dust

Distinctions

afar (עפר)

Dirt, soil. The word of Hashem's promise to Avraham that his descendants would be as the afar of the earth (Bereishis 13:16). Whether afar is narrowly "soil" or broadly "dirt" is a machlokes at Chullin 88b over covering the blood of a slaughtered chayah or bird (Vayikra 17:13): Beis Shammai holds only literal soil may be used, Beis Hillel that ashes serve as well, and the halachah follows Beis Hillel, which treats afar as the general term. Shabbos 18a and Rashi to Taanis 15a likewise imply that afar and eifer are synonyms, or at least interchangeable in some contexts.

The Zohar (Vayishlach 170a) sets the real line: afar is the crucible from which growth comes, while what fire or grinding leaves behind grows nothing. The Zohar's own formulation treats eifer and avak as though they were perfect synonyms for burnt remnants; the column notes that this is a bit of an oversimplification, since although both are formed by a violent destructive process they are not the same thing, eifer being produced by burning and avak by pulverizing. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro draws the lesson of Bamidbar 19:17, where the Torah calls the ashes of the Parah Adumah afar: what looks like the residue of destruction can become the seed of renewal, which is exactly the point for one purified from tumas meis.

On the root, Rabbi Pappenheim will not attach afar to the biliteral פ-ר, because in his system a two-letter root joins only HEY, ALEPH, MEM, NUN, TAV, YOD or VAV to become triliteral, and afar opens with an AYIN. Others who work with two-letter roots do connect them: Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, since afar is indispensable to growing pri; and Rabbi Aharon Marcus (Barzilai), who traces both afar and eifer to פ-ר, and elsewhere (Keses HaSofer) reads afar as a fusion of ע-פ, "flying," with פ-ר.

eifer (אפר)

Ashes, the product of burning. Rabbi Pappenheim traces it to the biliteral פ-ר, "breaking a thing down into smaller components," so eifer is matter reduced to particles by fire. From the same root he derives peirurim (crumbs), parur (a pot for crumbs and small grains), pur (the box for drawing lots, shaped like a parur), pri (fruit, a microcosm of the tree it comes from), par and parah (cattle kept for breeding), pe'er and tiferes (a beauty that resolves into many aspects), hafarah (dissolving a vow), primah (tearing a garment into shreds), and tefirah (sewing, which repairs what primah did).

The Netziv reads Avraham's afar va'eifer (Bereishis 18:27; the article prints 19:27) as a double disclaimer before tefillah: some tefillos are answered in the merit of righteous forebears (Rashi to Bereishis 25:21) and some in the merit of righteous descendants (Bereishis Rabbah 29:5). Having neither, Avraham prefaced his tefillah by appealing directly to Hashem's mercy. He called himself afar because dirt has no useful past, as his own father Terach was an idolater, and eifer because ashes have no fruitful future, since, as far as Avraham could tell, he was not destined to father righteous descendants, Yitzchak not yet having been born.

avak (אבק)

Fine dust, produced by pulverizing. Rabbi Pappenheim: afar is run-of-the-mill dirt, avak is finer powder. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro: avak is matter rubbed down to its core particles, light enough to be carried on the wind, and it is always the product of a struggle; the avak of Yaakov's wrestling with the angel rose to the Kisei HaKavod (Chullin 91a). Chazal's avak compounds work off exactly this sense of brushing the edge of a prohibition without crossing it: avak lashon hara (Bava Basra 165a), avak ribbis (Temurah 6b), avak sheviis (Succah 40b), avak avodah zarah (Tosefta Avodah Zarah 1:3). Rabbi Yehuda Leib Edel proposes that since ALEPH and CHES are sometimes interchangeable, avak may be related to chavak/chibbuk, a hug, since such particles are so small and insignificant on their own that one meets them only clinging to, or "hugging," something else; and Rashi (to Bereishis 32:25) describes that same wrestling as chovek, a hugging.

deshen (דשן)

A second word for ashes. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer cites Rabbi Eliezer Lipman Lichtenstein (Shem Olam): deshen is what is burnt while fire still glows inside it, like an ember, while eifer is burnt through with no fire left. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter: eifer is ordinary ash and deshen is reserved for the ashes of the avodah in the Mikdash. Rabbi Pappenheim: "ashes" is only the secondary sense of deshen, whose primary sense is fat (Devarim 31:20; Tehillim 63:6; Mishlei 15:30); ashes of burnt animals are called deshen for the residual fat in them, so on his view deshen is only animal ash, while burnt flora yields eifer alone; fruit and vegetable oils, on his account, are deshe (Bereishis 1:11). He connects deshe and both senses of deshen to the biliteral ד-ש.

Rendering guidance

• Default renderings: afar "dirt" or "soil," eifer "ashes," avak "dust," deshen "ashes" with the qualifier the context supplies (the Mikdash's ashes, or "fatty ash").
• The pair afar va'eifer (Bereishis 18:27): "dirt and ashes." Do not soften it to "dust and ashes," which is the King James phrase and quietly swaps afar for avak, losing the Netziv's past-and-future reading entirely.
• Trap: English "dust" absorbs afar, eifer and avak at once. Reserve "dust" for avak, and where the passage turns on growth against sterility, make the contrast explicit rather than trusting one English word to carry it.
• Bamidbar 19:17: render afar there as "dirt" or "earth," not "ashes," even though the referent is ash. The unexpected word is the whole point.
• Avak lashon hara and its siblings: keep avak transliterated, or render "the dust of," never "a trace of," which loses the image of brushing the boundary.
• Rabbi Pappenheim concludes that despite the distinctions, these words are close enough that sources often use them interchangeably; do not force a distinction onto a passage that is not making one.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Dirt, Dust and Ashes," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 11 Cheshvan 5780 (2019-11-09): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8467-dirt-dust-and-ashes.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 13:16, 18:27 (the article prints 19:27), 25:21, 32:25, 1:11; Vayikra 17:13; Bamidbar 19:17; Devarim 31:20; Tehillim 63:6; Mishlei 15:30; Chullin 88b, 91a; Shabbos 18a; Rashi to Taanis 15a; Bereishis Rabbah 29:5; Zohar Vayishlach 170a; Bava Basra 165a; Temurah 6b; Succah 40b; Tosefta Avodah Zarah 1:3.