Testify!
After Jacob and his family secretly fled the house of Jacob’s father-in-law Laban, Laban and his entourage chased after Jacob with ill intent, but eventually agreed to make peace with him. To mark the cementing of their peace treaty, Laban and Jacob erected a monument which would commemorate their agreement. As the Bible reports it, Laban named the site Yegar Sahaduta, Aramaic for "witness mound," while Jacob named the site Gal-Eid, Hebrew for "witness mound” (Gen. 31:47). In this essay we focus on the synonyms eid and sahad, which both refer to “witness” and the act of “giving testimony.” In doing so, we examine their respective and shared etymologies, while also discussing other words related to them. At the end of this essay we will consider what these terms might teach us about Judaism’s perspective on martyrdom.
The earliest Hebrew lexicographers, like Menachem Ibn Saruk (920–970), Yonah Ibn Janach (990–1050), and the Radak (1160–1235), trace the Hebrew words eid (“witness”) and eidut (“testimony”) to the biliteral root AYIN-DALET. That particular root is the etymon for a whole bevy of Hebrew words, but none of the classical lexicographers offer a systematic way of connecting those different words, nor do they even insinuate the existence of such a connection.
Nevertheless, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (1740–1814) in both Yeriot Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo offers a lengthy discussion of this two-letter root and many of its tributaries. He sees the core meaning of AYIN-DALET as "connecting one thing to another," with the common Hebrew proposition ad ("until") serving as an archetypical reflection of this idea. The word ad can be used to forge connections in time (e.g., “I will walk until nightfall”), space (e.g., “I will walk until the red house”), or a whole slew of other conditions (e.g., “I will walk until my foot hurts”).
Some of the other terms that Rabbi Pappenheim sees as related to this root include moed (“meeting,” where two or more parties encounter one another), eidah (“congregation,” where individuals join up at a certain place or for a certain goal), adi (“adornment,” which connects that which is decorated with the decorations that cause beautification), and eden (“enjoyment,” because pleasure creates agreement between one who enjoins something with the thing itself).
Following this line of inquiry, Rabbi Pappenheim also connects eid/eidut to this biliteral root. He explains that the primary function of a “witness” is to give “testimony” that establishes a connection between an action or event that happened with the preparator or the one responsible for that occurrence. In this way, eidut too is a form of “connection.” He notes that although this concept applies primarily to human witnesses, it can also be extended to physical monuments or objects, which similarly serve as reminders of a certain message to which they "testify." A certain subset of the Torah's commandments is called eidot (Deut. 4:45, 6:17, Ps. 93:5, Ps. 119:2, 119:32) because their purpose is to "testify" about specific historical events that happened to the Jewish People.
Rabbi Pappenheim continues to explain that one of the primary roles of a witness in a judicial context is to warn a potential sinner about the ramifications and punishments resulting from his intended actions. Because of this, the word eid itself came to be associated with the act of "warning" another, even outside of the context of witnesses and testimony (for example, see Gen. 43:3, Ex. 19:21, 21:29). As a result, the Torah itself gained the appellation eidut (Ex. 31:18, 26:33, Num. 18:2), as most of the Torah's injunctions are negative commandments that "warn" against performing certain actions. In a similar sense, an ox that has already gored three times is called a muad (see Mishna Bava Kama 1:4, 2:4, 2:6, 3:8, 4:2, 4:5 4:9) because its owner has already been “warned” that his beast is a dangerous one and needs to be watched (see Ex. 21:29).
Interestingly, Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (12th century) in his Machberet HaAruch traces the term eid/eidut to the word adi mentioned above, explaining that that just as ornamental trappings mark something as special and important, so is eidut outstanding from all other sorts of verbal utterances in that it relays important, pertinent information.
*To continue reading this essay about eid/eidut and how it relates to sahad/sahaduta, plus a fascinating exploration of the Jewish perspective on martyrdom, please visit: http://ohr.edu/this_week/whats_in_a_word/
