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.
derash
וְאֵ֣ת ׀ שְׂעִ֣יר הַֽחַטָּ֗את דָּרֹ֥שׁ דָּרַ֛שׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְהִנֵּ֣ה שֹׂרָ֑ף וַ֠יִּקְצֹ֠ף עַל־אֶלְעָזָ֤ר וְעַל־אִֽיתָמָר֙ בְּנֵ֣י אַהֲרֹ֔ן הַנּוֹתָרִ֖ם לֵאמֹֽר׃
And Moses diligently inquired for the goat of the sin-offering, and, behold, it was burnt; and he was angry with Eleazar and with Ithamar, the sons of Aaron that were left, saying:
The next word in our series of PaRDeS words is derash דרש -'interpretation" or "exegesis". The root דרש is unlike the previous word, remez. First of all, רמז does not appear at all in the Tanach, where as דרש appears well over 100 times. And the meaning of remez is fairly simple - "hint", but darash has many definitions, of which none can explain all of the occurrences. Sometimes when a word has a variety of usages, it is possible to point to the earliest, "original", meaning. This does not seem to be easy with darash. The dictionaries didn't help much. I looked at six Hebrew dictionaries, all of which pay attention to the history of the word. Usually, the first definition listed is considered to be the original one. But as you'll see below, each dictionary came up with a different list, with a different order:
Most of these meanings appear somewhere in the Tanach (with the exception of "preach, lecture"). So we can't claim biblical usage as a sign of original meaning.
Klein actually provides an etymology:
JAram.-Syr. דרש, Mand. דרש (= he examines; he instructed, taught). Arabic darasa (= he learned, studied), Ethiopian darasa (= he expounded, interpreted) are Aramaic loan words. The original meaning of this base probably is 'to tread, trample, rub', hence ultimately identical with base דרס.
Klein defines דרס as "to tread, trample" but doesn't explain the connection to darash there either. Perhaps one of you can see the connection between דרס and דרש, but nothing seems obvious to me.
Stahl, in his Arabic dictionary, connects דרש to both דרס and also to דוש, which means "to tread, thresh" (possibly based on Gesenius here). He writes (my translation):
studying requires repetition, as does the threshing of grain
nesher and ayit
וְאֶת־אֵ֙לֶּה֙ תְּשַׁקְּצ֣וּ מִן־הָע֔וֹף לֹ֥א יֵאָכְל֖וּ שֶׁ֣קֶץ הֵ֑ם אֶת־הַנֶּ֙שֶׁר֙ וְאֶת־הַפֶּ֔רֶס וְאֵ֖ת הָעׇזְנִיָּֽה׃
And these ye shall have in detestation among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are a detestable thing: the great vulture, and the bearded vulture, and the ospray;
Sometimes how you define a word actually "defines" you as well.
For example, let's take the Hebrew words nesher נשר and ayit עיט.
From an informal survey I have taken, most native English speakers (who know Hebrew) will identify the nesher with the eagle, and if they have an answer - the ayit with the vulture.
Israelis, on the other hand, generally reverse the definitions. If they know English - they'll say nesher = vulture, and ayit = eagle. For those that didn't know, I showed them this picture:
The Israelis would usually say that #1 is an ayit, and #2 is a nesher.
Typically, the modern commentaries reflect this division. The JPS translates nesher as eagle, for example in Shemot 19:4, where the translation "on eagles' wings" sounds much more natural than "on vultures' wings" (82,000 hits on Google for the former vs. 7 for the latter.) On the other hand, the Daat Mikra almost always identifies the nesher with the Griffon Vulture.
The dictionaries also know their audience. The Even-Shoshan Dictionary (Hebrew-Hebrew) has the Griffon Vulture as the primary definition for nesher, with eagle as only a secondary option. Even-Shoshan also has eagle for ayit. The Alcalay Dictionary (Hebrew-English) has exactly the opposite order.
But of course, there are always those people who take it upon themselves to correct popular usage and put the masses on the proper path. And here we find two articles - each trying to convince the reader that they should change their initial association.
chesed and chasid
וְאֵת֙ הַחֲסִידָ֔ה הָאֲנָפָ֖ה לְמִינָ֑הּ וְאֶת־הַדּוּכִיפַ֖ת וְאֶת־הָעֲטַלֵּֽף׃
and the stork, and the heron after its kinds, and the hoopoe, and the bat.
There are some words in Biblical Hebrew that are difficult to interpret because they only appear once in the entire Tanakh. We've discussed plenty of those. However, there are other roots that are so common, and have such variety of meaning, that it can be just as difficult to pin down the "main" sense (if there even is one.) The root חסד is certainly one of those cases.
Its two main forms appear frequently: חֶסֶד hesed (246 times) and חָסִיד hasid (32 times). But what do they mean? Hesed can be easily defined as "kindness" (or an act of kindness), "grace", or "mercy." The related hasid is either an adjective, hesed-like, or a noun, "one who does hesed." But that doesn't make its translation any simpler - it can mean (one who is) pious, devout/devoted or kind.
So lets look at some different explanations of these words and how scholars have tried to interpret them.
Klein has both words representing kindness. He defines hesed in this order:
1 kindness, goodness, mercy. 2 affection. 3 lovely appearance.
And hasid, according to him, has a similar development. In Biblical Hebrew it means "kind, benevolent", and only in Modern Hebrew does it gain the sense of "pious, godly, devout."
The BDB entry (note the new Sefaria BDB resource!) goes further than Klein. They also have the root starting with "kindness", but note that both words can refer to piety in the Tanakh as well (e.g, hesed - Yeshaya 57:1; hasid - Tehilim 4:4).
Gesenius says the root has a different original meaning: "to love, desire." This "desire" comes to mean "zeal" or "love" for anyone - expressing itself in kindness or mercy. In other contexts, it can reflect piety (towards God) or the grace of God toward humans.
More from Balashon on Shmini
At the table
- Read Leviticus 10:16 aloud. Now that you know where דָּרֹ֥שׁ comes from, what do you hear in the verse that you didn't before?
- Why might the Torah say הַנֶּ֙שֶׁר֙ in Leviticus 11:13? 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?