other
basket
טנא · סל · כלוב · דוד · כלכלה · כפיפה
Bottom line
Sal is the ordinary basket, and for Rabbi Pappenheim a bread basket. Tene is the fruit basket of bikkurim, loosely woven so the air can move through it. Keluv holds something alive or ripening, so "basket" for figs and "cage" for birds; dud is a basket or a pot by context, and kalkalah is the large Mishnaic hamper. The trap: English "basket" covers all of them.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| טנא | tene | fruit basket | loosely woven so fruit will not spoil (Pappenheim); only in Ki Savo |
| סל | sal | basket | the standard word; bread basket in daily use (Pappenheim); "lifting" (Rav Hirsch) |
| כלוב | keluv | basket, cage | unripe figs (Amos 8:1) or birds being fattened (Yirmiyahu 5:27) |
| כלכלה | kalkalah | hamper | a large sal for storing food, from kalkal, "to sustain" (Rabbi Tanchum) |
Where the authorities disagree
What the root ס-ל means. Rav Hirsch (to Bamidbar 19:20; Tehillim 3:3): sal is literally "to lift," a basket being what helps a man lift and carry, and he places sulam, solelah (a siege mound) and mesilah (a road that climbs) in the same ס-ל family. Rabbi Aharon Marcus's theory of sela fits this: he proposed that in every word whose root is the biliteral ס-ל the samech stands in for an ayin that follows it, so the root is really ע-ל, what is above (al, lemalah) or ascends (oleh, aliyah), and sela is a rock that comes up out of the ground. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reads ס-ל as repeated action instead: mesilah is a road because many have trodden it, and one who twists his hair over and over is misalsel (Rosh Hashanah 26b), so sal is a bread basket, an item in constant daily use (Bereishis 40:16, Vayikra 8:2). The Bottom line takes "basket" plainly, since Pappenheim himself admits that sal can mean any basket in a borrowed sense, even a basket of meat (Shoftim 6:19) or grapes (Yirmiyahu 6:9). Against all of this, Dr. Chaim Tawil points out that the Hebrew sal seems in fact to derive from the Akkadian sallu, which likewise means basket.
Where tene comes from. Rabbi Pappenheim: the aleph is not root, the root being ט-נ, and the word names a basket woven with gaps so that air reaches the fruit and keeps it from spoiling; from the same root he takes eitun (Mishlei 7:16), cloth woven loosely enough to breathe, and Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg adds that the ט-נ in shaatnez likewise carries weaving. Rabbi Aharon Marcus keeps the link to eitun but holds both are of Egyptian origin, and Rabbi Ernest Klein likewise treats tene as an Egyptian loanword; Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche connects it instead to beten, a stomach, a basket being an open cavity. The Bottom line follows Pappenheim on the sense and leaves origin open.
Distinctions
sal (סל)
Fifteen appearances, the default word for a basket. It carries the bread of the royal baker's dream (Bereishis 40:16) and the bread of the miluim (Vayikra 8:2), which stands behind Pappenheim's reading, but also Gidon's meat (Shoftim 6:19) and grapes (Yirmiyahu 6:9). The Aramaic sala is what the Targum uses for tene in all four places.
tene (טנא)
Four appearances, all in Ki Savo (Devarim 26:2, 26:4, 28:5, 28:17), about bikkurim and about the blessing and curse on one's produce; in the language of Chazal it appears as teni. That it is reserved to that parashah, and that the Targum reaches for sal to render it, is what makes it worth marking as a different kind of basket rather than a stylistic variation.
keluv (כלוב), dud (דוד)
Keluv twice: a basket of kayitz, summer figs, in Amos 8:1, and a basket in which birds were kept to be fattened in Yirmiyahu 5:27, from which Modern Hebrew made keluv a cage. Dud means a basket in Yirmiyahu 24:1-2 but a pot in Shmuel I 2:14 and Divrei HaYamim II 35:13, the vessels being much the same shape.
the Mishnaic and Talmudic words
Kalkalah is frequent in the Mishnah (Peah 7:3; Demai 7:6, which the article prints as Dema; Terumos 4:6; Maasros 1:5, 4:2; Shabbos 20:3, 21:1; Eruvin 3:8; Kiddushin 2:7; Keilim 16:2, 22:9). Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi: an especially large sal people would use to store all kinds of food, its name a cognate of kalkal, to sustain (Bereishis 47:12), because its contents provide sustenance and nourishment. Kefifah, sometimes spelled with a kuf and sometimes with a kaf, seems to mean specifically a wicker basket (Shabbos 2:2; Sotah 2:1, 3:1; Keilim 26:1).
Eight more appear in the Gemara. How they differ is not readily apparent and no commentator addresses it, so the column reads them from context clues:
- dikula (Chullin 32b) seems to be a basket made from the bast of a dekel, a palm tree (see Rashi to Shabbos 90b).
- gridia, a vegetable basket (Rashi to Sotah 10a).
- traskal, a wide basket typically filled with barley and hung at an animal's neck so it can eat more easily (Rashi to Shabbos 5a, 53a and Eruvin 33b).
- tzana (Rashi to Chullin 57a; Rashbam to Bava Basra 126b), which Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein explains as a basket made out of thorns, related to the biblical tzan (Bamidbar 33:55, Mishlei 22:5, Amos 4:2).
- kelet, a vase-shaped basket women used to wear on their heads (Kesubos 72b, 82b; Gittin 77a; Bava Basra 85b; Bava Metzia 9b).
- sharkafa, which seems to be a basket in which birds were placed (Chullin 53b, with Rashi and Tosafos there).
- tuvila, apparently a basket used for harvesting dates (Rashi and Rabbeinu Gershom to Bava Basra 33b).
- tirina (Pesachim 88a), which seems to have been a special basket for dates.
Rendering guidance
- טנא in Ki Savo: "basket," and where the passage turns on the word, "fruit basket." Do not write "wicker basket," which belongs to kefifah.
- Trap: English "basket" absorbs sal, tene, keluv, dud and kalkalah. If two stand in one passage, give sal "basket," tene "fruit basket," kalkalah "hamper," and let keluv and dud take their contents.
- כלוב: "basket" in Amos 8:1, "cage" in Yirmiyahu 5:27; do not carry the modern "cage" back into the figs. דוד: "basket" for the figs of Yirmiyahu 24, "pot" for Shmuel I 2:14.
- The Talmudic words are best transliterated with a gloss on first use.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "A Basket Case," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 16 Elul 5780 (2020-09-05) and again 21 Elul 5782 (2022-09-17): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/a-basket-case and https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/a-basket-case-2; raw texts in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8846-a-basket-case.md and .../10020-a-basket-case-2.md. The two are the same article, republished; the second carries no new material. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 40:16, 47:12; Vayikra 8:2; Bamidbar 19:20, 33:55; Devarim 26:2, 26:4, 28:5, 28:17; Shoftim 6:19; Shmuel I 2:14; Yirmiyahu 5:27, 6:9, 24:1-2; Amos 4:2, 8:1; Tehillim 3:3; Mishlei 7:16, 22:5; Divrei HaYamim II 35:13; Rosh Hashanah 26b; Chullin 32b, 53b, 57a; Shabbos 5a, 53a, 90b; Eruvin 33b; Sotah 10a; Bava Basra 33b, 85b, 126b; Kesubos 72b, 82b; Bava Metzia 9b; Gittin 77a; Pesachim 88a; Mishnah Peah 7:3, Demai 7:6, Terumos 4:6, Maasros 1:5 and 4:2, Shabbos 2:2, 20:3 and 21:1, Eruvin 3:8, Sotah 2:1 and 3:1, Kiddushin 2:7, Keilim 16:2, 22:9 and 26:1; Dr. Chaim Tawil on Akkadian sallu.
Two notes on the article's own wording. It prints the Mishnah tractate Demai as Dema. And in reporting Rabbi Pappenheim on tene it says "the letter ALEPH of tene is a radical, while its actual root is just TET-NUN," where the sense plainly required is that the aleph is not a radical, since the root given is ט-נ. The Rendering guidance above is this guide's own; everything in the Distinctions traces to the column, its Akkadian and Egyptian etymologies included.