society
master
At a glance
In short
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. It is an honorific form of rav, which also means master and is the Mishnah's ordinary word for a slave's owner. There are two readings of the difference. The working assumption is that it is simply Hebrew against Aramaic. Rabbi Baruch Aryeh HaLevi Fischer suggests a thematic one: adon is a standing title, while rav/ribbon is used only where there is a subordinate in the master's charge.
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.
Tosafos Yom Tov (to Bava Kamma 5:6, end): adon is said of a slave's master, and baal is not.
Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim LaMikra to Bereishis 38:17): Latin don comes from adon, and from don came domnus, dominus, with an added mem beside the nun; he suggests it reached Latin through the Canaanite spoken by Phoenician settlers in North Africa. He also proposes that adon may come from dan, as Rav Pappenheim holds, an added aleph at the start being very common.
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. 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.
Radak on this root
Sefer HaShorashim
א-ד-ן
A lord or master, and the honoured Name אֲדֹנָי. In a second sense אֲדָנִים, the hollow sockets that the boards and the pillars were set into.
A plural that honours one man
לָכֵן יְשַׁלַּח הָאָדוֹן (Yeshayahu 10:16), therefore the Lord shall send; וַֽאדֹנִי זָקֵֽן (Bereishis 18:12), and my lord is old. The plural comes as a form of honour for one: אֲדֹנִים קָשֶׁה, a hard master, and אִם־אֲדֹנָיו יִתֶּן־לוֹ אִשָּׁה (Shemos 21:4), if his master gives him a wife. It comes without the yud too, יֹֽאמַר־נָא אֲדֹנֵנוּ (Shmuel I 16:16), let our lord say. The sense itself, he says, is known.
The yud of the honoured Name
The honoured Name, אֲדֹנָי, is in the plural for honour and pointed with a kamatz, carrying one sign of plural only, as וְקָרַֽע לוֹ חַלּוֹנָי (Yirmiyahu 22:14), and he cut out windows for himself; or else the yud is the yud of relation, as the yud of מוֹכִיחַ אָדָם אַֽחֲרַי (Mishlei 28:23), one who reproves a man afterward.
Holy or secular
Where the word is secular it takes a patach, הִנֶּה נָּֽא־אֲדֹנַי (Bereishis 19:2), behold now, my lords. But in וַיֹּאמַר אֲדֹנָי אִם־נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ (Bereishis 18:3), and he said, אֲדֹנָי, if now I have found favour in your eyes, it is kamatz, and Chazal are divided over it (Shevuos 35b): some say it is secular and was said to the greatest of them, and some say it is holy. So too of וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹט אֲלֵהֶם אַל־נָא אֲדֹנָֽי (Bereishis 19:18), and Lot said to them, not so, please, אֲדֹנָי, they say it is holy.
Gideon's word
בִּי אֲדֹנָי בַּמָּה אוֹשִׁיעַ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל (Shoftim 6:15), please my lord, with what shall I save Yisrael, is kamatz and yet not in pause. It may be that it took the kamatz because of the zakef, the word being secular, since Gideon did not yet know that he was an angel.
The sockets
In a second sense, כִּכָּר לָאָֽדֶן (Shemos 38:27), a talent for the socket, and וּשְׁנֵי אֲדָנִים תַּחַת הַקֶּרֶשׁ הָֽאֶחָֽד (Shemos 26:25), two sockets under one board. The sockets were hollow and the tenons of the boards went into them, and so too the pillars, and the sockets held them up. So על מה אֲדָנֶיהָ הָטְבָּעוּ (Iyov 38:6), on what were its sockets sunk, which he glosses יסודותיה, its foundations.
לָכֵן יְשַׁלַּח הָאָדוֹן (ישעיה י, טז), וַֽאדֹנִי זָקֵֽן (בראשית יח, יב), לַֽאֲדֹנֵי הָֽאֲדֹנִים (תהלים קלו, ג). ובא המלה בלשון תפארת ליחיד אֲדֹנִים קָשֶׁה, אִם־אֲדֹנָיו יִתֶּן־לוֹ אִשָּׁה (שמות כא, ד). ובא חסר היו"ד יֹֽאמַר־נָא אֲדֹנֵנוּ (שמואל א' טז, טז), אַל־תַּלְשֵׁן עֶבֶד אֶל־אֲֽדֹנָו [אֲֽדֹנָיו] (משלי ל, י), והענין ידוע. והשׁם הנכבד אֲדֹנָי בלשון רבים לכבוד, והוא קמוץ והוא בסימן רבוי אחד לבד, כמו וְקָרַֽע לוֹ חַלּוֹנָי (ירמיה כב, יד), וְאֹֽרְגִים חוֹרָֽי (ישעיה יט, ט), או היא יו"ד היחס כיו"ד מוֹכִיחַ אָדָם אַֽחֲרַי (משלי כח, כג), וּלְכִילַי לֹא יֵֽאָמֵר שֽׁוֹעַ (ישעיה לב, ה). וְאֲדֹנַי שהוא לשון חול הוא בפתח, הִנֶּה נָּֽא־אֲדֹנַי (בראשית יט, ב), אבל וַיֹּאמַר אֲדֹנָי אִם־נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ (בראשית יח, ג) הוא קמוץ, והוא מחלוקת בין רבותינו ז"ל (שבועות לה, ע"ב) יש אומרים, שהוא חול ולגדול שבהם אמר. ויש אומרים שהוא קדש, וכן וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹט אֲלֵהֶם אַל־נָא אֲדֹנָֽי (בראשית יט, יח), אומרים שהוא קדש. ומצאנו בִּי אֲדֹנָי בַּמָּה אוֹשִׁיעַ אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל (שופטים ו, טו), קמוץ ואינו בהפסק, ואפשר כי מפני הזקף נקמץ כי לשון חול הוא כי עדיין לא ידע גדעון שהוא מלאך. וענין שני כִּכָּר לָאָֽדֶן (שמות לח, כז), וּשְׁנֵי אֲדָנִים תַּחַת הַקֶּרֶשׁ הָֽאֶחָֽד (שמות כו, כה), וְהָֽאֲדָנִים לָֽעַמֻּדִים (שמות לח, יז), האדנים היו חלולים והיו נכנסים ידות הקרשים לתוכם, וכן העמודים והיו סומכים אותם. וכן על מה אֲדָנֶיהָ הָטְבָּעוּ (איוב לח, ו) כלומר יסודותיה.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Rabbi of Robbers," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 25 February 2017.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Rabbi of Robbers," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: 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; Tosafos Yom Tov to Bava Kamma 5:6; Benamozegh, Eim LaMikra to Bereishis 38:17.