artisan

Distinctions

choshev (חושב) and rokem (רוקם)

Yoma 72b, in a passage the column calls somewhat cryptic: both are embroidery, but choshev is embroidery by weaving, which produces two faces, and rokem is embroidery by stitching, which produces one. What that means is disputed.

• Rashi (Yoma 72b, and to Shemos 26:1, 26:31): choshev is weaving one image (a lion) into one fabric and another (an eagle) into a second, then plying the two so each side shows a different figure. Rokem is the harder skill, one symmetrical image in a single fabric reading the same from either side.
• Rambam (Hilchos Klei HaMikdash 8:15) and Abarbanel (to Shemos 26:1) order it differently: rokem embroiders on one face only (the other left blank, per Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in Derech Chochmah), and choshev is what Rashi called rokem.

Neither the Gemara nor these commentators say what charash means here.

Shadal reads the two words developmentally: rokem first meant a primitive patchwork done without a needle, drawing shapes on one cloth and somehow affixing that cloth to another, and he ties ר-ק-ם by metathesis to ק-ר-ם, krum, a membrane overlaying what is beneath. Later technique let one stitch the picture into the cloth itself, but the craftsman kept the old name; later still came the ability to form shapes within the weaving, work demanding real planning, and that craftsman is a choshev, cognate with machshavah. Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 26:1) runs parallel, linking ר-ק-ם to ר-ג-ם by the interchange of kuf and gimmel: just as regem is stoning a man by piling stones on him, so the rokem's embroidered foreground appears piled on its background.

Radak (to Shoftim 5:30, Yechezkel 17:3, and in Sefer HaShorashim) defines rokem simply as one who weaves or sews a multicolored textile. Ibn Janach divided his Sefer HaDikduk, one of the first studies of the Hebrew language, into two parts, Sefer HaRikmah and Sefer HaShorashim; in his introduction he explains that he named the first part for the wide range of subjects in it, alluding to rikmos ha'adamah, botanical gardens in which many species were planted together, and so back to the biblical rokem, one who produces fabrics of many colors. (The column notes that it has been unable to find the phrase rikmos ha'adamah anywhere but that introduction, and that Ibn Janach's work was written in Judeo-Arabic and only later translated into Hebrew.)

charash (חרש)

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, cited in part by Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (HaKesav VeHaKabbalah to Shemos 35:35): the root ח-ר-ש means plowing, the preparatory labor of agriculture, never the farmer's object in itself. Because plowing mattered so much, the root was extended to any craft of preparing materials: the metalworker (Bereishis 4:22, Yeshayahu 44:12, Ezra 3:7, Divrei HaYamim II 24:12), the woodworker (Shemos 31:5, 35:33, Yeshayahu 44:13, Shmuel II 5:11, Melachim II 12:12, Divrei HaYamim I 22:15), the stoneworker (Shemos 28:11, 31:5, 35:33, Shmuel II 5:11). And because such work requires planning, the same root came to mean thinking and scheming (Shoftim 16:2, Shmuel I 23:9, Mishlei 3:29, Yeshayahu 3:3, Iyov 4:8).

Pappenheim's own line between the two: the charash changes materials out of their natural state, chiseling a stone, cutting a beam, melting a metal; the choshev takes materials as they are and arranges them, joining dye to cloth, laying fabrics together to make a picture. On that basis Pappenheim suggests that perhaps, since the choshev effects no change in the material itself and works only by arrangement, his name comes from thought, the more abstract creativity. Radak and Ibn Janach in their Sifrei HaShorashim file choshev under ח-ש-ב with machshavah, cheshbon and chashuv (the column adds that Modern Hebrew carried this on in machshevon, a calculator, machshev, a computer, and cheshbonis, an invoice); Pappenheim adds that the choshev must know his dimensions and quantities, hence cheshbon.

Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Aholei Yehudah) links charash to cheiresh, mute, since this artisan works in silence, his craft demanding thought.

uman (אומן)

Targum Onkelos gives all three separate Aramaic words: charash becomes uman, choshev becomes nagar (a carpenter in Modern Hebrew), rokem becomes tzayar (a painter in Modern Hebrew). None of the three is in Tanach, but uman is common in Mishnah (Bikkurim 3:3, Pesachim 4:6, Kiddushin 4:14, Sanhedrin 3:4, Avodah Zarah 5:7, Erachin 6:3, Taharos 7:3), and its close relative aman appears once (Shir HaShirim 7:2). Machberes Menachem takes uman as any craftsman; Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) implies that only an expert earns the title.

chacham charashim (חכם חרשים)

Yeshayahu 3:3, among the pillars Yerushalayim would lose; hecharash v'hamasger went into galus with Yechonyah (Melachim II 24:14, 24:16, Yirmiyahu 29:2). Four readings:

• Rashi (following Gittin 88a and Sanhedrin 38a): a talmid chacham so masterful that when he opens his mouth in Torah the rest are like a cheiresh, with nothing to answer.
• Malbim: from plowing. The chacham furrows through a body of knowledge to reach its depths, so "a wise man among plowers."
• Rabbi Yosef Kara, Ibn Ezra and the Vilna Gaon: a wise artisan, one who can support himself by his own handiwork.
• Radak and Metzudas David: from thought and planning, so literally "a wise man among thinkers," a master craftsman under whom beginner apprentices might study their craft.

A separate Aramaic sense: charash is Targum's regular word for one who practices kishuf (Onkelos to Shemos 22:17 on michasheifah), and the Gemara uses it that way too (Rashi to Berachos 62a, Shabbos 75a, Pesachim 110a, Bava Metzia 29b, Chullin 84b). The Yemenite poet Rabbi Shalom Shabazi ties this to the mute sense, since spells were cast in a whisper. Dr. Alexander Kohut, in He'Aruch HaShaleim, cites the Maskilic scholar Peretz Smolenskin as tying it instead to the thinking and deliberating sense of the root, since the dark arts were performed in a state of deliberate intent. The columnist adds an alternative of his own: it may relate to the artisan sense, since for whatever reason the default artisan in Aramaic is one engaged in the occult, which he suggests may connect to the idea that Aramaic is a language associated with the Sitra Achra.

Rendering guidance

• Shemos 35:35 and 38:23: "craftsman, designer and embroiderer" is the safe set, but in a Mishkan passage keep maaseh choshev and maaseh rokem transliterated with a gloss. Rashi and the Rambam disagree about which is which, so an English word commits the translation to one side silently.
• Trap: "embroiderer" absorbs choshev and rokem together, and "craftsman" absorbs charash and uman. Where the Torah lists all three, three distinct English words are required.
• Charash in a navi's list of exiles (Melachim II 24:14): "craftsmen," not "smiths," since the word covers wood, stone and metal alike.
• Chacham charashim (Yeshayahu 3:3): render it and footnote the machlokes. "Skilled artisan" follows Ibn Ezra and the Gra; "master craftsman" follows Radak; "one wise in Torah" follows Rashi and the Gemara. Do not blend them.
• Aramaic charash as sorcerer must never be rendered "craftsman"; when both senses are in play in one sugya, transliterate.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Pekudai: Crafty Artisans," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 6 Adar Beis 5784 (2024-03-16): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11298-pekudai-crafty-artisans.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 4:22; Shemos 22:17, 26:1, 26:31, 28:11, 31:5, 35:33, 35:35, 38:23; Shoftim 5:30, 16:2; Shmuel I 23:9; Shmuel II 5:11; Melachim II 12:12, 24:14, 24:16; Yeshayahu 3:3, 44:12-13; Yirmiyahu 29:2; Yechezkel 17:3; Mishlei 3:29; Iyov 4:8; Shir HaShirim 7:2; Ezra 3:7; Divrei HaYamim I 22:15, II 24:12; Yoma 72b; Gittin 88a; Sanhedrin 38a; Rambam, Hilchos Klei HaMikdash 8:15; Ibn Janach's introduction to Sefer HaDikduk; Dr. Alexander Kohut, He'Aruch HaShaleim, citing Peretz Smolenskin. Everything in the Distinctions traces to the column, the Rendering guidance is this guide's own, and the columnist's own closing suggestion about the Aramaic artisan and the Sitra Achra is marked as his.