WHAT'S IN A WORD?
Synonyms in the Hebrew Language
This week’s essay presents a meticulous examination of the Hebrew word cheilev (often translated simply as "fat" in English) and its ostensible synonyms. The word cheilev appears approximately 90 times throughout the Bible, with a plurality of those appearances clustered around the opening chapters of the Book of Leviticus in Parshiyot Vayikra, Tzav, and Shemini. The Hebrew words cheilev, shuman, and pader all seem to mean the same thing, as does the Aramaic word tarba. In this essay, we consider the various meanings of those words from their meaning in an organic/biological sense to their Halachic significance in sacrificial rituals.
The Biblical Hebrew word cheilev is used in reference to either animal or human “fat” or, in a borrowed sense, to something especially “fatty” or “choice.” For example, the Bible prescribes that the fat of animal sacrifices be offered on the altar and those fats are forbidden from human consumption. Similarly, cheilev also refers to the fat in a human body, as the Bible relates that the Moabite king Eglon was so obese that when Ehud ben Geira stabbed him, his knife was completed subsumed within Eglon’s fat belly (Judges 3:22, for another example, see Psalms 73:7).
As Rashi (to Gen. 45:18, Ps. 147:14) explains, the word cheilev is sometimes borrowed from its original meaning of “fat” to refer to anything that is especially “choice” and “succulent,” even when not used in reference to animal products. For example, when Pharaoh invited Joseph’s brothers to settle in Egypt, promising to give the choicest parts of the land, he said “And you shall consume the cheilev of the land” (Gen. 45:18), which clearly does not refer to “animal fat,” but to the fecundity of the land. Similarly, when the Levites are commanded to separate a portion from the agricultural tithes (ma’aser) that they receive from Israelites to give to the Kohanim (terumat ma’aser), the Bible refers to them separating that portion from the cheilev (Num. 18:29–32), even though the produce in discussion is agricultural and not carnivorous. Interestingly, one of the warriors in King David’s entourage was name Cheilev (II Sam. 23:29), although elsewhere his name is given as Cheiled (I Chron. 11:30) or Cheldai (I Chron. 27:15). The same triliteral root CHET-LAMMED-BET which serves as the etymon of cheilev also gives us the word chalav (“milk”), which appears close to fifty times in the Bible (according to Even Shoshan’s concordance).
In contrast to all of this, the Hebrew word shuman does not appear at all in the Bible, but does appear in the Mishna (Kritut 4:1). Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer (1866–1935) points out that the post-Biblical term shuman clearly relates to the Hebrew root SHIN-MEN-NUN (“fatty,” “oily”), which already appears in Biblical Hebrew (especially in the form of the word shemen, “oil”).
What is the difference between cheilev and shuman?
Rashi (to Chullin 45b) explains that the term cheilev is a generic Hebrew term for “fat” that refers to both the forbidden fats and permitted fats, while the term shuman was coined by the rabbis to refer specifically to the “permitted fats” as a way of differentiating between those fats and the forbidden fats (which continued to be called cheilev).
In fact, from a scientific perspective, there are actually two types of fat in mammals: Visceral fats are usually large independent pieces of blubber, that are denser and harder (due to fascia compression). On the other hand, intermuscular fats are attached to muscle (meat) and are of a softer consistency. Nachmanides and Rabbeinu Bachaya (to Lev. 3:9) expand on this, explaining that the Hebrew term cheilev refers specifically to the “visceral fats” that consist of globs of fat that not attached to muscle and it is these fats that are forbidden by the Torah for human consumption. On the other hand, the Rabbinic Hebrew term shuman refers to “intermuscular fats,” which are the strips of fat that one might encounter in kosher cuts of meat and are indeed permitted by the Torah to be eaten.
In tracing these respective terms to their etymological bases, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (1740–1814) in Cheshek Shlomo explains that the word cheilev derives from the word chalav (“milk”) because cheilev refers to the accrual of hard globs of fat that are typically white (like milk). On the other hand, he explains that shuman derives from the word shemen (“oil”) because it denotes a more pourable, liquid form of fat that resembles oil in its viscosity. Alternatively, we may argue that the word cheilev relates to chalav because natural milk (i.e., unskimmed milk) typically contains fatty acids (milkfats).
*To learn more about the words cheilev, shuman, pader, and tarba, please visit us online at: http://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/ and read the full version of this article
