coriander

Distinctions

Gad (גד)

• Targum Onkelos (to Shemos 16:31 and Bamidbar 11:7) leaves it untranslated, Aramaizing it as gada.
• Targum Yonasan (both places) renders kusbar, coriander.
• Menachem Ibn Saruk identifies gad as kusbaras, and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) as what Chazal call kusbarta.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reads the two-letter root ג-ד as attachment or connection, and gathers under it gad (a spiritual force attached to a particular thing), gid (a sinew, which holds parts of the body together), gedud (a squad joined into one unit), and haggadah (setting new information into a larger narrative); on the same logic meged (Devarim 33:13-14), megadim (Shir HaShirim 4:13), and migdanos (Bereishis 24:53) are sweet foods, which the palate wants to attach itself to, and he suggests that perhaps the gad seed of the man is likewise a sort of sweet edible seed. Coriander seed is sometimes described as sweet.

• As an aside, coriander is known as goid in North African Punic, which led the German linguist Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842) to claim that goid derives from the Hebrew gadad, to cut, in allusion to the wrinkled and furrowed look of the seeds.
• Rabbi Golumb makes one further suggestion of his own: read gad backwards as dag, fish, so that the "fish seed" of the man is caviar, an especially notable and prominent food.

Against coriander, Rabbi Yehudah Ibn Balaam in the name of Rav Hai Gaon: zera gad is mustard seed. Ibn Ezra (both commentaries to Shemos 16:31, and to Bamidbar 11:7) brings this alongside coriander and says he does not know which is right. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Krinsky (Yahel Ohr) explains Ibn Ezra's reasoning: gad is akin to gedi, the smallest of the goats, so it could make sense that among seeds it names the mustard seed, which Chazal use as the standard for the smallest seed.

• On the color: Rashi (to Shemos 16:31), the Rashbam, and Radak all say the pasuk means the man was white and shaped like a gad seed, and state outright that gad seeds are not white. That fits coriander, yellowish brown, and mustard, gray brown.
• The Ralbag (to Shemos 16:14 and 16:31) holds the gad seed was itself white, which seems to identify it with something else again, though Ibn Balaam does hold that mustard seeds are white.

Kusbar / kusbarta (כוסבר, כוסברתא)

The Mishnaic and Aramaic word for coriander: Sheviis 9:1, Kilayim 1:2 (cited in Pesachim 39a among the vegetables usable for maror), Maasros 3:9 and 4:5.

• Linguists recognize both kusbara and coriander as belonging to very ancient languages, tracing kusbara to the Sanskrit kustumbari/kustumburu and coriander to korijadana in the proto-Greek known as Linear B.
• That said, Rabbi David Golumb (Targumna) parses kusbara from two Hebrew roots meaning cut up, chewed or masticated, כ-ו-ס (or perhaps כ-ס-ס) and ב-ר (see Yechezkel 23:47).

The word carries a famous double sense in Avodah Zarah 10b: Antoninus sent Rebbi a coded question about his wayward daughter and Rebbi sent back kusbarta, read as kus (to chew or slaughter, as in the Syriac of Pesachim 63a) plus barta (daughter), that is, put her to death; when Antoninus objected that this would end his line, Rebbi urged mercy (Rabbeinu Chananel, Sefer HeAruch, and Rashi there). Others hold Antoninus misread it: kusbarta stood for kasah (cover up) plus barta, that he should cover her misdeeds and not punish her (Tosafos Rabbeinu Elchanan, Tosafos HaRosh, Nimukei Yosef).

Gudgedaniyos (גודגדניות)

• Rashi (to Eruvin 28a and Gittin 70a) defines this Talmudic food with the same Old French word he uses for coriander, which suggests he took it as connected to the Biblical gad.
• Jastrow vowelizes gadgadniyos and defines it as a clover or a cherry (see also Rashi to Berachos 57b and Sefer HaTishbi).

Rashi's two French words

Rashi renders gad in Chumash as coliander, an Old French word for coriander (the l-sound and the r-sound being interchangeable, as often happens), but the Aramaic kusbarta and gida in the Gemara (Shabbos 109a, Yoma 75a, Avodah Zarah 10b) as aillendre, possibly pronounced aliandre. Rabbi Klein, after consulting experts, suggests that two possibilities may resolve the contradiction.

• First, in the Jewish dialects of Old French the opening consonant of coliander might have been dropped, giving aillendre, so that Rashi may have used both pronunciations interchangeably; but Rabbi Klein notes at once that this does not account for why the Chumash commentary should have the one and the Talmud commentary the other.
• Second, it has been pointed out that alternate manuscripts of the Chumash commentary read aillendre while alternate manuscripts of the Talmud commentary read coliander, which suggests that aillendre is a copyist's error of permutation, aleph and kuf being very similar in some scripts.

Both suggestions come from Dr. Ariel Shaveh of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and Rabbi Tzvi Mordechai Libber of Milwaukee.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "A Coriander Conundrum," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 6 June 2020.

Cited in the essay: Shemos 16:14 and 16:31, Bamidbar 11:7, with Targum Onkelos, Targum Yonasan, Rashi, the Rashbam, Radak, Ibn Ezra, and the Ralbag; Machberes Menachem and Radak's Sefer HaShorashim s.v. גד; Rav Hai Gaon as quoted by Rabbi Yehudah Ibn Balaam; Rabbi Yehuda Leib Krinsky, Yahel Ohr; Mishnah Sheviis 9:1, Kilayim 1:2, Maasros 3:9 and 4:5; Pesachim 39a and 63a; Avodah Zarah 10b with Rabbeinu Chananel, Sefer HeAruch, Rashi, Tosafos Rabbeinu Elchanan, Tosafos HaRosh, and Nimukei Yosef; Shabbos 109a; Yoma 75a; Eruvin 28a and Gittin 70a with Rashi; Berachos 57b; Sefer HaTishbi; Jastrow; Devarim 33:13-14; Shir HaShirim 4:13; Bereishis 24:53; Yechezkel 23:47; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo s.v. גד, and Yerios Shlomo (א:סא,ב); Rabbi David Golumb, Targumna; Wilhelm Gesenius; Dr. Ariel Shaveh; Rabbi Tzvi Mordechai Libber.