On the 9th of Iyyar in the year 2017, my grandmother Rose (Roszi) Klein passed away. She was born in 1928 in the Hungarian town of Bonyhad to Meir and Devorah Kuttner. After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust and living in Hungary for a decade after the war, she moved to Brooklyn, NY where married and raised her family. In line with her name, my grandmother had a special appreciation of flowers and I have fond memories of visiting the botanical gardens with her. Although her Hebrew name was technically Shprintza, she was also known as Shoshana, which is a Hebrew translation of her English name Rose. This essay is dedicated to her memory and discusses three Hebrew words for “rose” — shoshanah, chavatzelet, vered.
The words shoshan or shoshanah as the name of a plant appear twelve times in the Bible, eight of which are in Song of Songs. For example, one such verse reads: "My beloved has descended to his garden / to the row of fragrance / to graze in the gardens / and to gather shoshanim" (Song of Songs 6:2). The term shoshanah also appears in the Mishna (Kilayim 5:8 and Taharot 3:7).
The feminine personal name Shoshanah was used by Jews dating all the way back to the Second Temple period, as there is a story about a Jewish woman named Shoshanah appended to the Septuagint's version of Daniel (and it is included in many versions of the Christian Bible). As you may have realized, the personal names Sue, Susan, and Suzanna are all derived from the Hebrew word shoshanah. The word shoshanim also appears in the Bible in reference to a specific musical instrument (Ps. 45:1, 69:1, 80:1), whose shape somehow resembles the shoshanah flower.
There is reason to assume that shoshanah refers specifically to a reddish flower, because the lover’s lips — which are presumably red — are compared to shoshanim (Song of Songs 5:13, see also there 4:3). Indeed, there is a Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah §19:6) which praises King Jeconiah for abstaining from his wife after she had spotted something like a shoshanah adumah (“a red shoshanah”), which again associates this term with something red.
Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh of Carpentras (an 18th century grammarian and dayan) writes in Ohalei Yehuda that shoshanah is related to sasson (“gladness”) via the interchangeability of the letters SIN and SHIN, explaining that when one sees a beautiful shoshanah and smells its pleasant scents, one becomes happy and glad.
Ibn Ezra (to Song of Songs 2:1) cites a tradition that accounts for the double SHIN in the beginning of the word shoshanah by explaining that that word refers to a specific flower that has "six" (shesh) leaves/petals. A similar explanation is given by Radak in Sefer HaShorashim, and is also invoked by Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim in tracing the word shoshanah to the biliteral root SHIN-SHIN. This would mean that the word shoshanah cannot refer to a "rose," as roses typically have five (or multiples of five) petals, not six.
On the other hand, the Zohar (Hakdamah 1a) states that a shoshanah is surrounded by thirteen petals, likening this to the Assembly of Israel, which is likewise surrounded by Hashem’s thirteen attributes of mercy. On the very same page, the Zohar also states that a shoshanah has five “strong” petals, noting that when one holds a goblet of wine to recite a blessing over it (kos shel brachah), one’s five fingers should surround the cup like these five “strong” petals that surround a shoshanah. This would line up with the idea that shoshanah refers to a “rose.” Although, it should be noted that elsewhere the Zohar (Vayechi 221a, Emor 105a) also states that a shoshanah has six petals.
The word chavatzelet appears twice in the Bible: In once instance, a lover compares himself to the “chavatzalet of the Sharon / shoshanah of the valleys” (Song of Songs 2:1), immediately before famously comparing his beloved to a “shoshanah among thorns/thorn bushes” (Song of Songs 2:2). In the other instance, the prophet Isaiah uses the simile of a desolate place which has been rejuvenated by saying that it “blossoms like a chavatzelet” (Isa. 35:1).
Either way, the question can be asked: What is a chavatzelet? Radak in his Sefer HaShorashim clearly defines chavatzelet as rosa (“rose”) and explicitly connects it with the word vered (discussed below). However, as we will see below none of this is so simple.
Rashi (to Song of Songs 2:1) writes that chavatzelet means shoshanah. That understanding also seems evident from the Peshitta (an early translation of the Bible into Syriac), which renders both chavatzelet and shoshanah as shoshnat. Similarly, the Septuagint translates both chavatzelet and shoshanah into the Greek krinon, while the Vulgate also translates both of those terms into Latin as lilium (“lily”). Indeed, both Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino in Ohel Moed and Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer in Beiurei Shemot HaNirdafim treat the words shoshanah and chavatzelet as synonyms.
The Vilna Gaon (Biur HaGra to Song of Songs 2:1) also writes that chavatzelet and shoshanah refer to the same type of flower, but he sees the difference between the two terms as lying in the location where the flower grows. Meaning, he explains that when this flower grows in the plains (the “Sharon''), which is a flatland exposed to direct sunlight, then the flower becomes especially dried out and assumes a yellow hue as the sun “burns” it. Under these conditions, that flower is called a chavatzelet. However, should the very same flower grow in a valley, wherein the heat of the sun is not as impactful, the flower retains more of its moisture and ends up with a whitish-reddish-pinkish color, which is its natural shade. In that case, the flower is called a shoshanah.
The notion that shoshanah and chavatzelet refer to the selfsame flower is already found in the Midrash (Shir HaShirim Rabbah §2:3), which explains that chavatzelet refers to the flower in its younger state, while shoshanah refers to it in its more fully-grown state. Based on this, Rabbi Wertheimer writes that the final TAV in the word chavatzelet is not part of the word’s root, but rather serves as a diminutive to denote that it is referring to a “young rose,” whose buds have not yet opened up to reveal the flower’s inner beauty.
Various commentators to the Midrash (like Matnot Kehunah, Eitz Yosef, and Maharzu there) explain the word chavatzelet as a portmanteau of CHET-BET (“hidden”) and TZADI-LAMMED (tzel, “shadow”) explaining that when in the young state of chavatzelet, the flower’s inner beauty has not yet blossomed outward, but rather remains “hidden” within its own “shadow” (see also Peirush HaRokeach to Song of Songs 2:1). A similar parsing of the word is found in the Midrash (Shir HaShirim Rabbah §2:1), which interprets chavatzelet as related to chaviv ("dear") and tzel ("shadow"). The Midrash then offers several different ways of explaining why comparing the Jewish People to the chavatzelet should be read as a compliment from Above.
