society
miser
At a glance
In short
Three words for the same vice, one for each layer of the language: kilay is the Biblical miser, tzaykan the Mishnaic skinflint, and kamtzan the post-Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew cheapskate. On the etymologies offered, each carries its own image. The kilay locks his money up (Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim); the tzaykan is narrow (Rabbi Ernest Klein) or, on another possible etymology, hard about parting with it; the kamtzan measures out the smallest possible amount. What kilay means is itself disputed: commentators such as Radak read it as "miser," while the Ashkenazic commentators (Rashi, Mahari Kara, Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency) read it as "trickster."
Distinctions
Kilay (כילי)
Twice in Tanach, both in one perek (Yeshayahu 32:5, 32:7). The commentators, Radak among them (there and in Sefer HaShorashim), read it from the contrast with shoa and nadiv, the open-handed: the kilay is the opposite, careful to a fault about what he gives, laying out money or effort only by exact measure.
Roots.
- Radak and Ibn Janach in their respective Sifrei HaShorashim assign it to כ-י-ל, of which it is the sole derivative; Radak alternatively to כ-ו-ל, a measured quantity.
- Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim takes the biliteral כ-ל, "all-encompassing," whence kele (jail, which detains the whole man), and reads kilay as one who jails his own money and goods so nobody else benefits. His other derivatives of כ-ל: kol, kallah (typically adorned with every sort of ornament), kalkalah (providing for all one's needs), makoles, keli (what surrounds its contents on all sides), heichal, kalos (finishing, coming to be or being destroyed entirely), and achilah.
Ibn Ezra (to Yeshayahu 32:5) writes that on an exegetical plane we may read kilay as a portmanteau of ki yomar sheli sheli, "when a man says, what is mine is mine," a veiled reference to the Mishnah in Avos 5:10, which lists four types of men: one who says what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours is either the average sort or of the sort of Sodom; what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine, an ignoramus; what is mine is yours and what is yours is yours, a chassid; what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine, a rasha (see Rabbeinu Yonah there).
Kilay in the sense of cheapskate is a rather obscure and archaic biblical word, the more so as it seems not to have been used in Mishnaic Hebrew, and even so it saw a resurgence in medieval Sephardic circles. In Ashkenazic circles it went largely unused, for an interesting reason: the Ashkenazic commentators read it not as a cheapskate but as a trickster, taking the biblical kilay as a derivative of נ-כ-ל, deceit. So Rashi, Mahari Kara and Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency in their commentaries to Yeshayahu, all of them influenced by Menachem Ibn Saruk's Machberes, which files kilay under the biliteral כ-ל but classes it with nochel (Malachi 1:14), nichleihem (Bamidbar 25:18) and vayisnaklu (Bereishis 37:18), all of treacherous plotting; on the triliteralists' account those words come from נ-כ-ל. Pappenheim connects נ-כ-ל back to כ-ל by explaining that treacherous plotting is the final decision after an entire process of planning and thinking has been completed. Rashi has another gloss elsewhere (to Sotah 41b): a desirous man who always wants to drink wine.
Bereishis Rabbah 51:1 refers to an animal called a kilay, and there are several ways of identifying it.
- One is that it is a sort of snail, the understanding preferred by the Maskillic writer Shalom Yaakov Abramowitz (1836-1917), better known as Mendele Mocher Seforim, in his scientific encyclopedia Toldos HaTeva, and Dr. Alexander Kohut (1842-1894) also seems to favor it.
- Some write that the kilay is a Schildkröte, the German for turtle.
Either way both creatures carry a shell about with them, and on that basis Solomon Rabinowitz of New York (d. 1943) in his Sefer HaMishkalim draws the comparison to the cheapskate: as the cheapskate retreats into himself and is not generous with others, so the snail or turtle sometimes retreats into its shell rather than deal with the world; and as those creatures might lock themselves in, so the cheapskate locks himself into his belongings and comes out only when the coast is clear. Rabinowitz conjectures from this that perhaps the Midrash's name for the creature was somehow influenced by the biblical kilay.
Maharal (Nesivos Olam, Nesiv HaNedivus ch. 1): the miser is a kilai because, like a storage vessel, kli, made to take in and not to give out, he wants to gather more and more and give nothing to others.
Tzaykan (צייקן)
Mishnaic. Pesachim 7:8: disqualified Pesach meats that a man must burn with his own wood are brought by the tzaykanim to the Mikdash instead, so that the Mikdash's wood pays for the burning. That is the picture: the cheapskate who spends the community's money rather than his own. Rashi (Pesachim 81b) glosses them as ungenerous, using a cognate of atzar, stopping, for how they stop their money from reaching anyone else; so too Rashi and Rabbeinu Chananel to Eruvin 49a.
Etymology is not readily obvious.
- Rabbi Dr. Ernest Klein (no relation to Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein) theorizes that tzaykan derives from tzuk/tzok, a narrow strait or pressure, in the sense of the miser's narrow-mindedness about which causes deserve his money.
- Another possible etymology is mutzak, a hard metal, his hardness relating to the tzaykan's hard-headed stubbornness about parting with what is his.
- Pappenheim, as is his way, traces both words back to the biliteral צ-ק.
The word is rare but not dead: Orchos Tzaddikim titles its chapter on frugality Shaar HaTzaykanus, where the trait is a virtue, not a vice.
Kamtzan (קמצן)
Post-Mishnaic and the living word today. It appears already in some girsaos of the Tosefta (Sotah 13, in the story of the Kohen who took two portions of lechem hapanim and still got only a bean's worth), and cognates appear in the Gemara, especially as verbs, where in some places Rashi again reaches for atzar (Menachos 86a, Chullin 46a; Rashbam to Bava Basra 52b).
The root is ק-מ-ץ, seven times in Tanach, six of them the kemitzah of a minchah (Vayikra 2:2, 5:12, 6:8, Bamidbar 5:26). Rashi (Vayikra 2:2, Kesubos 8b, Zevachim 64b, Menachos 11a): the kohen closes his three middle fingers over his palm to take the flour and wipes away the excess with thumb and pinky, so that not a grain more than those three fingers hold remains. Kemitzah is therefore both containment and holding the amount to its minimum, and both relate to the kamtzan: he stores his wealth and keeps to the least anyone can get from him. The seventh appearance, likematzim (Bereishis 41:47), describes Mitzrayim's yield in the years of plenty; Radak (there and in Sefer HaShorashim): from a minimal seeding the land gave three-finger loads of produce. This too relates to kemitzah as smallest measure.
The Aramaic kamtza seems to belong here too. Targum uses it for arbeh (Mishlei 30:27), yelek (Nachum 3:15-16) and chagav (Bamidbar 13:33, Yeshayahu 40:22), all grasshoppers, and this perhaps relates to kemitzah and kamtzan in that a single grasshopper out of a whole swarm is a small quantity from within a much larger pool. There are two readings of ein hakometz masbia es ha'ari (Berachos 3b, Sanhedrin 16a): that a kometz is a pithy sustenance, too small a quantity to provide the lion's share, or that kometz here means a grasshopper and one grasshopper will not satisfy a lion's hunger (Rashi to Sanhedrin 16a and to Ein Yaakov on Berachos 3b, and Hagahos HaBach there). Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, for whose sake the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed (Gittin 55b), are proper names of Jews at the close of the second Beis HaMikdash; but Rabbi Chaim of Friedberg, the Maharal's brother, in Sefer HaChaim offers a homiletical reading, that the dictum speaks of kamtzanus passed from one generation to the next, which cost the Jewish People their fear of Heaven and left them caring only for themselves. See also Maharal's Netzach Yisrael ch. 5 on the connection between kemitzah, Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, and grasshoppers.
The Gemara (Kesubos 77a) defines the mekametz of the Mishnah (Kesubos 7:10) as mekabetz, one who gathers.
Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh (Eim LaMikra to Bamidbar 36:4): gumatz, a pit (Koheles 10:8), is related to kometz.
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
כ-ו-ל
To measure; to hold, a vessel's measure being what it holds; to bear. Doubled, to hold and bear, and to feed each by his measure. כִּילַי, the miser, is from it.
Measuring, and holding
וְכָל בשׁלשׁ (Yeshayahu 40:12), and measured with a shalish: he explains וְכָל as ומדד, and measured. In the heavy form, אַלְפַּיִם בַּת יָכִֽיל (Melachim I 7:26), it held two thousand bath: that was its measure, that is, that much it held; קָטֹן מֵֽהָכִיל אֶת־הָעֹלָה (Melachim I 8:64), too small to hold the olah, its measure not large enough for all the olos and shelamim; and אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־ יָכִלוּ הַמָּֽיִם (Yirmiyahu 2:13), that do not hold the water, which goes out of them, for they are broken.
The large cup, and the sword
מִרְבָּה לְהָכִֽיל (Yechezkel 23:32), much to hold: the cup is large enough to hold much, as the pasuk there calls it deep and wide. לְהָכִיל לְמַעַן בָּרָֽק (Yechezkel 21:33), said of the sword, is: it was whetted to hold and bear the killing, and to make its flash the greater, to put fear in the nations. Radak's father reads that לְהָכִיל as לְהַֽאֲכִיל, to feed, and Radak has written of it at the root אכל.
Holding and bearing
וּמִי יְכִילֶֽנּוּ (Yoel 2:11), and who can bear it. From this sense and root, doubled: לֹא יְכַלְכְּלוּךָ (Melachim I 8:27), the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot hold You or bear You; וְנִלְאֵיתִי כַּֽלְכֵל (Yirmiyahu 20:9), I am weary of holding and bearing; וּמִי מְכַלְכֵּל אֶת־יוֹם בּוֹאוֹ (Malachi 3:2), who can hold and bear the day of his coming; and הַנִּצָּבָה לֹא יְכַלְכֵּל (Zecharyah 11:16), the sick one that stands elsewhere he will neither bear nor strengthen.
The body's illness and the soul's
רוּחַ אִישׁ יְכַלְכֵּל מַֽחֲלֵהוּ וְרוּחַ נְכֵאָה מִי יִשָּׂאֶֽנָּה (Mishlei 18:14), a man's spirit bears up his illness, but a broken spirit who can carry: it is lighter to bear the sickness of the body than the sickness of the soul.
Providing food
In another sense close to this, וְכִלְכַּלְתִּי אֹֽתְךָ שָׁם (Bereishis 45:11), I will provide for you there; וַיְכַלְכֵּל יוֹסֵף אֶת־אָבִיו וְאֶת־אֶחָיו (Bereishis 47:12), Yosef provided for his father and his brothers; and וְכִלְכְּלָם לֶחֶם וָמָֽיִם (Melachim I 18:4), he sustained them with bread and water. This is food supplied to each one's need by his own measure, and it does not leave the first sense but is included in it.
Words kept to measure
יְכַלְכֵּל דְּבָרָיו בְּמִשְׁפָּֽט (Tehillim 112:5): he brings out his words with justice and uprightness and measure, and does not multiply words; or דְּבָרָיו is his affairs, that he orders his outlays and his gifts in order and with justice. From this root and this sense comes וּלְכִילַי לֹא יֵֽאָמֵר שֽׁוֹעַ (Yeshayahu 32:5), nor shall the miser be called open-handed, which he takes up again at the root כיל.
וְכָל בשׁלשׁ (ישעיה מ, יב), פירוש ומדד. והפעל הכבד [הִפְעִיל] אַלְפַּיִם בַּת יָכִֽיל (מלכים א' ז, כו), פירוש כך היתה מדתו, כלומר כך היה מחזיק. קָטֹן מֵֽהָכִיל אֶת־הָעֹלָה (מלכים א' ח, סד), מתחזיק כל כך כלומר שלא היתה מדתו גדולה לכל העולות והשלמים. אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־יָכִלוּ הַמָּֽיִם (ירמיה ב, יג), לא יחזיקו המים אלא יצאו מהם כי הם נשברים. מִרְבָּה לְהָכִֽיל (יחזקאל כג, לב), פירוש הכוס היא גדולה להחזיק הרבה כמו שאמר הָֽעֲמֻקָּה וְהָֽרְחָבָה (שם). לְהָכִיל לְמַעַן בָּרָֽק כא, לג), פירוש החרב הוחדה להחזיק ולסבול ההרג ולמען הרבות ברקה להפחיד העמים. ואדוני אבי ז"ל פירש להכיל כמו לְהַֽאֲכִיל. וכבר כתבנוהו בשרש אכל. וְנוֹרָא מְאֹד וּמִי יְכִילֶֽנּוּ (יואל ב, יא), ומי יסבלנו. ומן הענין הזה והשרש הזה בהכפל הפ"א והלמ"ד הִנֵּה הַשָּׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לֹא יְכַלְכְּלוּךָ (מלכים א' ח, כז) כלומר לא יחזיקוך ולא יסבלוך. וְנִלְאֵיתִי כַּֽלְכֵל (ירמיה כ, ט), להחזיק ולסבול. וּמִי מְכַלְכֵּל אֶת־יוֹם בּוֹאוֹ (מלאכי ג, ב), מי יוכל להחזיק ולסבול. הַנִּצָּבָה לֹא יְכַלְכֵּל (זכריה יא, טז) החולה שעומדת במקום אחר לא יסבול אותה ולא יחזקנה. רוּחַ אִישׁ יְכַלְכֵּל מַֽחֲלֵהוּ וְרוּחַ נְכֵאָה מִי יִשָּׂאֶֽנָּה (משלי יח, יד), כלומר יותר נקל לסבול חלי הגוף מחלי הנפש. וענין אחר קרוב לזה וְהֽוּא־כִלְכַּל אֶת־הַמֶּלֶךְ (שמואל ב' יט, לג), וְכִלְכַּלְתִּי אֹֽתְךָ שָׁם (בראשית מה, יא), וְכִלְכְּלָם לֶחֶם וָמָֽיִם (מלכים א' יח, ד), וָֽאֲכַלְכְּלֵם לֶחֶם וָמָֽיִם (מלכים א' יח, יג), וַיְכַלְכֵּל יוֹסֵף אֶת־אָבִיו וְאֶת־אֶחָיו (בראשית מז, יב), ענין זה הוא ענין המזון לספק הצורך כמדת כל אחד ואחד ואיננו יוצא מהענין הראשון אבל הוא נכלל בו. וכן יְכַלְכֵּל דְּבָרָיו בְּמִשְׁפָּֽט (תהלים קיב, ה), כלומר שיוציאם במשפט וביושר ובמדה ולא ירבה בדברים. או פירוש דְּבָרָיו עניניו כלומר שמסדר הוצאותיו ומתנוהיו בסדר ובמשפט. ומזה השרש והענין וּלְכִילַי לֹא יֵֽאָמֵר שֽׁוֹעַ (ישעיה לב, ה). ועוד נכתבנו בשרש כיל.
כ-י-ל
The miser, so called in his own view because he lays out his expenses by a fixed measure with nothing over; he stands opposite the open-handed man.
Two pointings, and the yud
וּלְכִילַי לֹא יֵאָמֵר שׁוֹעַ (Yeshayahu 32:5), the miser will not be called open-handed, with a chirik; and with a tzeirei, וְכֵלַי כֵּלָיו רָעִים (Yeshayahu 32:7), the miser, his measures are bad. The yud is the yud of relation, like the yud of מוֹכִיחַ אָדָם אַחֲרַי (Mishlei 28:23), one who reproves a man, afterward, and of הוּא הַהֵיכָל לִפְנָי (Melachim I 6:17), that is the Heichal, in front.
Opposite the open-handed man
The miser stands opposite the שׁוֹעַ, the open-handed man, since the open-handed man is more than the נדיב, the generous one.
Where he takes the word from
In his own view the word is cut from the sense of וְכָל בַּשָּׁלִשׁ (Yeshayahu 40:12), he measured out by a measure, and from that root: the man is called a miser because he conducts his affairs and lays out his expenses by a fixed measure, so that nothing is left over.
Why his measures are bad
כֵּלָיו is the noun of miserliness; its singular is כֵּל, on the pattern of גֵּר and כֵּן, and the plural is כֵּלִים. It means that his measures are bad. A fixed and even measure is good in most things, but the miser's measures are bad in all of them, since he adds nothing to the set measure, not in his household outlay and not in giving to the poor, and his eye is grudging over everything he spends.
Also at the root כלה
He explains the word further at the root כלה, from the sense of כְּלִי, a vessel, and כֵּלִים, vessels, with the vernacular avaro set beside it.
וּלְכִילַי לֹא יֵֽאָמֵר שֽׁוֹעַ (ישעיה לב, ה), בחירק. ובצרי וְכֵלַי כֵּלָיו רָעִים (ישעיה לב, ז), והיו"ד יו"ד היחס כיו"ד מוֹכִיחַ אָדָם אַֽחֲרַי (משלי כח, כג), הוּא הַֽהֵיכָל לִפְנָֽי (מלכים א' ו, יז). כילי הוא כנגד השוע כי השוע יותר מהנדיב טוב מהנָּבָל. ולפי דעתי כי מלח כילי נגזרה מענין וְכָל בַּשָּׁלִשׁ (ישעיה מ, יב) ומשרשו ולפיכך נקרא כִילֵי שהוא עושה עניניו ומוציא הוצאותיו במדה קצובה שלא יִוָּתֵר כלום, וכֵלָיו רעים שם הכילות. האחד ממנו כֵּל בפלס גֵּר, כֵּן, ולרבים כֵּלִים. ורוצה לומר כי המדות שלו רעים הם, כי המדה הקצובה והשוה טובה ברוב הדברים אבל מדות הכילי רעים בכל הדברים כי לא יוסיף דבר על המדה הקצובה לא בהוצאת ביתו ולא במתן העניים ועינו צרה בכל אשר יוציא. ועור נפרשנו בשרש כלה מענין כְּלִי, כֵּלִים [אוואר"ו].
נ-כ-ל
The evil thought hidden away in the heart, and the deed done by guile that comes of it.
The forms
וְאָרוּר נוֹכֵל (Malachi 1:14), cursed be the deceiver; the noun בְּנִכְלֵיהֶם (Bamidbar 25:18), by their wiles, and in the same pasuk אֲשֶׁר־ נִכְּלוּ לָכֶם, with which they plotted against you; וַיִּתְנַכְּלוּ אֹתוֹ לַהֲמִיתוֹ (Bereishis 37:18), they plotted against him to kill him; and לְהִתְנַכֵּל בַּעֲבָדָיו (Tehillim 105:25), to deal craftily with his servants.
The Targum's word
The Targum of לְהָרְגוֹ בְעָרְמָה (Shemos 21:14), to kill him by guile, is לְמִקְטְלֵיהּ בִּנְכִילוּ, to kill him with guile, which puts this very root where the Hebrew has guile.
וְאָרוּר נוֹכֵל (מלאכי א, יד). והשם בְּנִכְלֵיהֶם (במדבר כה, יח). והכבד [פִּעֵל] אֲשֶׁר־נִכְּלוּ לָכֶם (שם). וההתפעל וַיִּתְנַכְּלוּ אֹתוֹ לַֽהֲמִיתֽוֹ (בראשית לז, יח), לְהִתְנַכֵּל בַּֽעֲבָדָֽיו (תהלים קה, כה). ענינם המחשבה הרעה הצפונה בלב, ויהיה ממנה המעשה בערמה. ותרגום לְהָרְגוֹ בְעָרְמָה (שמות כא, יד) לְמִקְטְלֵיהּ בִּנְכִילוּ.
ק-מ-ץ
Gathering and collecting: the fistful, taken with the fingers gathered in to the palm; and the gathering in of the years of plenty.
The fistful of the minchah
וְקָמַץ מִשָּׁם מְלֹא קֻמְצוֹ (Vayikra 2:2), and he shall take a fistful from there, the fill of his fist. The sense is gathering and collecting, and מְלֹא קֻמְצוֹ is a full fist, the fingers gathered in to the palm of the hand.
How the hand was held
Chazal describe it (Menachos 11a): he stretches three fingers over the flat of his hand, and wipes off with his thumb above and with his little finger below.
The years of plenty
וַתַּעַשׂ הָאָרֶץ בְּשֶׁבַע שְׁנֵי הַשָּׂבָע לִקְמָצִֽים (Bereishis 41:47), and the land made it into gatherings in the seven years of plenty, is of the same kind: the people of the land gathered the grain into collections, so much produce did they gather in. Or the land is the earth itself, and it put out much produce, handfuls from a single prutah.
וְקָמַץ מִשָּׁם מְלֹא קֻמְצוֹ (ויקרא ב, ב), ענין קבוץ ואסיפה, ורצה לומר מלא קמצו מלא אגרופו כשאוסף אצבעותיו אל כף היד. ובדברי רבותינו ז"ל (מנחות יא, ע"א), כיצד הוא עושה פושט שלש אצבעותיו על פס ידו... ומוחק בגודלו מלמעלה ובאצבעו קטנה מלמטה. וככה וַתַּעַשׂ הָאָרֶץ בְּשֶׁבַע שְׁנֵי הַשָּׂבָע לִקְמָצִֽים (בראשית מא, מז), רצה לומר שאספו אנשי הארץ הבר לקבוצים שקבצו ואספו תבואה רבה. או פירוש ותעש הארץ ממש, רצה לומר שהוציאה הארץ תבואה רבה מפרוטה אחת קמצים.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "On Misers and Cheapskates," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 18 June 2022.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "On Misers and Cheapskates," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).
Cited in the essay: Yeshayahu 32:5, 32:7, 40:22; Bereishis 37:18, 41:47; Vayikra 2:2, 5:12, 6:8; Bamidbar 5:26, 13:33, 25:18; Malachi 1:14; Mishlei 30:27; Nachum 3:15-16; Avos 5:10; Pesachim 7:8 and 81b; Eruvin 49a; Berachos 3b; Sanhedrin 16a; Sotah 41b; Gittin 55b; Menachos 11a and 86a; Chullin 46a; Zevachim 64b; Kesubos 8b; Bereishis Rabbah 51:1; Radak and Ibn Janach, Sefer HaShorashim; Maharal, Netzach Yisrael ch. 5; Toldos HaTeva; Sefer HaMishkalim; Sefer HaChaim; Tosefta Sotah 13; Kesubos 7:10, 77a; Maharal, Nesiv HaNedivus ch. 1; Benamozegh, Eim LaMikra to Bamidbar 36:4; Koheles 10:8.