freedom

Distinctions

dror (דרור)

Root ד-ר-ר. First appears at the freeing of slaves in the Yovel year (Vayikra 25:10). Rashi, following Rosh Hashanah 9b, ties it to dar, "dwells": the freed man dwells in his own domain and falls under no one else's control. The dror bird carries the same idea: Ibn Ezra says it sings when left to itself and starves rather than live in a man's domain, and Sefer HaAruch records the same; Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) says it nests in people's houses unafraid of capture, so free it does not reckon with being caught (see also Beitzah 24a). Dror also means "pure" of the myrrh of the anointing oil (Shemos 30:23): Rabbeinu Yonah ibn Janach and Ramban explain that the myrrh must be free of adulteration. The word can be shortened to dar, as in Esther 1:6, of the tax exemption Achashverosh granted (Megillah 12a).

chofesh (חופש)

Root ח-פ-ש. The Tanach's other slave-freeing word (Shemos 21, Devarim 15, Yirmiyahu 34); in modern Hebrew it has drifted to "vacation." Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer draws the line: chofshi is freedom from an obligation to work, while dror is freedom from subjugation to a particular person who lords over him. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, building on the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin's distinction between "negative liberty" and "positive liberty," reads chofesh against chafetz ("desire") and chapess ("search out"): chofshi is what a slave becomes when he goes free, able to do whatever his heart desires, which Rabbi Sacks identifies as negative liberty, the mere absence of coercion.

cheirus (חירות)

Root ח-ר-ר. Absent from Tanach in the sense of freedom, yet the standard word in Chazal for releasing a slave: shichrur is the formal act, eved shenishtachrar the freed slave, bnei chorin the free men we act as on the Seder night, and Birkas HaChodesh asks to be brought from avdus to cheirus. Avos 6:2 finds the scriptural hook in charus ("engraved") on the Luchos (Shemos 32:16), spelled there with a tav rather than the usual tes: read not charus but cheirus, for no one is free except one occupied with Torah. The column remarks that it seems fairly clear that if the whole purpose of Yetzias Mitzrayim was Matan Torah, the word for the freedom that came of it should indeed be cheirus, and the Yom Tov that celebrates it Zman Cheiruseinu. Rabbi Sacks builds his distinction on that reading: negative liberty may serve an individual, but a society needs law, and law that is imposed coercively is resented and resisted, so it must be taught until it is accepted willingly and becomes part of a man's essence. Cheirus is therefore the freedom of a society that studies its law until it is engraved on the heart, so that charus and cheirus become one. This "positive liberty" looks restrictive on the surface and proves in fact to be what frees.

chorim (חורים)

The cheirus-cognate that does appear in Tanach, thirteen times, but of noblemen and dignitaries rather than of freedom as such (see Rashi to Yirmiyahu 27:20). Rashi to Sotah 49a: chorin are people of lineage. Rabbi Yitzchok Dov Bamberger, the Wurzburger Rav, connects chorim to the Aramaic root ח-ו-ר, "white": a dignitary's name must be unstained, and in the ancient world only the important wore white. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg instead links cheirus to chor, "hole," the same three letters; the article records this and expressly does not develop it. Separately, the column offers a suggestion of its own, hedged "it seems to me": Chazal chose cheirus to stress that newly freed slaves begin with a clean slate and have it in them to become people of consequence in their own right, and on Pesach we celebrate that potential for greatness.

Hefker, "ownerless," is named as conceptually related and is not distinguished in the article.

Rendering guidance

• Zman Cheiruseinu: "the Time of our Freedom." Keep cheirus as freedom and reserve it for the standing, not the act.
• Vayikra 25:10 (ukrasem dror ba'aretz): "proclaim release throughout the land." "Liberty" is serviceable but it flattens the dar, dwell-in-your-own- domain sense that Rashi supplies.
• Chofshi: "free," and where the context is labor, "free of obligation" or "released from service."
• Trap: English "freedom" will absorb all three, and "liberty" absorbs dror and cheirus together. When a source contrasts them (a derashah on charus/cheirus, a Yovel passage set beside chofshi), render dror as release, chofshi as free of service, and hold "freedom" for cheirus.
• Trap: charus ("engraved") and cheirus ("freedom") are one consonantal spelling in the Luchos pasuk. In a passage that turns on that pun, transliterate both and gloss, since no English pair reproduces it.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Defining Freedom," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 15 Nisan 5778 (2018-03-31): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7707-defining-freedom.md. Primary loci cited: Vayikra 25:10; Rosh Hashanah 9b; Beitzah 24a; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim s.v. דרר; Shemos 30:23; Esther 1:6 with Megillah 12a; Shemos 21; Devarim 15; Yirmiyahu 34; Avos 6:2 on Shemos 32:16; Yirmiyahu 27:20 with Rashi; Rashi to Sotah 49a. Nothing the article carries is omitted here, including Isaiah Berlin's negative and positive liberty, in whose terms it frames Rabbi Sacks's chofesh/cheirus distinction. Hefker is listed by the article as conceptually related but never distinguished there, and so is not distinguished here either.