society
gate
שער · תרע · בבא
Bottom line
All three render gate: shaar in Hebrew, tera in Targumic Aramaic, bava in the Aramaic of the Gemara. They are not synonyms within one language, so nothing hangs on choosing between them; what a translator must not miss is that each carries a second, non-architectural sense. Shaar in a Mishnah is often a market price, and bava in a Gemara a section of a text, as in Bava Kamma. Neither is a gate.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| שער | shaar | gate | Hebrew; also a settlement, a price, or the act of appraising (Shadal) |
| תרע | tera | gate | Targumic Aramaic; from "breaching," a gate seemingly being a break in the wall (Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, who suggests this) |
| בבא | bava | gate; section | Talmudic Aramaic only; also a set, or a section of a text |
Where the authorities disagree
Why tera means gate. The obvious answer is that it is shaar Aramaicized, Hebrew shin becoming Aramaic tav with ayin and reish transposed. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Meturgaman) suggests a more convincing one: the Targumim use tera to render Hebrew words for demolition, destruction, rupturing and breaching (Vayikra 14:45; Devarim 12:3; Shmuel II 6:8; Yechezkel 22:30), so a gate is seemingly nothing more than a break in the wall; that they also use it for pesach, "opening" (Bereishis 18:1; Shemos 33:9; Shoftim 4:20), supports this.
Why a section of a sefer is called a bava or a shaar. Rabbi Uriel Frank of Mitzpe Yericho, founder of the Maane Lashon Society, says the truth is that this has nothing to do with gates, and rests it on the dictionary of Talmudic Aramaic of his father, Rabbi Yitzchak Frank, which separates three senses of bava: a gate, door or entryway; a set or unit, as in the bavei of shofar blasts (Rosh Hashanah 33b); and a part or section of a text, the opening, middle and closing bava of a statement (Avodah Zarah 68b). On that reading Bava Kamma, and the divisions of Shaarei Teshuvah and of Chovos HaLevavos, have nothing to do with gates; a body of statements gathered under one heading is called a bava or a shaar because that is simply one of the word's meanings.
Against that the column sets a source that does tie the senses together. Rabbi Shmuel Ibn Tibbon (Peirush HaMilos HaZaros) writes that statements on one subject are called a shaar because they are like citizens of one city who all use the same city gate, so any section of a tract or book is a shaar; the word also carries the Aristotelian sense of a "category"; and on the same figure the standard buying rate is a shaar, since every buyer is subject to it as they all use the one gate. Ibn Tibbon says all this of shaar and does not extend it to bava; that the same reasoning would cover bava is the columnist's own suggestion, offered as "not farfetched." Follow Rabbi Yitzchak Frank when translating, since "section" is what the word does there, and Ibn Tibbon when a passage expounds the name.
Whether the three masechtos are named for gates. The Meiri and others record that Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia, and Bava Basra were once one thirty-perek masechta, Nezikin, split into three tens, as Tosefta Keilim and Seder Olam were. (The Cambridge manuscript of the Mishnah calls the middle one Bava Tinyana, "the second bava.") Tosafos Yom Tov (introduction to Seder Nezikin) reads the name as gates: the Mishnah is the gateway into the Torah's laws, the Oral Torah opening that body of knowledge to the learner. Others tie it to the judges at the city gate, which fits civil law but not Tosefta Keilim or Seder Olam, and the column notes that gap against it.
Distinctions
shaar (שער)
Root ש-ע-ר, about 375 occurrences: most often the breach in a city, citadel, or Mikdash wall through which people enter, and by extension any settlement. The same root twice means to assess a quantity: Yitzchak sowed and found "meah shearim," a hundredfold (Bereishis 26:12), and "as he has reckoned (shaar) in his soul, so is he" (Mishlei 23:7). In the Mishnah shaar is overwhelmingly the gate, especially of the Mikdash or where the judges sat (Berachos 9:5, Yoma 1:3, Middos 1:1, 1:3-5, 1:7, and many more), but also a price or exchange rate (Maaser Sheini 4:1-2, Bava Metzia 4:12, 5:1) and, as a verb, to appraise (Terumos 4:6, Chullin 7:4). Shadal joins the senses: the merchants who gathered at the city gate appraised goods and so set the going rate. Shiur, an amount (Kerisos 4:1), belongs with the quantitative sense, and the shiur one delivers is so called, apparently, because the teacher measures his words to his subject.
tera (תרע)
Biblical Aramaic (Daniel 2:49, 3:26; Ezra 7:24), and the Targumim's ordinary word for shaar.
bava (בבא)
Absent from Biblical Aramaic, and never used by the Targumim to render anything, though it appears in Targum to Esther 5:14 in an addition to the text. In the Gemara Rashi renders it shaar (Moed Katan 22a) or, far more often, pesach (Shabbos 32a; Yoma 56a; Kesubos 62a; Gittin 68b), and sometimes deles, a door (Eruvin 104a). Shadal derives it from the root ב-ב, whose sense Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim gives as "in, inside," the plain force of the letter beis as a prefix; to it he assigns navuv, hollowed through (Shemos 27:8), the Mishnaic biv, the pipe into which waste flows (Eruvin 8:10), and the family of bo and biah, coming in, hence mavoy, tevuah, and navi. Shadal adds levav, the heart, possibly because it sits deep inside the chest, and bavas ayin, the pupil, possibly because it is a hole light enters through; the column marks both of those as its own reading of why. Menachem Ibn Saruk had filed bavas ayin and yevavah, weeping, under either the one-letter root beis or the two-letter ב-ב, and Rabbi Jeremy Steinberg of the Veromemanu Foundation clarifies, on Rashi to Shoftim 5:28, that both belong to the eye, the pupil being part of it and weeping its most visible act. So bava is presumably the opening one comes in through. Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 17:8) reads bavas as the eyelid rather than the pupil (see Rashi to Bechoros 38b), the gate that opens and shuts the eye, and says outright that it is the Aramaic bava.
Rendering guidance
- Default: all three are "gate." In a Mishnah about the Mikdash, שער is "gate"; in one about markets, "the going rate."
- Trap: English "gate" absorbs the textual sense of bava, and the result is nonsense. "The first bava" of a Mishnah is its opening clause; transliterate the masechta names and leave the etymology to a note.
- שערים as the divisions of a sefer (Shaarei Teshuvah) is conventionally "gates" in English titles; keep the convention, but where a text explains the name, follow Ibn Tibbon rather than inventing an architectural image.
- שיעור stays transliterated in both senses; "measure" and "lecture" lose the link.
- תרע needs no separate English; a Targum-based argument cannot distinguish shaar from pesach, since Targum renders both by it.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vayishlach: Enter the Gate," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 Kislev 5783 (2022-12-03): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10740-vayishlach-enter-the-gate.md. Two article slips: it cites a bavas discussion at "Ketubot 1061," evidently 106a; and it glosses navuv at Shemos 27:8 as the Tablets of the Ten Commandments "inscribed through and through," where the pasuk is describing the hollow boards of the mizbeach. Primary loci: Bereishis 18:1, 26:12; Shemos 27:8, 33:9; Vayikra 14:45; Devarim 12:3; Shoftim 4:20, 5:28 with Rashi; Shmuel II 6:8; Yechezkel 22:30; Mishlei 23:7; Tehillim 17:8 with Rav Hirsch; Daniel 2:49, 3:26; Ezra 7:24; Esther 5:14 in Targum; Rosh Hashanah 33b; Avodah Zarah 68b; Moed Katan 22a; Bechoros 38b with Rashi; Mishnah Berachos 9:5, Yoma 1:3, Middos 1:1, Maaser Sheini 4:1, Kerisos 4:1, Eruvin 8:10; Meturgaman; Machberes Menachem; Cheshek Shlomo; Meiri to Bava Kamma; Tosafos Yom Tov, introduction to Seder Nezikin; Rabbi Shmuel Ibn Tibbon, Peirush HaMilos HaZaros; Rabbi Yitzchak Frank's dictionary of Talmudic Aramaic, as cited by his son Rabbi Uriel Frank; Rabbi Jeremy Steinberg of the Veromemanu Foundation; Rabbeinu Yonah's Shaarei Teshuvah and Rabbeinu Bachya Ibn Pakuda's Chovos HaLevavos as works divided into shearim.