nature
land (running versus passive)
At a glance
In short
Eretz is land and adamah is ground, and the difference lies in their roots: eretz comes 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, while adamah is the passive ground, and often the lands outside it. Ratzon comes from the same root as eretz; Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook explains it as a person's will at its deepest, and chefetz as the immediate goal in front of him.
Avos d'Rabbi Nasan (version 1, ch. 37) teaches that as there are seven heavens, so there are seven words for the earth: eretz, adamah, arka, charavah, yabashah, taivel and cheled.
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; Rabbi Klein 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 Rabbi Klein sees the same contrast of depth against surface running through both pairs.
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; Rabbi Klein takes this to mean that the land is the board on which a man plays out what he really wants.
Whether eretz and adamah split by place or by depth. In many places in the Torah an unqualified eretz is the Holy Land and adamah the Diaspora.
- Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg sheds 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 stands Rabbi Klein's own depth reading, from an earlier piece of his 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 distinguishes ratzon from chefetz, and Rabbi Klein then draws the parallel himself: eretz likewise takes in what lies beneath the surface, while adamah, from DALET-MEM, likeness, he associates with superficiality, the neighbour of dimyon, imagination or delusion, which may resemble reality without being it.
Also discussed in
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
ח-פ-ץ
To desire and to delight in, with the noun חֵפֶץ, desire; one pasuk, of a tail like a cedar, has been explained as swift movement.
Desiring
כִּי חָפֵץ בְּבַֽת־יַֽעֲקֹב (Bereishis 34:19), for he delighted in Yaakov's daughter, and וְאִם־לֹא יַחְפֹּץ הָאִישׁ (Devarim 25:7), and if the man does not wish. The noun is חֵפֶץ, and in the plural וְכָל־ חֲפָצֶיךָ לֹא יִֽשְׁווּ־בָֽהּ (Mishlei 3:15), all your desires cannot equal her.
Who is sought after
On דְּרוּשִׁים לְכָל־חֶפְצֵיהֶֽם (Tehillim 111:2), sought out by all חֶפְצֵיהֶֽם, he holds the right reading is that חֶפְצֵיהֶֽם is an adjective, formed like זִקְנֵיהֶם, their elders: they are sought out by all who desire them.
A tail like a cedar
יַחְפֹּץ זְנָבוֹ כְמוֹ־אָרֶז (Iyov 40:17), he יַחְפֹּץ his tail like a cedar, has been explained as a sense of movement, the tzadi exchanged for a zayin, the two coming from one place in the mouth, as in לֹא יַחְפּוֹז (Iyov 40:23), he does not hasten, a word of quick movement. On this reading his tail, great as a cedar, he moves swiftly.
כִּי חָפֵץ בְּבַֽת־יַֽעֲקֹב (בראשית לד, יט), לוּ חָפֵץ י"י לַהֲמִיתֵנוּ (שופטים יג, כג), וְהָיָה אִם־לֹא חָפַצְתָּ בָּהּ (דברים כא, יד), וְאִם־לֹא יַחְפֹּץ הָאִישׁ (דברים כה, ז), הֶֽחָפֹץ אֶחְפֹּץ מוֹת רָשָׁע (יחזקאל יח, כג), עַד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּֽץ (שיר השירים ב, ז), לֹא בִגְבוּרַת הַסּוּס יֶחְפָּץ (תהלים קמז, י). והתאר אִם־חָפֵץ בָּנוּ י"י (במדבר יד, ח), כִּֽי־חָפֵץ י"י לַֽהֲמִיתָֽם (שמואל א' ב, כה). והשם הֵן בְּיוֹם צֹֽמְכֶם תִּמְצְאוּ־חֵפֶץ (ישעיה נח, ג), הַחֵפֶץ לַֽי"י (שמואל א' טו, כב), בחמש נקדות, כִּי אִם־בְּתוֹרַת י"י חֶפְצוֹ (תהלים א, ב), וְכָל־חֲפָצֶיךָ לֹא יִֽשְׁווּ־בָֽהּ (משלי ג, טו), דְּרוּשִׁים לְכָל־חֶפְצֵיהֶֽם (תהלים קיא, ב). והנכון כי דְּרוּשִׁים לְכָל־חֶפְצֵיהֶֽם תאר בפלס זִקְנֵיהֶם כלומר לכל החפצים בהם הם דרושים. אך יַחְפֹּץ זְנָבוֹ כְמוֹ־אָרֶז (איוב מ, יז), פירשו בו ענין תנועה בחלוף צד"י בזי"ן כי הם ממוצא אחר והוא כמו הֵן יַֽעֲשֹׁק נָהָר לֹא יַחְפּוֹז (איוב מ, כג), לשון תנועה במהירות, ופירוש כמו אָרֶז זנבו שהוא גדול כמו ארז יניעהו במהירות.
ר-צ-ה
To be pleased with a thing and accept it. It also means to pay off in full, as the land pays off her sabbaths. A third sense is to go.
Favour and acceptance
כִּֽי־ רָצוּ עֲבָדֶיךָ אֶת־אֲבָנֶיהָ (Tehillim 102:15), Your servants take pleasure in her stones; וְאֶרְצֶה ־בּוֹ (Chaggai 1:8), I shall be pleased with it; וְכִי יַֽעֲלוּ עֹלָה וּמִנְחָה אֵינֶנִּי רֹצָם (Yirmiyahu 14:12), though they bring up an olah and a minchah I do not accept them; and the one accepted, יְהִי רְצוּי אֶחָיו (Devarim 33:24), let him be acceptable to his brothers. One makes himself acceptable in וּבַמֶּה יִתְרַצֶּה זֶה אֶל־אֲדֹנָיו (Shmuel I 29:4), and with what shall this one make himself acceptable to his master; and where the verb takes an object, בָּנָיו יְרַצּוּ דַלִּים (Iyov 20:10), his sons will appease the poor. The noun is וַיָּפֶק רָצוֹן (Mishlei 8:35), he draws out favour, and וּבִרְצֹנָם עִקְּרוּ־שֽׁוֹר (Bereishis 49:6), in their will they hamstrung an ox.
Acceptable, or won over
אִם־תִּֽהְיֶה לְטוֹב לְהָעָם הַזֶּה וּרְצִיתָם (Divrei HaYamim II 10:7), if you will be good to this people and וּרְצִיתָם: he explains it to mean that they will be acceptable, while Rabbi Yonah takes the verb as transitive, and Radak explains him to mean that you will win them over with your good words.
What the olah makes acceptance for
וְנִרְצָה לוֹ (Vayikra 1:4), and it will be accepted for him: Chazal explain in the Sifra, on parshas Vayikra, what it makes acceptance for: not for kareisos, nor for the deaths at the hands of beis din or of heaven, nor for lashes, since the punishment of those is stated; only for a positive commandment, and for a negative that a positive puts right, whose punishment is not stated; and when a man brings an olah as a gift, though he was not commanded in it, it is accepted for him to atone for what he sinned in these.
Paying off in full
A second sense: עַד־ רָֽצְתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתוֹתֶיהָ (Divrei HaYamim II 36:21), until the land had paid off her sabbaths; אָז תִּרְצֶה הָאָרֶץ (Vayikra 26:34), then the land will pay off; וְהֵם יִרְצוּ אֶת־עֲוֹנָם (Vayikra 26:41 in his edition), they will pay off their sin; עַד־ יִרְצֶה כְּשָׂכִיר יוֹמֽוֹ (Iyov 14:6), until he completes his day like a hired man; and in the passive כִּי נִרְצָה עֲוֹנָהּ (Yeshayahu 40:2), her sin is paid off. Their sense is completing, and it is close to the first sense.
A third sense, going
A third sense, which he calls going: אִם־רָאִיתָ גַנָּב וַתִּרֶץ עִמּוֹ (Tehillim 50:18), if you saw a thief you went with him, whose rule is וַתִּרְצֶה, and וְהַחַיּוֹת רָצוֹא וָשׁוֹב (Yechezkel 1:14), the chayos going out and back, where an alef stands for a heh. Rabbi Yonah puts בִּרְצֹתוֹ עִם־אֱלֹהִֽים (Iyov 34:9) here too, and Radak explains him to mean his walking with Hashem, then answers that there is no need to take the word out of its plain sense. One may read ותרץ עמו itself from willing, that you wished to be with him. וּרְצִיתָם is also read from going, that you go with them after their own mind and wish.
The sons who are pleased
וְאַֽחֲרֵיהֶם בְּפִיהֶם יִרְצוּ סֶֽלָה (Tehillim 49:14): those after them are their sons, and the sons of the wicked are pleased with what their father charged them concerning the oppression and the violence, which is בְּפִיהֶם, by what they say to them and charge them. It is also read from going: they go after them to death in their going, and בְּפִיהֶם stands for כפיהם, like them, as in אִישׁ כְּפִי עֲבֹֽדָתֽוֹ (Bamidbar 7:5), each man as his service, and לְפִי אָכְלוֹ (Shemos 12:4), as his eating, in both of which the word means "like".
כִּֽי־רָצוּ עֲבָדֶיךָ אֶת־אֲבָנֶיהָ (תהלים קב, טו), וְאֶרְצֶה־בּוֹ וְאֶכָּבְדָ [וְאֶכָּֽבְדָה] (חגי א, ח), רוֹצֶה י"י אֶת־יְרֵאָיו (תהלים קמז, יא), וְאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ כִּי רְצִיתָֽם (תהלים מד, ד) רְצֵֽה־י"י לְהַצִּילֵנִי (תהלים מ, יד), וְלֹֽא־יֹסִיף לִרְצוֹת עֽוֹד (תהלים עז, ח), וְכִי יַֽעֲלוּ עֹלָה וּמִנְחָה אֵינֶנִּי רֹצָם (ירמיה יד, יב), יְהִי רְצוּי אֶחָיו (דברים לג, כד), אִם־תִּֽהְיֶה לְטוֹב לְהָעָם הַזֶּה וּרְצִיתָם (דברי הימים ב' י, ז), פירוש שיהיו רצויים. ורבי יונה פירשו יוצא כלומר שתרצה אותם בדבריך הטובים. וְאַֽחֲרֵיהֶם בְּפִיהֶם יִרְצוּ סֶֽלָה (תהלים מט, יד), פירוש אחריהם בניהם רצונו לומר כי בני הרשעים ירצו במה שיצום אביהם על העושק ועל המרוצה, וזהו בפיהם במה שיאמרו להם ויצום. והנפעל וְנִרְצָה לוֹ (ויקרא א, ד), פירשו רבותינו ז"ל (ספרא פרשת ויקרא) על מה הוא מרצה לו אם על כריתות ומיתות בין דין, ומיתה בידי שמים ומלקות הרי ענשן אמור, הא אינו מרצה אלא על עשה ולא העשה הניתק לעשה שאין מפורש ענשן, וכשמביא עולה נדבה אף על פי שאינו מצווה בזה נרצה לו לכפר עליו על מה שחטא בעשה ולא תעשה הניתק לעשה. פִּגּוּל הוּא לֹא יֵֽרָצֶֽה (ספרא יט, ז). וההתפעל וּבַמֶּה יִתְרַצֶּה זֶה אֶל־אֲדֹנָיו (שמואל א' כט, ד). והכבד [פִּעֵל] בָּנָיו יְרַצּוּ דַלִּים (איוב כ, י). והשם וַיָּפֶק רָצוֹן מֵֽי"י (משלי ח, לה), וּבִרְצֹנָם עִקְּרוּ־שֽׁוֹר (בראשית מט, ו). וענין אחר עַד־רָֽצְתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתוֹתֶיהָ (דברי הימים ב' לו, כא), אָז תִּרְצֶה הָאָרֶץ (ויקרא כו, לד), וְהֵם יִרְצוּ אֶת־עֲוֹנָם (ויקרא כו, מא), עַד־יִרְצֶה כְּשָׂכִיר יוֹמֽוֹ (איוב יד, ו). והנפעל כִּי נִרְצָה עֲוֹנָהּ (ישעיה מ, ב). והכבד [הִפְעִיל] וְהִרְצָת אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתֶֽיהָ (ויקרא כו, לד), משפטו והרצתה, ענינם ענין השלמה והוא קרוב לענין הראשון. וענין אחר אִם־רָאִיתָ גַנָּב וַתִּרֶץ עִמּוֹ (תהלים נ, יח), משפטו וַתִּרְצֶה. וְהַחַיּוֹת רָצוֹא וָשׁוֹב (יחזקאל א, יד), האל"ף תמורת הה"א ענינם ענין הליכה. ורבי יונה פירש מענין זה בִּרְצֹתוֹ עִם־אֱלֹהִֽים (איוב לד, ט), כלומר בהתהלכו עם אלהים. ואין צורך להוציאו ממשמעו. ויש לפרש ותרץ עמו גם כן מענין רצון כלומר רצית להיות עמו. ועוד פירשו מזה לטוב להעם הזה ורציתם, כלומר שתילך עמם על דעתם וחפצם. ועוד פירשו מזה וְאַֽחֲרֵיהֶם בְּפִיהֶם יִרְצוּ סֶֽלָה, כלומר שהם הולכים אחריהם אל המות בהליכתם. ופירוש בפיהם כמו כפיהם כמו אִישׁ כְּפִי עֲבֹֽדָתֽוֹ (במדבר ז, ה), לְפִי אָכְלוֹ (שמות יב, ד), שענינם כמו.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Seasoning the Land," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 August 2021.
Cited in the essay: 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.