What’s in a Word?

body

hair

שער · שערה · שערא · מזיא · בינתא · נימא

Bottom line

Saar (Aramaic saara) is the plain word for hair, whether one strand or the whole growth: hair. How the three Aramaic words divide the field is not settled by any earlier source; the column reports finding no theory and offers its own suggestion, which is what this entry follows: mazia is a patch of hair, hair or a head of hair; binta is one single strand, a hair; nimah is a hair that protrudes or is unwanted, and outside the hair sense it is a string or thread. The trap is that English "hair" flattens all four, and two of them stand side by side in the same Gemara, where the point is precisely that a binta came loose from the mazia.

Distinctions

saar / saarah (שער / שערה)

The Hebrew word, used both for a single strand (Vayikra 13:37) and for hair collectively (Vayikra 14:9). Some medakdekim separate the two forms, se'ar for a patch of hair and se'arah for one strand (see Tosafos Yom Tov to Negaim 4:1 and Niddah 3:2). Rabbi Dr. Jared Greenblatt theorizes that Hebrew and Aramaic saar(a) appear to be cognate with the words for barley, se'orah, barley being possibly called "hairy" because its awns are longer than wheat's, and notes the Mishnah's use of se'ar for the fibers protruding from produce (Shabbos 21:3, Kilayim 3:5); he adds that both sets of words may be related to sa'ir, a goat, as ma'azia is. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Meturgeman): apart from three places the Targumim do not really translate sa'ar at all, but simply Aramaicize it into saara.

mazia (מזיא)

The word the Gemara uses for the hair of the head. Its etymology is disputed. Rabbi Dr. Jared Greenblatt argues that it is related to the Syriac and Aramaic ma'azia, goat hair (Targum Onkelos to Shemos 25:4, 26:7, 35:6), plainly a cognate of eiz, and that in later permutations the zayin doubled and the ayin dropped away, giving mazia. Rabbi Dr. Alexander Kohut contends the opposite, that mazia is unrelated to ma'azia and derives instead from Old Persian, noting its relation to the Old Persian word for the hair of the eyebrows. Either way, Rashi (to Devarim 32:24) identifies the mezei of mezei ra'av as the one appearance of this Aramaic word in Tanach; others, including Ibn Janach, Ibn Parchon, Ibn Ezra and Radak, explain mezei differently.

Mazia is used of Mordechai asking Haman to cut his hair (Megillah 16a), of Rabbi Akiva picking the straw out of Rachel's hair (Nedarim 50a), of Rebbi letting his hair grow as teshuvah (Sanhedrin 25a), of the shaving of the yefas to'ar (Targum Yonasan to Devarim 21:12), and of the wife of On ben Pelet uncovering her hair to keep Korach's men away (Sanhedrin 109b to 110a; On is listed with Korach's entourage at Bamidbar 16:1 and then drops out of the story). It is also the word in Korach's wife's taunt that shaving all the Levi'im (Bamidbar 8:7) was meant to humiliate him (Sanhedrin 110a).

binta (בינתא)

One strand. Death by misas neshikah is "like drawing a hair (binta) out of milk" (Berachos 8a). The Targum to Shoftim 20:16, where the Binyaminite slingers could hit a hair without missing, renders the Hebrew sa'arah as binas saara, one strand of the hair; cognates also appear at Tehillim 40:13 and Iyov 9:17, and per Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur those three are the only places binta occurs in Targum. Kohut explains the medicinal leech called a bini of the water (Gittin 68b) as related to binta, such leeches being long and thin like strands of hair, and notes that elsewhere the same leech is called a nimah of the waters (Avodah Zarah 12b).

Where the two words meet, the sense is unmistakable. When the chachamim captured the fiery lion of the yetzer for avodah zarah, a single strand (binta) slipped from its hair (mazia), a sign that the fight is not finished (Yoma 69b); and the body of Rabbi Elazar beRabbi Shimon, preserved in the attic, would bleed if one strand (binta) came loose from his hair (mazia) (Bava Metzia 84b). Rabbi Avraham Meir Israel (Yalkut HaMeiri) hears the same word in the pasuk Chazal applied to the wife of On ben Pelet, "chachmos nashim bansah beisah" (Mishlei 14:1): bansah, she built, sounds like binta, hair.

nimah (נימא)

The ordinary Talmudic word for a hair: no one can touch what is set aside for another, not even by a hair's worth (Yoma 38b); the hair of the body as a chatzitzah in tevilah (Eruvin 4b, Sukkah 6a); pubic hair (Sanhedrin 21a, Gittin 6b). But it seems the hair sense is only secondary and borrowed. Elsewhere nimah is a string or cord: the strings of an instrument (Targum to Tehillim 6:1, Tosefta Erchin 2:7, Eruvin 102b), a bowstring (Targum to Tehillim 11:2 and Iyov 30:11), threads for sewing (Shabbos 64a, 74b), threads sticking out of a garment (Menachos 42b, Sukkah 9a), and by extension a kernel (Shabbos 79a). The column notes that several philologists and linguists derive the Aramaic nimah from the Ancient Greek nema, thread.

The proposal that ties them together

No earlier source is offered for why Aramaic needs four words. Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein's own suggestion: mazia is a patch or mass of hair, binta is a single strand, nimah is hair that sticks out or is otherwise unwanted, and saara is simply the Hebrew word taken over into Aramaic in its general sense.

Rendering guidance

  • Yoma 69b and Bava Metzia 84b: render the pair as "a hair slipped out of his hair" only if you are willing to lose the point. Better: "one strand came away from his hair." English "hair" would otherwise absorb both words in one sentence.
  • Binta on its own: "a hair" or "a single strand," never "hair" as a mass noun. Berachos 8a reads "like drawing a hair out of milk."
  • Nimah in a tevilah or tzitzis context: keep the string sense in view; "a loose thread" for a garment, "a hair" for the body, and in a passage that plays on both (a bowstring beside a hair), say so rather than choosing one.
  • Sa'ar in a nega'im or taharah context: follow the Tosafos Yom Tov and translate se'arah as "a hair," se'ar as "the hair," where the halachah turns on one strand against a patch (Negaim 4:1, Niddah 3:2).
  • Trap: Korach's name means bald, and the two sources on his grievance choose different Aramaic. The Zohar (Tazria 49a) has him resenting being left shaven of saara while Aharon was decked in clothes befitting a king; the Gemara (Sanhedrin 110a) has his wife telling him the shaving of the Levi'im (Bamidbar 8:7) was to humiliate him, using mazia. If a piece quotes both, do not silently harmonize them into one English word without noting the difference.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "All About Hair," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 20 June 2020 / 28 Sivan 5780: raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8754-all-about-hair.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 8:7, 16:1; Vayikra 13:37, 14:9; Devarim 21:12, 32:24 with Rashi; Shoftim 20:16 with Targum; Tehillim 6:1, 11:2, 40:13; Iyov 9:17, 30:11; Mishlei 14:1; Shemos 25:4, 26:7, 35:6 in Targum Onkelos; Berachos 8a; Shabbos 64a, 74b, 79a; Eruvin 4b, 102b; Sukkah 6a, 9a; Megillah 16a; Nedarim 50a; Gittin 6b, 68b; Avodah Zarah 12b; Bava Metzia 84b; Sanhedrin 21a, 25a, 109b to 110a; Yoma 38b, 69b; Menachos 42b; Mishnah Shabbos 21:3, Kilayim 3:5, Negaim 4:1, Niddah 3:2 with Tosafos Yom Tov; Tosefta Erchin 2:7; Zohar, Tazria 49a; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgeman; Rabbi Avraham Meir Israel, Yalkut HaMeiri; Rabbi Dr. Alexander Kohut on mazia, bini and nimah.