What’s in a Word?

body

fat

חלב · שומן · פדר · תרבא · חלב

Bottom line

Cheilev is fat, and in halachic contexts specifically the forbidden fat: the hard visceral globs offered on the mizbeach and barred from eating. Shuman is post-biblical and names the permitted fat, the soft fat attached to the meat. Pader is contested: most of the grammarians read it as simply fat, a synonym of cheilev; Ramban narrows it to the thin fatty membrane dividing the innards; and a group of grammarians drops the fat sense altogether for the organ cluster of trachea, lungs, heart, and liver. Tarba is the Aramaic standing in for cheilev. The one thing not to get wrong: cheilev also means the choicest part of a non-animal thing, and in that borrowed sense has nothing to do with fat at all.

Distinctions

cheilev (חלב)

About ninety occurrences in Tanach, most of them in the opening chapters of Vayikra. It is fat in the plain sense, of animals and of people, as when Ehud ben Gera's blade disappeared into Eglon's belly (Shoftim 3:22; see also Tehillim 73:7). Rashi (Bereishis 45:18; Tehillim 147:14): the word is also borrowed for whatever is choicest and richest, even where no animal fat is involved. So Pharaoh's promise that Yosef's brothers would eat the cheilev of the land (Bereishis 45:18), and the Levi'im separating terumas maaser from the cheilev of the produce (Bamidbar 18:29-32). One of David's warriors was named Cheilev (Shmuel II 23:29), though elsewhere his name is given as Cheiled (Divrei HaYamim I 11:30) or Cheldai (Divrei HaYamim I 27:15).

Cheilev also covers parts of a korban that are not fat at all but share its law. The tail of a sheep holds no visceral fat, yet the Torah speaks of its fat (Vayikra 3:9) because it goes on the mizbeach with the cheilev proper (Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya there; Rambam, Hilchos Maachalos Assuros 7:5). Likewise chelvei hatamid in the version of Shekalim 8:8 cited at Sukkah 54b: since the tamid is an olah, every limb is burned, and Rashi explains that they are all called cheilev because they share cheilev's law, burned on the mizbeach and forbidden to eat (see Tosafos there and the standard text of the Mishnah).

The root ches-lamed-beis also gives chalav, milk, which appears close to fifty times in Tanach by Even Shoshan's concordance. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo): cheilev is from chalav because it accrues in hard white globs, milk-colored. The column adds an alternative of its own: perhaps cheilev relates to chalav because unskimmed milk itself contains fatty acids, milkfats. Rav Hirsch (Bereishis 45:18) joins cheilev, chalav, and chalaf, removed from its place or reused for a different purpose: milk is the nourishment separated out of the mother's body to sustain another, and cheilev is the energy the body stores aside for future use rather than present need.

shuman (שומן)

Not in Tanach at all; it enters with the Mishnah (Kerisus 4:1). Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer ties it to the biblical root shin-mem-nun, oily, familiar from shemen. Rashi (Chullin 45b): cheilev is the general Hebrew word covering both forbidden and permitted fats, and shuman was coined by Chazal for the permitted fats specifically, so that the two could be told apart. The column notes that mammals do in fact carry two kinds of fat: visceral fats, usually large independent pieces of blubber, denser and harder from fascia compression, and intermuscular fats, attached to the meat and softer. Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya (Vayikra 3:9) expand on Rashi along those lines: cheilev is the visceral fat, the globs not attached to muscle, which the Torah forbids, while shuman is the intermuscular fat, the strips one meets in a kosher cut, which is permitted. Pappenheim: shuman is from shemen because it is the more pourable, oil-like fat.

tarba (תרבא)

Targumic Aramaic for cheilev (Onkelos to Shemos 23:18, 29:13; Vayikra 3:3, 7:24, 8:26), with the exception of Hevel's korban, where Onkelos renders it with a form of shuman / shemen (Bereishis 4:4; so too Targum to Tehillim 73:7). Rashi regularly defines the Gemara's tarba as cheilev (Shabbos 133b, 136b; Avodah Zarah 28b; Chullin 93a; Bechoros 30a), though once as shuman (Bava Metzia 83b). Chizkuni (Vayikra 3:3) and Tirgem Avraham: tarba is from the Aramaic rav, big or growing, since the more a person or animal eats the more fat accrues; that Aramaic term is in turn probably related to the Hebrew reish-beis-(hey) of multiplying.

pader (פדר)

A word that seemingly means "fat," vocalized pader or perhaps peder. Three occurrences, all in Vayikra and all in korbanos lists beside limbs such as the head (Vayikra 1:8, 1:12, 8:20). Onkelos always renders it tarba, which points to identity with cheilev, and Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem), Radak (Sefer HaShorashim), Rashi (Tamid 31a), Ibn Ezra and Rashbam (Vayikra 1:8) all simply define pader as cheilev. Rabbi Shlomo of Urbino (Ohel Moed) makes the argument explicit from Onkelos rendering both words the same way. Chullin 27b explains the pairing with the head: since the place of slaughter would ooze blood unbecomingly on the mizbeach, it was covered with the pader; the Mainz commentary attributed to Rabbeinu Gershom takes this as the internal fats, again equating pader with cheilev.

Against this, Ramban (Vayikra 1:8): pader is not a general word for fat but one specific fat, the thin membrane separating the internal organs from one another, and the word comes by metathesis from peh-reish-dalet, to separate. Rav Hirsch (Vayikra 1:8; Shemos 13:2) builds a family on peh-dalet-reish with peh-tes-reish (peter, opening) and peh-tav-reish (pisaron, the interpretation of a dream), the three linked by the interchangeability of tav, tes and dalet, and all of them revealing, removing, or separating: peter rechem (Shemos 13:2, 13:12, 13:13, 13:15, 34:19; Bamidbar 3:12, 18:15; Yechezkel 20:26) is the firstborn opening the womb and so revealing the mother's potential motherhood actualized; an interpreter separates a dream's true meaning from the rest; and pader is fat removed from the body for the korban, lying over the entrails like a headdress. He also suggests linking peh-dalet-reish to beis-tav-reish, cutting or disconnecting, peh and beis being interchangeable as dalet and tav are. Rabbi David Chaim Chelouche takes the core as peh-dalet, the final reish a radical, equivalent to beis-dalet, alone or apart, peh and beis being interchangeable. Rabbi Shaul Goldman speculates that peh-dalet-reish may actually be related to peh-zayin-reish, to spread, diffuse or disperse, dalet and zayin often being taken as interchangeable in the Semitic languages and especially in the shift from Hebrew to Aramaic; and he notes that Onkelos does not in fact render pader by tarba word for word but by prisusa d'tarba, a spread of fat, which would mean that pader implies fat that spreads over and covers, not a generic word for fat perfectly synonymous with cheilev.

Other grammarians drop the fat sense entirely: Rabbi Saadia Gaon (Vayikra 1:8), Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim), Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch), and Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Nimukim to Radak's Sefer HaShorashim) take pader as the attached structure of trachea, lungs, heart, and liver.

Rendering guidance

  • Trap: "fat" will absorb cheilev, shuman, and pader. In a korbanos or kashrus passage, render cheilev "the forbidden fat" (or leave it transliterated and gloss it once), shuman "permitted fat," and pader by the reading you are following, "fatty membrane" or "suet."
  • Cheilev in a non-animal context is "the choicest" or "the richest," never "the fat": v'achaltem es cheilev ha'aretz is "you shall eat the fat of the land" only as an English idiom, and where the idiom does not carry, write "the best of the land."
  • Where a sugya sets cheilev against shuman, the contrast is the whole point, so do not translate both "fat" and rely on the reader.
  • Chelvei hatamid is not "the fats of the tamid" in the literal sense; on Rashi's reading it means the portions burned on the mizbeach. Translate the law, not the anatomy, and note the variant texts.
  • Pader is contested. Most of the grammarians make it a plain synonym of cheilev, so if the passage does not depend on it, "fat" or "suet" follows the majority; if it does depend on it, name the view (Ramban's membrane, Rabbi Goldman's covering spread of fat, or Rabbi Saadia Gaon's organ cluster) rather than smoothing the machlokes away.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Tzav: Good Fat, Bad Fat," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 20 Adar II 5784 (2024-03-30): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/tzav-good-fat-bad-fat; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11314-tzav-good-fat-bad-fat.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 4:4, 45:18; Shemos 13:2, 13:12, 13:13, 13:15, 23:18, 29:13, 34:19; Vayikra 1:8, 1:12 (the article prints 1:2), 3:3, 3:9, 7:24, 8:20, 8:26; Bamidbar 3:12, 18:15, 18:29-32; Shoftim 3:22; Shmuel II 23:29; Divrei HaYamim I 11:30, 27:15; Tehillim 73:7, 147:14; Yechezkel 20:26; Chullin 27b, 45b, 93a; Sukkah 54b with Tosafos; Shekalim 8:8; Kerisus 4:1; Tamid 31a; Shabbos 133b, 136b; Avodah Zarah 28b; Bava Metzia 83b; Bechoros 30a; Rambam, Hilchos Maachalos Assuros 7:5; Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo; Ohel Moed; Machberes Menachem; Radak and Ibn Janach, Sifrei HaShorashim; Ibn Parchon, Machberes HeAruch; Even Shoshan's concordance. Tirgem Avraham is cited in the article to "Lev. 29:13"; Vayikra has no such chapter and the locus is Shemos 29:13.