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עוגה · חררה · ככר · חלה · גלוסקא · קוגל
Bottom line
Ugah is not "cake" in the modern sense: its core is round, and as a food it is a flat round loaf, which is why the Torah calls the matzos of Yetzias Mitzrayim ugos matzos (Shemos 12:39). Chararah is Rashi's and the Mechilta's gloss on it. Kikar is a loaf with body, challah a round loaf, gluska the Rabbinic fine roll. The trap is English "cake," which sweetens what ugah does not: say "flat cake" or "round loaf."
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| עוגה | ugah | flat round loaf | roundness is the root sense (Taanis 23a); flat, not spherical |
| חררה | chararah | round cake | Rashi and the Mechilta's gloss on ugah (to Shemos 12:39); round stacks at Yerushalmi Peah 5:8 |
| ככר | kikar | loaf | rounded with volume; only in kikar lechem |
| חלה | challah | round loaf | round (Ibn Ezra to Vayikra 2:4); the korban and terumah word |
| גלוסקא | gluska | fine roll | the choice bread one would be tempted by (Pesachim 6b) |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether matzah must be round. The column frames this as one small part of the long-running controversy over machine-made matzos, which are typically square, some having argued that because matzah is tied to ugah in the pasuk it must, or at least should, be round. Rabbi Yehuda Aszad (Yehudah Ya'aleh, Orach Chaim vol. 1 §157): the practice in his day was round matzos, since the Torah calls them ugos, and round is faster to prepare, which suited a people rushed out of Mitzrayim. He adds that the circle hints at the cycle of poverty (lechem oni, the poor man's bread) and at the circle of life, our mourning on Pesach night over the loss of the Beis HaMikdash; and he conjectures that the Egyptians required many-sided loaves in homage to their many gods, so the Jews baked round ones for the One God who has no beginning and no end. Against him, Rabbi Shimon Sofer of Erloi denies any hidden reason: gentile loaves are mostly round too, and from the Torah's own side the square is if anything favored, since tefillin must be square, and so are the mizbeach, the choshen and the lechem hapanim, which Rabbi Chizkiyah Medini of Chevron cites as precedent that rectangular matzos are fit (see also HaDrash V'HaIyun, Tzav §29).
How ugah differs from kikar. The column consulted two scholars, Dr. Tamar Katzir of the Academy for the Hebrew Language and Rabbi Shaul Goldman. It seems, on their reading, that both roots mean round and the two are near-synonyms in practice; but the two independently suggested that kikar implies something spherical, a three-dimensional loaf, while ugah implies a flat, two-dimensional round. Which fits Choni's circle, a mere picture drawn in the ground, and fits matzah, flat enough to look two-dimensional. HALOT implies the same, defining ugah "a round flat loaf of bread" and kikar "a disk-shaped round loaf." How challah divides from ugah the column leaves open, saying it is not readily clear.
What gluskaos are. Shabbos 30b and Kesubos 111b foretell that Eretz Yisrael will yield ready-made gluskaos rather than raw stalks, and Bereishis Rabbah §88:2 has Pharaoh's baker jailed over a pebble in his gluskin. But Rabbi Yitzchak of Pira, a talmid of the Rashba (to Bereishis 3:21), implies they are a kind of clothing.
Distinctions
ugah (עוגה)
Seven occurrences in Tanach: Bereishis 18:6; Shemos 12:39; Bamidbar 11:8; Melachim I 17:13, 19:6; Yechezkel 4:12; Hoshea 7:8. Rashi and the Mechilta (to Shemos 12:39) define it as a chararah, as does Targum (to Melachim I 17:13). Outside baking the word is plainly round: an ugah shel mayim into which blood may pool (Chullin 2:9), which Rashi (41a) calls a round water pit; the ugiyos one may not make around a grapevine on Chol HaMoed (Moed Katan 1:1), small round water pits; and Choni HaMe'agel's ug ugah, the circle he drew and would not leave until rain fell (Taanis 23a). Philologists such as Shadal (to Bereishis 18:6) and Dr. Alexander Kohut (Aruch HaShaleim) relate ugah to chugah, circle or circuit; others, like Rabbi Aharon Marcus, connect it to igul.
Chararah itself is in the Mishnah a baked good of some sort (Shabbos 1:10, Bava Kamma 2:3), and at Peah 5:8 a way of stacking produce which the Yerushalmi (there) explains as round stacks. On that basis the column says it is safe to assume that chararah and ugah in the sense of a baked good both name something round in shape.
ugah and matzah
Shemos 12:39, said in the Haggadah: they baked the dough they brought out of Mitzrayim as ugos matzos, because they were driven out. The link recurs in the midrashim: Bereishis Rabbah §42:8 has Avraham occupied with "the mitzvah of ugos" when the refugee came about Lot, which is why he was called Og; §48:12 reads Avraham's "knead and make ugos" (Bereishis 18:6) as Erev Pesach, so that he was asking for matzos. Rabbi Shalom Shabazi (Chemdas Yamim there): those ugos are never reported served because Og ate them, a second account of the name.
kikar (ככר), challah (חלה) and the Rabbinic words
Kikar appears five times, always as kikar lechem (Shemos 29:23; Shmuel I 2:36; Yirmiyahu 37:21; Mishlei 6:26; Divrei HaYamim I 16:3). Challah appears alone (Vayikra 7:12, 24:5; Bamidbar 6:15; the column also lists Vayikra 15:20), as challas lechem (Shemos 29:23; Vayikra 7:13, 8:26; Shmuel II 6:19), and as challas matzah (Shemos 29:2; Vayikra 2:4, 7:12; Bamidbar 6:19; the column also lists Vayikra 5:26). Both words likewise imply a round shape (Ibn Ezra to Vayikra 2:4); for these against lechem and pas see bread-lechem-kikar-challah-pat.md. Pesachim 6b: the Rabbanan required destroying chametz rather than nullification alone, lest a man find a good gluska on Pesach and be tempted; Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia (Mussaf HeAruch) derives the word from the Greek chollix/hollix and defines it in Hebrew as "an ugah," "a small round bread," and Rabbi Ernest Klein, seemingly following him, traces it to the Greek kollix, a roll of bread. The column offers as an alternative that Rabbinic gluskos may instead be related to the Ancient Greek glukus, at first sweet new wine and then anything sweet, the English glucose being coined from it only in the 1800s.
The column closes with parallels in other languages. English cake comes from the Norse kaka, which linguists like Julius Pokorny take back to the Proto-Indo-European root gag/gog, "round," on the interchange of g and k, which is the same pairing of "baked good" with "round" that ugah shows; the diminutive cookie has its parallel in Modern Hebrew ugiyah, the diminutive of ugah. German kuchen comes from the same PIE root, and with the diminutive -el gives Yiddish kichel, a little cake; French quiche is a cognate. Avraham Even-Shoshan, in his dictionary of Modern Hebrew, derives kugel either from the Hebrew k'igul, "like a circle," or from the German kugel, sphere or ball. The first is often dismissed as folk etymology, but Rabbi Shaul Goldman points to a source for it: Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, citing the custom of using Pesach flour for the kugel of the Shabbos before Pesach, spells the word as though it were k'igul (Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 429:8). In Modern Hebrew a kugel is a pashtida, a word already used by Rashi (Pesachim 74b) and Tosafos (Eruvin 68a, Pesachim 74b and 76b, Avodah Zarah 66b, Chullin 64a), derived from the Latin pasta, which comes in turn from the Greek paste.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: "cake" absorbs ugah and gluska alike and sweetens both; ugos matzos is "flat cakes of matzah," never "matzah cakes."
- Bereishis 18:6 is "knead and make cakes" in the older English versions; where the midrashic reading is in play, say "flat cakes" so the matzah link survives.
- Where ugah is not food (Chullin 41a, Moed Katan 1:1, Taanis 23a), render by the shape: "a round pit," "he drew a circle."
- Kikar lechem is "a loaf of bread"; using "loaf" for ugah in the same passage collapses the flat-against-round distinction. Gluska is "a fine roll."
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Pesach: Eating Cake," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 Nissan 5784 (2024-04-27): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11363-pesach-eating-cake.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 3:21, 18:6; Shemos 12:39, 29:2, 29:23; Vayikra 2:4, 7:12-13, 24:5; Bamidbar 6:15, 11:8; Shmuel II 6:19; Melachim I 17:13, 19:6; Yirmiyahu 37:21; Yechezkel 4:12; Hoshea 7:8; Mishlei 6:26; Divrei HaYamim I 16:3; Shabbos 1:10, 30b; Peah 5:8 with the Yerushalmi; Chullin 2:9, 41a; Moed Katan 1:1; Taanis 23a; Pesachim 6b, 74b; Kesubos 111b; Bereishis Rabbah §42:8, §48:12, §88:2; Mechilta to Shemos 12:39; Yehudah Ya'aleh Orach Chaim vol. 1 §157; Aruch HaShulchan Orach Chaim 429:8; Mussaf HeAruch; Bava Kamma 2:3; Eruvin 68a; Avodah Zarah 66b; Chullin 64a; Pesachim 76b; Kohut, Aruch HaShaleim; HALOT; Even-Shoshan.
Three loci in the article need care. Its kikar lechem list prints "II Sam. 2:36"; the pasuk with kikar lechem is Shmuel I 2:36, and Shmuel II 6:19 is one of its challas lechem loci, not a kikar one. Its challah-alone list prints "Lev. 15:20," where Vayikra 15:20 has no challah; the challah of chapter 15 is Bamidbar 15:20. Its challas matzah list prints "Lev. 5:26," which likewise has no challah.