramaic, and now there was the ability to have two separate terms - etz for wood and ilan for tree.

This distinction can explain why Rashi on Bereshit 18:4 found it necessary to explain tachat haetz תחת העץ as tachat hailan תחת האילן. He was trying to point out that the guests sat under a tree, and not under a wooden roof.

There are of course some exceptions to this "rule" - most notably the blessing "borei pri haetz" בורא פרי העץ.

Modern Hebrew tends to prefer Biblical over Mishnaic Hebrew, and so we generally use the word etz for tree (except when talking about Tu B'Shvat.)

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shin and sin

Well, we're almost done with the alphabet. Today we'll deal with the second-to-last of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet - shin / sin. The name of the letter derives from the early shape - that of a tooth or teeth, as in the Hebrew word for tooth - shen שן (Steinberg adds that the sound is also made by using the teeth). According to Klein, the word shen derives from the root שנן - "to sharpen".

As you can see from the title of this post, this letter is more complicated than others. Sin or shin? Klein writes:

The letter ש marks two different sounds: sin and shin. Hebrew sin corresponds to Aramaic shin and samech, Syrian samech, Ugaritic sh, Arabic sh. ... compare Hebrew נשא, Biblical Aramaic נשא, Aramaic נסא ( = he lifted, took, carried), Ugar. nsh (to lift), Arabic nasha'a (= he rose, was high, grew up)...

There are exceptions to the rule according to which Arabic sh corresponds to Hebrew sin and vice versa. These exceptions are due mainly to assimilation, partly also to the circumstance that Hebrew sin sometimes stands for original samech (see שכך, שבר, שתם). In earlier Aramaic, and Biblical Aramaic sin is generally preserved, but many words that have sin in Biblical Hebrew are regularly spelled with samech in Medieval Hebrew.

Hebrew shin corresponds to Aramaic-Syrian shin, Ugaritic sh, Arab s ... compare Hebrew שלום, Aramaic-Syrian שלם, Ugaritic shlm, Arabic salam...

In many cases Hebrew shin corresponds to Aramaic-Syrian tav, Arabic th ... compare Hebrew שלוש, Aramaic-Syrian תלת, Arabic thalath...

So we see that there are two letters - sin and shin. Horowitz goes further, and divides shin into two different letters:

Two different sounds are represented by the Hebrew letter shin. One is originally and really shin; the other is a "th" sound that coalesced into shin in Hebrew. Scholars write this second sound ת.

He then gives a number of examples where shin becomes tav in Aramaic: שור / תור , פשר / פתר, שנים / תנים.

He then continues by saying (as we have seen with ayin and tzade) that because of the dual nature of shin, you cannot connect certain words even though they seem to have the same root:

• שמן (fat) and שמונה (eight)
• שער (reckon) and שער (gate)
• נשר (eagle) and נשר (drop or fall off)
• שאר (remainder) and שאר (kin)
• חרש (plow) and חרש (be silent)
• ישן (sleep) and ישן (old)
• שלח (send) and שולחן (table)

All of these, according to Horowitz, can be proved by examples where only one of the pair gets a tav in Aramaic (or Ugaritic).

Steinberg writes that there are some Hebrew words that have shin added as a suffix instead of tav:

• חרמש - from חרם
• חלמיש - from חלם
• עכביש - from עכב
  

In Greek there was no "sh" sound, so many proper names were translated with "s": Moshe / Moses, Shlomo / Solomon, Shmuel / Samuel.

The letter shin as a prefix (she-) means "that". The full word for "that" is asher אשר. Eliyahu Netanel here discusses which came first - she- or asher? He believes that she- came first, with an alef and resh added on later.

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gezer

Is there any connection between gezer גזר - "carrot" and the root גזר - "to cut"? I was surprised to find out there is none.

I'm not entirely sure when gezer as carrot entered Hebrew. Klein lists it as Medieval Hebrew. My guess is that it came from the Arabic jazar, which was borrowed from the Persian gazar or the Pashto gazara (from this article.) This makes sense, for the carrot originated in Afghanistan. But Persian and Pashto are Indo-European languages, not related to Hebrew.

The root גזר , meaning "to cut", on the other hand, is certainly Hebrew. We've noted before that גזר is one of a number of roots beginning with גז that mean to cut : גזה, גזז, גזר, גזל, גזם, גזע

Horowitz points out that with metathesis, גזר becomes גרז - the root of garzen גרזן - "axe".

A development from "to cut" is "to decree" - and from here we get gzar-din גזר-דין "verdict" and gezera גזרה - "decree, edict". A migzar מגזר means "a sector (of the population) and a gizra גזרה is "a shape, figure, region."

As far as the famous ancient city of Gezer - Gesenius writes that it was "probably a steep place, precipice" - separated, cut off.

In Arabic, jazira means "island" - cut off from the land. The country Algeria gets its name from here. The country is known in Arabic as Al Djazair. Stahl writes that the name comes from a number of small islands not far from the coast (which have long been connected to the land), which gave the name to the city Algiers, which gave its name to the country.

The Arabic television network Al Jazeera also means "the island" - in this case the peninsula of Qatar, surrounded by water on three sides and desert on the other.

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totafot

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

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

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

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

[Translation from here]:

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

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

Aryeh Kaplan in The Living Torah, also writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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mezuza

The original meaning of mezuzah מזוזה (as in our parasha, Shmot 12:7) was "doorpost". In Talmudic Hebrew the meaning of mezuza was transfered to the parchment we are commanded to attach to the doorpost.

Klein gives the following etymology:

originally probably meaning 'something standing' and related to Akkadian nazazu (= to stand), manzazu ( = doorpost).

He says the word mazal מזל has the same root. Like mezuza, the meaning of mazal has changed from the biblical meaning of "constellation, zodiac" to the later meaning of "luck, fortune". He writes:

From the Akkadian mazaztu, mazaltu ( = lit. 'the standing of the stars'), from nazazu (=to stand), whence also the Phoenician מזל (= constellation, destiny), Aramaic מזלא (= star, star of destiny)

Kaddari mentions the theory that mezuza is connected to the Akkadian mazzazu, but in the end rejects it (however, he does say that mazal derives from there). He says that mezuza derives from the root זוז - "to move", the same way menucha מנוחה derives from נוח - "to rest".

Earlier sources such as Steinberg and Jastrow also connect mezuza to זוז, but none of them explain exactly why. Is the door moving? Is it referring to the person leaving or entering? Any ideas?

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resh

The 20th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is resh. It gets its name from the original shape of the letter - like a rosh ראש - head.

In addition to "head", rosh can also mean "chief, leader", "top, summit", "beginning" and "principal, capital". Some other word derived from rosh are rishon ראשון - "first", reshit ראשית - "beginning", and rashi ראשי - "chief, primary".

The Aramaic version of rosh is closer to our pronunciation of the letter - ריש resh. From here we get the word reisha רישא meaning "the first part (of a Mishna)".

In Arabic, ras as head is found in many place names such as Ras al-Khaimah ("top of the tent") and Ras Tanura ("head of the barbeque spit"). Rais is another Arabic derivation, meaning "president".

While there is some debate among scholars, one opinion as to the etymology of the word "race" meaning "tribe" is from our root, via Arabic. Klein writes in his CEDEL:

race, n., family tribe. -- MF. ( = F.), fr. earlier rasse, fr. It. razza, which together with Sp. raza, prob. derives fr. Arab. ra's , 'head, beginning, origin', which is rel. to Heb. rosh

As we have seen earlier, resh can interchange with lamed and nun. Steinberg adds that the similarity of the shapes of resh and dalet cause them to alternate as well - for example ראה (Devarim 14:13) and דאה (Vayikra 11:14).

Resh is occasionally added to three letter roots and words: שבט / שרביט , כסא / כרסא. In other cases, the resh is assimilated - כרכר becomes ככר.

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ababuot

In this weeks parasha, in the plague of boils (sh'chin שחין) we come across a familiar word: אֲבַעְבֻּעֹת avabuot. This word only appears here (Shmot 9:9) but is familiar in modern Hebrew as the "pox" in "chicken pox" - אבעבעות רוח ababuot ruach (most likely based on the German Windpocken, which this site says the "wind" means "filled with air", "not really substantial".) Earlier generations would have associated ababuot with smallpox.

Klein writes that אבעבועה - "blister, boil" is formed from בעבע with the prosthetic alef (as in אצבע) and the suffix heh. The root בעבע , he claims, is of imitative origin, like its English equivalent, bubble. It is related to the root בעה , which also means "to bubble" and בועה buah - bubble.

In an interesting comment, he says there may be a connection between בעה - "to bubble" and בעה - "to seek, ask questions, desire, pray". He writes:

Several scholars identify בעה (bubble) and בעה (seek) by assuming that the original meaning of this base was 'to swell', whence developed the meanings 'to bubble' on the one hand, and 'to swell with desire' on the other.

We are familiar with such derivatives of בעה as b'aya בעיה - problem, which developed from the Aramaic בעיא - question, and many Talmudic phrases like כדבעי - "as required, properly" and אי בעית אימא - "if you like I can say".

In Arabic, a baghi is a prostitute, and the Arabic Etymological Dictionary writes that the word comes from bagha, "desire", which goes back to our root בעה :

bagha : desire [Sem b-gh-y, Akk bu‘‘u (look for), Syr b’a (ask for), BAram b‘h, b‘w, Hrs beayt (wish)]

The American Heritage Dictionary makes the same claim, and writes that the sense of the word baggage, meaning "prostitute, impudent girl or woman" comes from the Arabic:

perhaps from French bagasse, from Provençal bagassa, ultimately from Arabic bagiy, prostitute

To be fair, there are those, such as "The Mavens' Word of the Day", who claim that this sense of baggage is developed from the more popular sense of the word as "luggage".

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