death

Distinctions

mitah (מיתה), maves (מות), meis (מת)

Maves is a good test case for how the lexicographers found roots. The triliteralists (Rabbi Yehuda Chayyuj, Ibn Janach, Ibn Parchon, Radak) trace it to מ-ו-ת; the biliteralists (Menachem ibn Saruk in Machberes Menachem, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim in Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo) to מ-ת. Cognates of these roots appear close to a thousand times in Tanach, by Even Shoshan's concordance. Declensions of maves/mitah occur twenty-four times in Acharei Mos and Kedoshim (Vayikra 16-20), more than in any other two consecutive parshiyos, and the sidra opens acharei mos the two sons of Aharon (Vayikra 16:1).

In the ancient Canaanite cultures around Eretz Yisrael, death was personified and deified as the god Mot (also spelled Mawet or Motu), an independent entity on a par with the other gods and sometimes competing with them; in Ugaritic mythology Mot rules the underworld and is one of Baal's chief rivals, with a parallel in the Greek Hades. That differs from the scientific view of death as a natural process affecting every living thing. Rabbinic discourse, the column says, takes a middle approach: the Malach HaMaves holds power over death, but as an angel is wholly subservient to Hashem, not an independent death deity.

Mitah applies to any living being that undergoes the separation of body from soul (halachah pegs death to the exit of the soul, Yevamos 16:3, Ohalos 1:6); it names the conclusion of life and says nothing of what follows. Even the wicked have a mitah.

petirah (פטירה), nifter (נפטר)

Root פ-ט-ר, "exit": in Tanach the firstborn animal that exits its mother's womb (peter rechem); in Rabbinic Hebrew to be discharged of an obligation or to take leave of a companion; and, most frequently of all, the legal patur, exempt, one who has figuratively exited the realm of the obliged and beholden and so is free of the burden of compulsion. (The column notes in passing that the English exempt itself comes from the Latin exemptus, literally "taking out, away.") For death, the Mishnah's nifter min ha'olam (Peah 8:9) and the Bavli's variants (Berachos 17a, Kesubos 68a, 104a-105b, Kiddushin 72b, Sanhedrin 113b); standing alone of a named person only for Avraham (Bava Basra 16b) and Moshe (Temurah 16a). The Gemara generally avoids meis for a person's passing; another of its idioms is nach nafshei, "his soul rested."

The article's own account of the link between petirah and patur: while the soul dwells in the body it binds the body to a higher purpose and to Hashem's law; when the soul departs, the body is exempt of all obligation. One who lived for a higher purpose is nifter when he dies, exiting one room to enter another on the same trajectory; hence Chazal's ruling that the righteous are called alive even in death and the wicked dead even in life (Berachos 18a-b), and hence petirah is generally reserved for the righteous. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro observes that plants, rooted firmly in the ground, are tied to their lifeline in the soil as a man is tied to his soul, and that the connection shows the plant does not simply grow of its own accord but joins to something loftier; mushrooms and the other fungi rise rootless, free-floating and self-serving, disconnected from any accountability, and so are called pitriyos (Uktzin 3:2), patur of obligation. Such a life, though technically life, is nearer death than life. Rabbi Avraham Chaim Schor: the pious man's life in This World is full of physical suffering, and at death he is exempted from it; so nifter is said specifically of a tzaddik, mitah of death in general.

Rendering guidance

• מות / מיתה in a pasuk or a halachic setting: "death," "died"; keep the plainness. מיתת בית דין: "death penalty." Malach HaMaves: transliterate or "the Angel of Death."
• נפטר / פטירה of a person: "passed away," "his passing," "departed this world"; the min ha'olam idiom may be kept: "departed from the world."
• Trap: English "death" and "died" absorb both. In a text that pairs them (Chazal's tzaddikim alive and reshaim dead, or a shmuess on why the Gemara says nifter and not meis), keep "died" for meis and "passed" or "departed" for nifter, and gloss the Hebrew once.
• Do not upgrade: a pasuk's vayamas is "and he died," even of a tzaddik; the honorific belongs to Rabbinic petirah, not to the Torah's mos.
• Patur in halachah stays "exempt"; do not let the derashah on patur/nifter pull the legal term toward "released."

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Acharei Mos: Confronting Death," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 26 Nissan 5784 (2024-05-04): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10907-acharei-mos-confronting-death.md. Primary loci the article cites: Vayikra 16:1 and 16-20; Machberes Menachem, Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo; Even Shoshan's concordance on מ-ת and מ-ו-ת; Peah 8:9; Berachos 17a, 18a-b; Kesubos 68a, 104a-105b; Kiddushin 72b; Sanhedrin 113b; Bava Basra 16b; Temurah 16a; Yevamos 16:3; Ohalos 1:6; Uktzin 3:2.