What’s in a Word?

society

master

אדון · רבון · רב · רבי

Bottom line

Adon is the Hebrew word for a master, and the form Adonai is a Name of Hashem. Ribbon is the Aramaic equivalent that Targum Onkelos uses for adon, an honorific of rav, which is itself master and in the Mishnah the ordinary word for a slave's owner. Two readings of the difference: the working assumption, that it is simply Hebrew against Aramaic; and the thematic way Rabbi Baruch Aryeh HaLevi Fischer suggests, that adon is a standing title while rav/ribbon is used only where there is a subordinate in the master's charge. Do not render both "Lord" in one phrase.

Distinctions

adon (אדון)

The usual word in Tanach for the master of a slave, with its derivatives. The special form Adonai is used of Hashem, Master of the Universe, all of Creation being His servants. Rabbi Baruch Aryeh HaLevi Fischer suggests that adon is a title anyone who is a master bears, in every context, once he is a master; it is all-encompassing. On that basis he explains that Adonai, built from adon, is considered a Name of Hashem, the all-encompassing Master of the Universe, while ribbon/rav is not His Name as such, but only a description of His role toward particular elements of Creation.

ribbon (רבון)

Aramaic. Targum Onkelos renders the common noun adon as ribbon throughout. It is the honorific form of rav. On Rabbi Baruch Aryeh HaLevi Fischer's suggestion, ribbon/rav is used specifically of the bond between a master and the protégé in his charge, a slave, a talmid, an apprentice, and only under those conditions.

rav (רב) and rebbi (רבי)

"Master." In Mishnaic Hebrew it is the standard word for the owner of a slave. In Tanach rav appears only in construct, bound to another word: rav tabachim (chief of the executioners, an army commander), rav hachovel (master of the rope, a ship's captain), ravei hamelech (the king's officers). Rebbi is "my rav," my master, "Rabbi" being its Anglicized form; for a Torah scholar, or even a lay observant Jew, that master is his teacher in Torah, and for a thief it is the leader of his delinquent gang. This is what lets the column answer the question it opens with. Reish Lakish, the quintessential baal teshuvah, who went from highway robber to master Torah scholar, insinuated to his teacher and brother-in-law Rabbi Yochanan (Bava Metzia 84a) that Rabbi Yochanan had done him no real service in bringing him to teshuvah, "There they called me Rabbi and here they call me Rabbi." The word names the relation of a man to his master, and the leader of bandits is his gang's master no less than a rebbi is his talmidim's.

The two together in one berachah

The morning berachah (Berachos 60b) calls Hashem Ribbon kol hamaasim, Adon kol haneshamos. The Vilna Gaon: the first clause speaks of His eminence in the physical, action-bound world, and takes the Aramaic word because Aramaic belongs to the outer, surface layer of existence; the second speaks of His dominion over the spiritual realm, and takes the Hebrew word because Hebrew, like that realm, reaches the essence of Creation. Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, a leader of contemporary Jewry, notes that here the Aramaic clause comes first, but does not elaborate on what follows from the observation.

Rendering guidance

  • אדון: "master." In a berachah or where the word stands for Hashem, "Master" capitalized; Adonai itself stays as it is and is not translated.
  • רבון: "Master" as well, so when it stands beside adon something must give. In Ribbon kol hamaasim, Adon kol haneshamos, render "Master of all deeds, Lord of all souls," or keep Ribbon transliterated, so the Vilna Gaon's Aramaic-against-Hebrew reading is still visible.
  • רב: "master" for a slave's owner; in the construct forms of Tanach, "chief" (rav tabachim, chief of the executioners) rather than "master," which reads oddly in English.
  • רבי: "Rebbi" or "Rabbi," never "my master" in running text; but where a passage turns on the literal sense, as Reish Lakish's does, gloss it once.
  • Trap: English "Lord" and "Master" will each absorb adon and ribbon. Any phrase that pairs them is making a distinction, and one English word for both leaves a duplication on the page.
  • Trap: do not treat rav as a lesser adon. On Rabbi Baruch Aryeh HaLevi Fischer's reading the difference is not rank but whether a subordinate is in view.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Rabbi of Robbers," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 29 Shevat 5777 (2017-02-25): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7153-rabbi-of-robbers.md. Primary loci cited: Bava Metzia 84a (Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan); Berachos 60b (Ribbon kol hamaasim, Adon kol haneshamos); Targum Onkelos on adon; the construct forms rav tabachim, rav hachovel and ravei hamelech; the Vilna Gaon on the berachah; Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman; Rabbi Baruch Aryeh HaLevi Fischer of Yeshivas Chasan Sofer.