nature
land (running versus passive)
ארץ · אדמה · רצון · חפץ
Bottom line
Eretz is land and adamah is ground, and this article grounds the difference in the two roots: eretz from REISH-TZADI, running, and adamah from DALET-MEM, likeness and so inertness. Eretz is therefore the active land, and often Eretz Yisrael in particular; adamah the passive ground, and often the lands outside it. Ratzon belongs to the same root as eretz: it is a person's will at its deepest, as against chefetz, the immediate goal in front of him. The trap is "earth," which will take both Hebrew words at once.
The column takes the pair from Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 1, ch. 37), which teaches that as there are seven heavens so there are seven words for the earth: eretz, adamah, arka, charavah, yabashah, taivel and cheled. This piece is the first of the series and treats eretz and adamah.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| ארץ | eretz | land | root REISH-TZADI, running; the land that runs to do Hashem's will (Bereishis Rabbah 5:8) |
| אדמה | adamah | ground | root DALET-MEM, whence domem, inert; passive while its plants are active (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim) |
| רצון | ratzon | will | the ultimate will, not the immediate chefetz (Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook) |
Where the authorities disagree
What the "running" in eretz is. Five readings, all working from the same root.
- The land's own eagerness. Bereishis Rabbah 5:8: at creation the land wanted (ratzah) to do Hashem's ratzon, and so ran to cover as much surface as it could until He told it to stop. Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 2, ch. 43) reads eretz from ritzah the same way, taking the connection to highlight the land's role as Hashem's loyal servant, with the mashal of a king's relative who comes running at the summons and is granted a fiefdom.
- Astronomical motion. Radak (Sefer HaShorashim): the planet never stops moving.
- Running toward its source. The Netziv: eretz is the physical side of creation as against the spiritual shamayim; what draws its power from elsewhere runs continually toward what powers it.
- Man running to it. Rabbi Toviah ben Eliezer, Midrash Lekach Tov (to Bereishis 1:1): everyone is running to the eretz, since all are buried in it in the end.
- Man running on it. Midrash Mishlei ch. 8: the land is called eretz because people run about on it, the board on which a man plays out what he really wants.
Nothing in translation turns on the choice; the readings matter for a derashah.
Whether eretz and adamah split by place or by depth. That in many places in the Torah an unqualified eretz is the Holy Land and adamah the Diaspora the column states as given; Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg is brought to shed light on why the roots should fall that way. Building on Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, he reads adamah as the passive word, and applies it to lands outside the Holy Land, where one stays sedentary and inactive as regards the agricultural mitzvos, which bind only there; eretz he derives from REISH-TZADI in the sense of fluency or persistency, an allusion to the earth's persistent orbit around the sun and its rotation on its axis, and so the word for the Land where one must be constantly active and vigilant to keep those mitzvos, the opposite of the passivity adamah implies. Alongside this the column sets the depth reading of its own earlier piece on these two words: adamah is restricted to the topmost strata of the crust while eretz can reach deeper. The two are given one after the other, not set against each other. Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook is cited for ratzon against chefetz, and the column then draws the parallel itself: eretz likewise takes in what lies beneath the surface, while adamah, from DALET-MEM, likeness, it associates with superficiality, the neighbour of dimyon, imagination or delusion, which may resemble reality without being it.
Distinctions
eretz (ארץ)
Where a triliteral root opens with an ALEPH, the ALEPH is often outside the true biliteral root, and that is the move every account here makes: eretz rests on REISH-TZADI, the root of ratz, ratzah, and ratzon. Rabbi Shaul Mortera of Amsterdam extends the family to shoretz, spreading out, and so to sheretz, insect; the column adds that this is possibly by the shiphel inflection, or possibly on the approach that any letter may join a two-letter root.
adamah (אדמה)
Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 2): the land is called adamah because Adam was created from it. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim works from the biliteral DALET-MEM, likeness (domeh), which by its nature implies incongruity, since things merely alike are not the same; from there domem, still or inactive, where inner activity continues but outward activity has stopped. Adamah belongs to that branch: the setting in which plants grow and are active while the ground itself stays passive.
ratzon (רצון) and chefetz (חפץ)
Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook: ratzon is a person's final goal, his real will underneath; chefetz is the immediate, tangible one, which is why Mishnaic Hebrew calls physical objects chafetzim (see Rashi to Koheles 3:1). The pair belongs in this entry because ratzon shares the root of eretz, and the same contrast of depth against surface runs through both pairs.
Rendering guidance
- Trap: English "earth" absorbs eretz and adamah together, and "land" will take adamah if you let it. Hold "land" for eretz and "ground" or "soil" for adamah.
- Where an unqualified eretz stands in a Torah passage about mitzvos of the Land, "the Land" with a capital is usually right, and adamah in the same passage is "the ground," not a second name for the same place.
- A derashah on eretz and ratz cannot survive in English. Transliterate and gloss: "eretz, land, from ratz, running."
- Ratzon against chefetz: "will" and "desire" will not carry the distinction on their own; where a passage turns on it, say "ultimate will" for ratzon and keep "desire" or "object" for chefetz.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Seasoning the Land," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 20 Elul 5781 (2021-08-28): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9346-seasoning-the-land.md. Primary loci cited: Avos d'Rabbi Nasan version 1 ch. 37 and version 2 ch. 43; Bereishis Rabbah 5:8; Bereishis 1:1; Koheles 3:1 with Rashi; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Midrash Lekach Tov to Bereishis 1:1; Midrash Mishlei ch. 8. This is part one of a series; the remaining words of Avos d'Rabbi Nasan's list of seven are treated in earth-taivel-arka-cheled.md. A separate entry, land-eretz-adamah.md, covers the column's earlier piece on the same pair, where the split is depth rather than place; the two should be read together, and the article itself cross-references that piece.