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.
taar and morah
כׇּל־יְמֵי֙ נֶ֣דֶר נִזְר֔וֹ תַּ֖עַר לֹא־יַעֲבֹ֣ר עַל־רֹאשׁ֑וֹ עַד־מְלֹ֨את הַיָּמִ֜ם אֲשֶׁר־יַזִּ֤יר לַיהֹוָה֙ קָדֹ֣שׁ יִהְיֶ֔ה גַּדֵּ֥ל פֶּ֖רַע שְׂעַ֥ר רֹאשֽׁוֹ׃
All the days of his vow of Naziriteship there shall no razor come upon his head; until the days be fulfilled, in which he consecrateth himself unto the LORD, he shall be holy, he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long.
In the Tanakh, there are two words for razor for shaving. The more common one, תַּעַר ta'ar, is found in five verses: Bamidbar 6:5, 8:7; Yeshaya 7:20; Tehilim 52:4, and Yechezkel 5:1. (In Yirmiyahu 36:23, it refers to a scribe's knife.)
The less frequent word, מוֹרָה morah, only appears three times: Shoftim 13:5, 16:17; and Shmuel I 1:11. All of these mentions of morah refer to nazirites (Shimshon and Shmuel).
The laws of the nazirite are found in Bamidbar, and that is where ta'ar appears. The phrasing of the verses is very similar. Bamidbar 6:5 says תַּעַר לֹא־יַעֲבֹר עַל־רֹאשׁוֹ "no razor [ta'ar] shall touch his head." Of both Shimshon and Shmuel the verses say וּמוֹרָה לֹא יַעֲלֶה עַל רֹאשׁוֹ "and no razor [morah] shall come on his head." This would seem to indicate that the two words are synonymous - referring to the same object, first in the law of the nazir, and then in the stories of two nazirites.
This understanding is reflected in the etymology of the two words. Many recent scholars say that they share a common origin. For example, Klein writes in his entry for morah:
Of uncertain origin; possibly contraction of מַעֲרָה, from ערה ᴵ (= to lay bare), whence תַּעַר (= razor).
The root ערה, "to lay bare, strip" (the source of arom ערום - "naked") therefore led to both words. Morah was a contraction (the ayin dropped out) of ma'areh (meaning an open, bare place - see Shoftim 20:33), and ta'ar was a different way the noun was formed.
Kaddari also accepts this theory, and expands it by noting the connection between the root גלח - "to shave" and גלה - "to uncover, expose."
tzav
וַיָּבִ֨יאוּ אֶת־קׇרְבָּנָ֜ם לִפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֗ה שֵׁשׁ־עֶגְלֹ֥ת צָב֙ וּשְׁנֵ֣י עָשָׂ֣ר בָּקָ֔ר עֲגָלָ֛ה עַל־שְׁנֵ֥י הַנְּשִׂאִ֖ים וְשׁ֣וֹר לְאֶחָ֑ד וַיַּקְרִ֥יבוּ אוֹתָ֖ם לִפְנֵ֥י הַמִּשְׁכָּֽן׃
And they brought their offering before the LORD, six covered wagons, and twelve oxen: a wagon for every two of the princes, and for each one an ox; and they presented them before the tabernacle.
During the Pesach vacation, we visited the Biblical Museum of Natural History in Bet Shemesh. It's a really interesting museum, with live animals, and a guided tour that exhibits animals from the time of the Tanach, and explains both their religious and scientific background. I found particularly fascinating the cases where the the biblical word for an animal now refers to something else.
One of the surprises for me was the tzav צב. In Modern Hebrew, that word unquestionably refers to the turtle. But in the museum, we instead found a large lizard. How did this happen?
First of all, let's see why it originally meant a kind of lizard. This is relatively easy to determine, as we have the Arabic cognate dabb, meaning lizard. Kaddari says it refers to a large lizard from the Agamidae family, and the Daat Mikra on Vayikra 11:29 (the only mention of the tzav in the Tanach), more specifically identifies it with the Egyptian dabb lizard (also known as the Egyptian Mastigure), Uromastyx aegyptia, known in Arabic as dhab. It is found in the desert areas of this region, and is eaten by Bedouins (although this is prohibited to Jews in that verse in Vayikra).
In Hebrew, this family of lizards is the chardon חרדון family, and this is how Targum Yonatan translates the word. Rav Saadia Gaon explicitly identifies the tzav with the dabb lizard.
So why today does tzav mean turtle?
chanukah
וַיַּקְרִ֣יבוּ הַנְּשִׂאִ֗ים אֵ֚ת חֲנֻכַּ֣ת הַמִּזְבֵּ֔חַ בְּי֖וֹם הִמָּשַׁ֣ח אֹת֑וֹ וַיַּקְרִ֧יבוּ הַנְּשִׂיאִ֛ם אֶת־קׇרְבָּנָ֖ם לִפְנֵ֥י הַמִּזְבֵּֽחַ׃
And the princes brought the dedication-offering of the altar in the day that it was anointed, even the princes brought their offering before the altar.
It's widely known that there is major disagreement as to the proper spelling of חנוכה in English. Andy Carvin has an interesting article about the different spellings and how Wikipedia has made Hanukkah more popular than Chanukah. And of course Wikipedia deals with the spelling issue in the main article and in the discussion page as well.
A book I picked up a number of years ago - How Do You Spell Chanukah?: A General-Purpose Romanization of Hebrew for Speakers of English by Werner Weinberg recommends Chanukah. Rabbi Josh Waxman in Parshablog suggests Chanukka. I'm partial to Chanuka or even Hanuka, but my wife quotes her fourth grade teacher as saying "The one rule about spelling חנוכה - it must have eight letters." And since shalom bayit (lighting Shabbat candles) comes before the mitzva of publicizing the miracle (lighting חנוכה candles) - see the last Rambam in Sefer Zmanim - I'll stick with Chanukah.
What I didn't realize is just how complicated the etymology of Chanukah is. The complication arises from the multiple meanings of the root חנך. While I am aware that חנך in modern Hebrew can mean "to educate" - as in chinuch חינוך , I always thought that חנך for chanukah meant "dedication". However, this article by Prof. Stefan Reif shows how the basic meaning of the root חנך is "to begin, initiate". Dedicate, on the other hand means "to consecrate to sacred uses" - קדש in Hebrew. He writes that this translation was based on the Latin translation of the Bible - the Vulgate.
One of Reif's proofs is Devarim 20:5, where it says:
מִי-הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר בָּנָה בַיִת-חָדָשׁ וְלֹא חֲנָכוֹ
More from Balashon on Naso
- cider 2006
- zechut and zechuchit 2019
At the table
- Read Numbers 6:5 aloud. Now that you know where תַּ֖עַר comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say צָב֙ in Numbers 7:3? 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?