Words from this week's reading, traced to their roots by David Curwin, the Hebrew Language Detective. Each begins with the verse where the word appears and continues in his own words.
kodesh and kadosh
כִּי֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהֶ֜יךָ מִתְהַלֵּ֣ךְ ׀ בְּקֶ֣רֶב מַחֲנֶ֗ךָ לְהַצִּֽילְךָ֙ וְלָתֵ֤ת אֹיְבֶ֙יךָ֙ לְפָנֶ֔יךָ וְהָיָ֥ה מַחֲנֶ֖יךָ קָד֑וֹשׁ וְלֹֽא־יִרְאֶ֤ה בְךָ֙ עֶרְוַ֣ת דָּבָ֔ר וְשָׁ֖ב מֵאַחֲרֶֽיךָ׃
For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy; that He see no unseemly thing in thee, and turn away from thee.
A reader asked me to write about the Hebrew words kadosh קדוש and kodesh קודש - generally translated as "holy" and "holiness," respectively. It's taken me a few months to get to the request, because while I agree that the root קדש deserves examination, the word is so loaded with religious meaning and pervasive in Jewish liturgy and culture that I found it somewhat intimidating to tackle.
For example, here are just a few of the important terms that derive from the root קדש:
kiddush קידוש - the prayer and blessing over wine inaugurating Shabbat or holidays
kedusha קדושה - the section of the repeated Amida prayer which emulates the praise angels give to God
kaddish קדיש - the Aramaic praise of God, which is part of all prayer services, and whose recitation is part of the mourning rituals
kiddushin קידושין - betrothal - the first step of the marriage process
hekdesh הקדש - property consecrated to the Temple
mikdash מקדש - the Holy Temple
And looking in the Bible, there are over 800 words deriving from the root. Daunting, no?
But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. So I'm acknowledging that I won't touch on every aspect of the words, and perhaps I'll update this post or write another one in the future with additional insights.
Let's start by looking at the forms of the verb.
קָדַשׁ kadash: The kal form of the verb is not commonly used today, but it does appear a number of times in the Bible. According to Klein it can either mean "was set apart, consecrated" or "was forbidden." It is interesting to note that in the two verses quoted in the Even-Shoshan dictionary for this form (Shemot 29:37 and Devarim 22:9), קדש has a negative connotation, referring to something forbidden.
omer
כִּ֣י תִקְצֹר֩ קְצִֽירְךָ֨ בְשָׂדֶ֜ךָ וְשָֽׁכַחְתָּ֧ עֹ֣מֶר בַּשָּׂדֶ֗ה לֹ֤א תָשׁוּב֙ לְקַחְתּ֔וֹ לַגֵּ֛ר לַיָּת֥וֹם וְלָאַלְמָנָ֖ה יִהְיֶ֑ה לְמַ֤עַן יְבָרֶכְךָ֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בְּכֹ֖ל מַעֲשֵׂ֥ה יָדֶֽיךָ׃
When thou reapest thy harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go back to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hands.
We're between Pesach and Shavuot now, the time that we "count the omer". But do we really?
Let's look at the word "omer" עומר. It has clearly different meanings in its various appearances in the Tanach. In Devarim 24:19, Rut 2:7 it is usually translated as "sheaf" - a bundle of stalks of grain. However, in the story of the mahn (manna) מן - Shemot 16:16-36, it refers to a measure of volume, one tenth of an ephah.
However, the real question is what does it mean in Vayikra 23:10-16 - the section discussing the omer offering and the subsequent counting. The Septuagint translates the word here as "sheaf" and this is also the translation of the Vulgate and most non-Jewish translations and modern scholars. However, almost all Jewish sources say that the word omer in this section is referring to the measure of volume.
This brings up a number of questions. First of all - what is the source of the disagreement? And secondly, why hasn't this question received more attention? If we look at another verse in the same section - 23:11, it discusses how the omer was brought on ממחרת השבת - the day after "shabbat". Starting with the earliest mishnaic sources, we find countless discussions about the meaning of that phrase. Does it mean a "Sunday" or the 16th of Nissan (the day following the first day of Pesach)? However, in regards to the discussion about the meaning of omer, we find very few "proofs" in Talmudic literature.
nechshal
In my post on shevach, I mentioned the Yiddish word shvach, which derives from the German schwach, meaning "weak". Since German and English are related languages, I tried to find an English cognate to the German. The closest thing I found was the obscure Scottish word "swack", mentioned here:
Swack, to deal a heavy blow; akin to the vulgar English whack, to beat severely; a swashing blow, a heavy blow; etymology uncertain. The Teutonic schwach, has an opposite meaning, though there may be some connection of idea between a heavy blow and a blow that weakens him on whom it falls.
A parallel term in English would be "beat" - meaning both "to strike" (as a verb), and "worn out, tired" (as an adjective.)
Hebrew might also have an example. The root חשל appears once in the Bible (Devarim 25:18), where it means "weakened, lagging":
אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ, וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כָּל-הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ--וְאַתָּה, עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ
"When they encountered you on the way, and you were tired and exhausted, they cut off those lagging (hanecheshalim) to your rear"
Tigay, in the JPS Devarim writes (note 57):
Medieval Hebrew grammarians took the term to mean either "broken", based on Aramaic h-sh-l, "crush" (the verb is now known in Akkadian, too)
This is the view of Steinberg as well. Interestingly, from this sense of חשל we get the opposite of weak. Klein writes that the Aramaic and Akkadian "to crush" led to Hebrew "to forge, hammer, shape, mold", which in Modern Hebrew became "to strengthen".
However, Tigay continues:
or "weakened", taking the root h-sh-l חשל as a metathesized form of h-l-sh חלש, "be weak"
This is the view of Ibn Ezra, as well as Klein, who does not connect the two senses of חשל at all.
More from Balashon on Ki Teitzei
- zecher and zachar 2007
At the table
- Read Deuteronomy 23:15 aloud. Now that you know where קָד֑וֹשׁ comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say עֹ֣מֶר in Deuteronomy 24:19? What would be lost with a more ordinary word?
- Which of this week’s words do you use in Modern Hebrew? Has the meaning moved since the Torah used it?