horn

Distinctions

shofar (שופר)

The column opens on the Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 3:2), which disqualifies a bovine horn for the mitzvah, and on the Gemara there, in both Bavli and Yerushalmi, which grounds that in the bovine horn's being called a keren (Devarim 33:17; see also Gittin 2:3, Keilim 11:7) and not a shofar, while the ram's horn is called both, or at least is not called a keren. Its question is why a word should disqualify if both words mean "horn."

Ramban: while attached, every horn is a keren; detached, two kinds part company. One is hollow but naturally packed with a filling that must be drawn out before it will sound, and that is a shofar; the other is solid keratin that must be drilled through, and that stays a keren even detached. Any horn that is a keren and not a shofar is unfit, and the bovine horn's disqualification is not material (it is physically a shofar) but nominal: it is called a keren.

Ran identifies shofar as a cognate of shefoferes, a hollow tube, common in the Mishnah (Shabbos 2:4; Keilim 14:5, 17:17; Parah 5:4, 5:8, 6:1, 9:2; Mikvaos 2:10, 4:5, 6:1-2, 6:5-7, 6:9).

The traditional derivation is from ש-פ-ר, pleasant, beautiful, good (Bereishis 49:21, Tehillim 16:6, Iyov 26:13), cognate with the Aramaic shfar, three times in Tanach (Daniel 3:32, 4:24, 6:2); Targum regularly renders yafeh and tov with shapir. Vayikra Rabbah 29:6, on the shofar of Rosh Hashanah (Tehillim 81:4), works exactly this way: along with the mitzvah of shofar Hashem told us shapru maaseichem, better your deeds, in Tishrei. Bereishis Rabbah 98:17 reads Naftali's "imrei shefer" (Bereishis 49:21) of Devorah, who descended from him, either her beautiful shirah after the victory over Sisera or her making words of Torah clear and beautiful in judgment, and notes that the Torah was given with shofaros (Shemos 19:19). Shifrah the midwife (Shemos 1:15), often identified as Yocheved, Moshe's mother, is named on the same root, either for beautifying newborns as they emerged from the womb or for the bettering of Klal Yisrael through Torah and mitzvos, since she bore Moshe (Sifrei Behaaloscha 78, Shemos Rabbah 1:13, Koheles Rabbah 7:3, Midrash Shmuel 23).

Rabbi Moshe Shapiro: shapir is a shifal form, the shin not radical, from פ-א-ר, whence pe'er and tiferes, the initial shin marking an action that produces pe'er. The column adds that a popular folk etymology ties the early Ashkenazi surname Shapiro to shapir, though historians argue it more likely comes from the name of the German town Speyer. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 5:1, 49:11), on shin/sin and beis/peh interchange, groups shefer with sefer, mispar, sofer, and shover: a sefer is a composite whole made of parts fitted together coherently, counting and number highlight the individual units within a whole system, and shover breaks the parts off the whole. From that he surmises that shefer is beauty as the fit of many parts into one order, against yofi, the outward beauty others perceive; and with that inwardness he implies it makes sense that shofar should point to the inside of the tube. Ritva notes that shofar implies something beautiful and copacetic.

Linguists, on the column's report, offer another origin altogether: Avraham Even-Shoshan (1906-1984) and Rabbi Ernest Klein (1899-1983) claim shofar is cognate with the Akkadian shapparu, "wild sheep," which in turn seems related to the late Biblical tzfir (Daniel 8:5, 8:8, 8:21; Ezra 8:35; Divrei HaYamim II 29:21) by the shin/tzadi interchange, and perhaps to the earlier se'ir, if peh and ayin may interchange.

keren (קרן)

Menachem Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Radak: root ק-ר-נ, both an animal's horn and a ray of light, a beam projecting from its source as a horn juts from the head. Extensions: strength (Yechezkel 29:21, Tehillim 132:17, 148:14), since the horn gives an animal's gore its power; a horn-shaped vessel (Shmuel I 16:1, 16:13; Melachim I 1:39); the horn-like protrusions at the four corners of the mizbeach (Shemos 38:2, Vayikra 8:15, Yechezkel 43:20). In the Mishnah keren keeps "horn" (Rosh Hashanah 3:2, Kesubos 13:2, Gittin 2:3, Keilim 11:7), names the goring category of damages (Bava Kamma 2:5), widens to any corner while keeping the altar sense (Kilayim 6:7; Yoma 5:5; Zevachim 5:3, 6:2, 6:5, 11:3; Tamid 2:5, 4:1, 7:3; Middos 3:2-3, 4:3, 4:5; Keilim 17:9-10), and means principal, whether the capital of an investment (Peah 1:1, Kiddushin 4:12) or the principal of an obligation as against an added penalty (Terumos 6:1-4, 7:1-4, 8:1, 11:2; Maaser Sheni 4:3; Pesachim 2:4; Yevamos 11:5, 11:7; Kesubos 3:9; Bava Kamma 9:6-12; Shevuos 8:3-4). Radak even insinuates a link to Latin cornu, from which English corner comes by way of French. On the financial sense the column adds that Rabbi Ernest Klein innovatively connects keren to the Akkadian qerenu/qaranu, "pile, heap" or "threshing floor," which seems related to Hebrew goren by the kuf/gimmel interchange. Shofar in the Mishnah likewise names a vessel, narrow above and wide below like the horn (Shekalim 2:1, 6:1, 6:5, with Rambam's commentary).

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reduces it to the biliteral ק-ר, forceful impact from weight or speed: korah (beam) and tikrah (ceiling), whose weight bears on the supports; kir (wall); kiryah (city); kurei (a web, a wall for catching insects); krum (a covering membrane); kor and kar (cold, temperatures clashing with the body's warmth); mikreh and keri (a man colliding with new circumstances); and keren, for the force of its goring.

Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, without explicitly invoking Rabbi Pappenheim, builds the halachah out of this: a keren is the point of intersection where two opposing forces meet, hence the goring category, which names not just the limb but the point of departure from which an animal may stray; hence the crossroads at which one faces two ways; hence a corner, the meeting place of two sides; hence the principal, which can be lost or turn a profit. On Rosh Hashanah we galvanize every energy toward one end, the proclamation of Hashem's kingship, where no other possibility is valid, so a thing whose very name implies a fork in the road cannot serve. The counterpart is the column's own addition, which it says Rabbi Shapiro does not make explicitly: per Rav Hirsch, shofar is the exact opposite, conjuring all the constituent parts working together in harmony, and Ritva's "beautiful and copacetic" fits that, so the word shofar is the antithesis of keren, implying a unification that precludes all other possibilities.

yovel (יובל)

Also a horn (Shemos 19:13), and in some pesukim the animal it came from (Yehoshua 6:4-13). Because the fiftieth year of the shemittah cycle is consecrated and proclaimed with the shofar, the year itself is yovel (Vayikra 25:10-15, 25:50, 27:17-31), whence English "jubilee." Since the yovel horn was used chiefly to tell the travelling nation when to move and the army when to attack, Rabbi Pappenheim suggests it comes from the biliteral ב-ל, mixing, the yovel being the catalyst that brings about an intermingling of one domain with another.

chatzotzros (חצוצרות)

The Torah's chatzotzros are of silver (Bamidbar 10:2), yet the Mishnah (Kinnim 3:6) uses the word of a ram's horn after the animal's death, so they can stand for shofaros. The Gemara (Shabbos 36a, Sukkah 34a) records that what were called shofaros in the time of the Beis HaMikdash were later called chatzotzros, and the reverse (Chasam Sofer, Aruch LaNer to Sukkah 34a). Mabit notes we have since returned to the older usage, so a ram's horn is again a shofar.

The keren / cornu question

English "horn" comes from Latin cornu and Greek keras, which originally meant something like pointy or protruding, and behind them stand unicorn, capricorn, rhinoceros, cornet and cornea. It is tempting, the column says, to argue that these derive from the Hebrew keren, and some have argued it; but linguists take the Latin and Greek as tributaries of the Proto-Indo-European root ker, so the n-sound does not seem integral to the original root, which makes the tie to keren harder. The column's own closing thought is that on Rabbi Pappenheim's reckoning the nun of keren is likewise not part of the core root, so perhaps there is something to the connection after all.

Rendering guidance

• Shofar transliterated always; "ram's horn" only as a first-mention gloss, and never "trumpet."
• Chatzotzros: "trumpets," in Bamidbar 10:2 "silver trumpets." Where the Gemara records the terms swapping, keep both transliterated.
• Trap: English "horn" absorbs keren, shofar, and yovel. In Rosh Hashanah 3:2 the argument is nominal, not physical, so both Hebrew words must appear: "a cow's horn is unfit, because it is called a keren and not a shofar."
• Keren in the Mishnah's monetary sense is "principal," in damages keren (the goring category, transliterated), for the mizbeach "the horns of the altar," elsewhere "corner." Do not carry one English word across the senses.
• Keren as strength (Tehillim 132:17, 148:14): "horn" reads well and the metaphor survives; do not flatten to "power."
• Yovel: transliterated for the year, "the horn" for Shemos 19:13.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Nitzavim/Vayelech/RH: The Shofar's Horn," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach (2022-09-17), reposted 28 Elul 5782 (2022-09-24): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9992-nitzavimvayelechrh-the-shofars-horn.md and sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/10060-nitzavimvayelechrh-the-shofars-horn-2.md. The two files carry the same essay; the second is not a continuation. Loci as above, plus its footnote: Chiddushei HaRamban to Rosh Hashanah 26a and his Derashah L'Rosh Hashanah; Ritva there; Cheshek Shlomo s.v. בל; Ran on Rosh Hashanah 6a in the Rif; Shu"t HaMabit 1:125. Also Devarim 33:17; Tehillim 81:4; Sifrei Behaaloscha 78; Koheles Rabbah 7:3; Midrash Shmuel 23; Daniel 8:5, 8:8, 8:21; Ezra 8:35; Divrei HaYamim II 29:21; Yechezkel 43:20; Shmuel I 16:13; Kesubos 3:9, 13:2; Kiddushin 4:12; Maaser Sheni 4:3; Pesachim 2:4; Yevamos 11:5, 11:7; Tamid 2:5, 4:1, 7:3; Keilim 17:9-10, 17:17; Vayikra 25:50. Its front matter gives the year as 5787, an error for 5782.