excision

Distinctions

karet (כרת)

Root כ-ר-ת. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Yerios Shlomo, in a treatment of more than fifteen Hebrew words for cutting): karet is the general word for cutting, whether or not the cut actually severs. So a get is a sefer krisus (Devarim 24:1), a document of cutting, since marriage joins two into one and ending it tears one body in two; and so a covenant is karat, "cut," from the ancient rite of cutting animals in half and having the parties to the agreement walk between the pieces, which is why the Biblical verb for entering a covenant is karet at all. Some linguists, the column notes, link this to the English idiom "to cut a deal." In Cheshek Shlomo he takes the two-letter root כ-ר as a kind of digging, which breaks up the earth and parts one clod from another, and cutting does the same. Karet also carries plain destruction, and above all the Divine punishment of spiritual excision, on which the Mishnah (Kerisos 1:1) counts thirty-six prohibitions.

What is severed, and from what:

• Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg: cut off from the rest of the World to Come, in which all souls have their eternal reunion with Hashem. The man punished is isolated from that joy and does not join the others.
• Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (Nefesh HaChaim 1:18): cut off from the soul's Upper Source. The soul's lifeline is a sort of umbilical cord from creature to Creator; with karet, nine tenths of that cord is cut, and it is never completely severed.
• Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya (to Vayikra 18:29) divide it in three. Karet of the body: for one whose merits outweigh his sins but who transgressed a karet prohibition; he dies early, but his soul enters the World of Souls and returns at Techiyas HaMeisim. Karet of the soul: for one whose sins outweigh his merits; he may live long and comfortably, and the punishment falls only after death, barring his soul from the World of Souls. Both together: for avodah zarah, where the Torah writes the doubled hikares tikares (Bamidbar 15:31), an early death and a punished soul after it.

The age at which "early death" is measured is itself disputed. Yerushalmi Bikkurim 2:1: before fifty, derived from Bamidbar 4:18, where Moshe and Aharon are warned not to let the tribe of Kehas be "cut off" through gazing at the uncovered vessels, together with Bamidbar 8:25, that the Levi'im served only to fifty. Moed Katan 28a: even a death between fifty and sixty is karet; Rav Yosef made a seudah on turning sixty, no longer liable, and even past sixty a sudden death can be karet. Ibn Ezra (Bereishis 17:14): death before fifty two, or else the death of one's descendants, so that his memory is wiped out entirely and his legacy is what gets cut off.

ariri (ערירי)

Root ע-ר-ר. Four appearances in Tanach. Avraham, questioning the promise of the land: v'anochi holech ariri, "I go childless" (Bereishis 15:2). Yechonyah, next to last king of Yehudah, cursed to remain ariri (Yirmiyahu 22:30; by tradition he later did teshuvah and the decree was lifted, and some sources have Mashiach descending from him). And twice as aririm, the penalty for the forbidden marriages of Vayikra 20:20 and 20:21.

Rashi (to Shabbos 25b), like Ibn Ezra, holds that just as karet can bring a man's own early death, it can also reach his children; every karet therefore potentially includes ariri. Riva, a Tosafist (probably Rabbi Yitzchak ben Asher HaLevi, a talmid of Rashi), disputes this: karet does not touch the sinner's children at all, and ariri is a separate punishment attaching only to the forbidden marriages (Tosafos to Yevamos 2a). Even Rashi grants that grown children who do not follow their father in his sin are not affected by his karet (Tosafos Yeshanim to Yevamos 2a).

Rendering guidance

• Keep karet transliterated in any halachic passage; it is a term of art with thirty six aveiros attached to it. Where an English word is wanted, "excision" or "being cut off," with the gloss "a Divine punishment" at first use.
• Ariri: "childless." Bereishis 15:2 is "I go childless," and Vayikra 20:20 is "they shall be childless," not "they shall be cut off," which would import karet into a pasuk that did not say it.
• The doubled hikares tikares (Bamidbar 15:31) is load bearing for Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya. Render the doubling ("he shall surely be cut off") rather than smoothing it, since two kareisos are being derived from it.
• Karat bris is "made a covenant" in idiomatic English, but where a passage is working the cutting sense (Pappenheim, or the bris bein habesarim), write "cut a covenant" and let the image stand.
• Trap: English "cut off" serves for karet, for ariri, and for sefer krisus alike. Fix "cut off" to karet, "childless" to ariri, and "bill of severance" or plain get to sefer krisus.
• Trap: "extirpation" and "excommunication" both drift into range. The second is simply wrong; karet is not cherem.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Karet and Ariri," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 27 Iyar 5779 (2019-06-01), https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/karet-and-ariri; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8271-karet-and-ariri.md. Primary loci: Mishnah Kerisos 1:1; Devarim 24:1; Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo; Nefesh HaChaim 1:18; Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya to Vayikra 18:29; Bamidbar 15:31; Yerushalmi Bikkurim 2:1 with Bamidbar 4:18 and 8:25; Moed Katan 28a; Ibn Ezra to Bereishis 17:14; Bereishis 15:2; Yirmiyahu 22:30; Vayikra 20:20 and 20:21; Rashi to Shabbos 25b (where the article prints Ibn Ezra's name "Ibn Era"); Tosafos and Tosafos Yeshanim to Yevamos 2a. The anonymous linguists' link between karas bris and the English "cut a deal" is reported here as the article reports it.