dancing

Distinctions

rikud (ריקוד)

Root ר-ק-ד, nine times in Tanach, of people and also of calves (Tehillim 29:6), goats (Yeshayahu 13:21) and mountains that "danced like rams" (Tehillim 114:4 and 114:6) in celebration of the exodus. "A time to eulogize and a time to dance (rekod)" (Koheles 3:4). It is also the verb Divrei HaYamim uses when it tells David's story over again: there he is miraked before the Aron (Divrei HaYamim I 15:29), where Shmuel had micharker and mifazez. Mishnaic: the Shabbos ban on dancing (Beitzah 5:2), the pious men dancing at the Simchas Beis HaSho'evah (Sukkah 5:4), and the melachah of sifting (Shabbos 7:2; also Shevi'is 5:9, Gittin 5:9, Menachos 11:3), possibly because the side-to-side shake of a sieve looks like the side-to-side motion of a dancer. The Yerushalmi (Beitzah 5:2) defines rikud precisely: a jump that leaves one foot on the ground, against kefitzah, where both feet leave it. Rabbi Aharon Marcus reads the root as reish, movement, plus kuf, fixed or entrenched, which fits the Yerushalmi exactly: one foot moves, one stays down. Rabbi Tedeschi-Ashkenazi (Otzar Nirdafim): rekidah is dancing out of happiness, that is, it connotes the joyous mood or occasion for the dancing, while, as the column puts it, it seems that the other two words describe specific acts of dancing themselves. He also offers what the column calls a fascinating theory, tracing ר-ק-ד to the two-letter ק-ד, burning, since a dancer rises to reach higher and falls back to his place like a fire always reaching higher to spread.

A near-variant is tiratzdun, "why do you dance, O peaks" (Tehillim 68:17), root ר-צ-ד, a hapax. Menachem Ibn Saruk and Radak both define it with rekidah (see also Megillah 29a); Tedeschi-Ashkenazi sees it as a morphological variant of ר-ק-ד, on the presumed interchangeability of the consecutive letters tzadi and kuf, pointing to the near-synonymity of tzalui ("roasted") and kalui ("burnt, toasted") as another example.

The Gemara's uses of rikud are worth knowing: the Satan dances between the horns of a black ox coming out of the marsh in Nisan (Berachos 33a, Pesachim 112b); the yetzer hara for idolatry is "still dancing among us" (Yoma 69b, Sanhedrin 64a); and the Angel of Death, who told Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi that a man should not stand among a group of women returning from a funeral, because he dances and arrives ahead of them. Since the Satan, the yetzer hara and the Angel of Death are one and the same (Bava Basra 16a), all three passages may be saying one thing, and the dancing may perhaps be these forces of evil growing happy when they fulfill the mission Hashem gave them, to make a man stumble and suffer for his sins.

kirkur (כרכור), the verb micharker (מכרכר)

Quadriliteral כ-ר-כ-ר, twice in Tanach, both of David before the Aron. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim works from the two-letter כ-ר, digging: a kar is a field whose boundary was dug out as a trench, karim are the fat animals that graze on it, and he submits that micharker is the movement of such well-fed, free-ranging animals, who appear to dance in their happy state. Tedeschi-Ashkenazi reads the root as a compound of kar (כ-ר) and rach (ר-כ, "soft, young," the same two letters reversed): young karim have excess energy and jump about more than usual. He further speculates that micharker is related to the Latin circulus, whence the English circle, since young calves and sheep tend to move in circles rather than straight lines, and dancing likewise usually means circular motion. Rabbi Yosef Kara (to Shmuel II 6:16) bears this out, glossing micharker with an inflection of sivuv, "around." (The column adds a bracketed comparison: Shadal, to Bereishis 11:9 and 13:10, writes that kikar, "circle," derives from kikur the way Bavel derives from bilbul.) Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi (HaMadrich HaMaspik) derives the dancing word from kar, a young camel, whose gait looks like dancing; Ibn Janach and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) and Rabbeinu Avraham ben Shlomo (to Shmuel II 6:16) reverse the direction: swift animals are called kar or kirkarim because their movement resembles a dancer's.

pizuz (פיזוז), the verb mifazez (מפזז)

Root פ-ז-(ז), which also yields paz, fine gold, and a sense of spreading or strengthening. Targum (to Shmuel II 6:16) renders mifazez with the Aramaic form of miraked. Rambam (Hilchos Lulav 8:13) describes the Simchas Beis HaSho'evah with "mifazezin and micharkerin," and then, of the sages and great men joining in (8:14), switches to mirakedin. Mr. Yehoshua Yaron (Mevo L'Midrash HaLashon) connects mifazez with the biliteral פ-ז that gives paz, a kind of gold: as the sparkle of gold gives the impression that the light bouncing off it is dancing in all directions, so mifazez is wild dancing in many directions. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheishek Shlomo) likewise traces both terms to פ-ז, whose core sense he defines as quick movement, in the sense of dancing and of shining alike. The column adds a wondering of its own: the English pizzaz/pizazz ("sparkle," "showiness," "glamor") seems to have been coined in the 1930s, and the Oxford English Dictionary calls it of unknown origin, so perhaps it rests on the Hebrew mifazez. Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh of Carpentras, in an explanation the column finds reminiscent of Tedeschi-Ashkenazi on miraked: paz is the gold that stands metaphorically above the other metals, matching the dancer's gestures upward. Metzudas David (to Shmuel II 6:16): a fast dance. Rabbi Zev Atlas: Shmuel withholds mifazez at 6:14 and supplies it at 6:16 because the careless, wild element of the dance is exactly what galled Michal. The sense of haste in the root is standard: the Gemara reads Yaakov's rebuke of Reuven by it (Shabbos 55b on Bereishis 49:4), and a Sadducee sneered at Israel as an ama peziza, a hasty nation, for saying na'aseh before nishma (Kesubos 112a, Shabbos 88a, on Shemos 24:7). Tedeschi-Ashkenazi (Ho'il Moshe to Shmuel II 6:16) links פ-ז-ז to פ-צ-צ, to burst or scatter: the dancer seems to explode from place to place; and he suggests that perhaps fine gold is called paz because beating it into a thin sheet sends little pieces flying, as though the metal were exploding.

Radak (to Bereishis 49:24; the article prints 39:24) reads vayafozu zero'ei yadav of Yosef as strengthening, that Yosef strengthened his arm to repay those who hated him, and applies the same (there and in his Sefer HaShorashim) to David: it is the way of dancers to strengthen their belt or trousers when they dance with all their might. Coming off that, Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi reads the Yosef pasuk as his strengthening himself to defeat his yetzer hara and not accede to the wife of Potifar.

Rashbam (to Bereishis 49:24) gives the cleanest division: mifazez is the movements of the hands, micharker the movements of the feet. Rabbi Tanchum explains similarly, that mifazez is not merely bopping about with the body as miraked is, but also the moving of the hands and fingers in time with the feet, and snapping the fingers to produce a rhythm fitting the tempo of the dance and the song. Bamidbar Rabbah 4:20 seems to read David's mifazez the same way, of the rhythmic jingling of his golden garments as he swayed.

Rendering guidance

• Shmuel II 6:14 "David was whirling with all his might before Hashem"; 6:16 "leaping and whirling before Hashem." The pair must be two English words, and the extra verb must appear only in the second pasuk.
• Trap: English "dance" absorbs all three. Keep "dance" for rikud, which is the neutral term, and force "whirl" or "caper" and "leap" or "prance" for the other two wherever they stand together (Rambam, Hilchos Lulav 8:13).
• Second trap: Rambam's 8:13 against 8:14 is a register distinction; if the sages "danced" while the crowd "pranced and whirled," the English carries what the Hebrew carried. Do not level the two halachos.
• Rikud in the halachos of Shabbos is a term of art. Where the Yerushalmi's definition is in play, render it "dancing (a step that keeps one foot on the ground)" and keep kefitzah as "jumping," both feet off.
• Mifazez in a mussar context (ama peziza, Reuven's pachaz) is "rash" or "impetuous," not "dancing." The root carries speed; the passage decides whether the speed is joy or recklessness.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Shemini: Dancing Away," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 Nisan 5785 (2025-04-26): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11784-shemini-dancing-away.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 11:9, 13:10, 49:4, 49:24 (the article's Radak citation prints 39:24); Shemos 24:7; Shmuel II 6:12-23, particularly 6:14 and 6:16; Divrei HaYamim I 15:29; Yeshayahu 13:21; Tehillim 29:6, 68:17, 114:4, 114:6; Koheles 3:4; Mishnah Beitzah 5:2, Sukkah 5:4, Shabbos 7:2, Shevi'is 5:9, Gittin 5:9, Menachos 11:3; Yerushalmi Beitzah 5:2; Berachos 33a, Pesachim 112b, Yoma 69b, Sanhedrin 64a, Bava Basra 16a, Shabbos 55b and 88a, Kesubos 112a, Megillah 29a; Bamidbar Rabbah 4:20; Rambam, Hilchos Lulav 8:13-14; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi, HaMadrich HaMaspik; Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi-Ashkenazi, Otzar Nirdafim and Ho'il Moshe; Mr. Yehoshua Yaron, Mevo L'Midrash HaLashon; Shadal to Bereishis 11:9 and 13:10. The article's speculative links of micharker to the Latin circulus and of mifazez to the English pizzazz are reported here as it gives them, the first as Tedeschi-Ashkenazi's speculation and the second as the columnist's own.