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כר is a verb of כריה, digging. חפירה is said of digging in depth, and כריה of the act of digging that is not deep. בור כרה ויחפרהו (Tehillim 7:16), he dug a pit and deepened it: first one digs it (כורה), and afterwards excavates it (חופר) to make it deeper.

Since digging, חפירה and כריה alike, goes into hidden treasures, both words were borrowed for searching with the mind: one who wants to get to the bottom of a matter is called כורה וחופר, digging and excavating. From חפירה comes לחפור את הארץ (Yehoshua 2:2), to search out the land. From כריה comes ותכרו על ריעכם (Iyov 6:27), and you dig against your friend: searching your friend in thought to find a fault in him; and לא תבשו, תהכרו לי (Iyov 19:3), you are not ashamed, you dig against me: you are not ashamed to probe me for wrongdoing and blemish. Both words are said as well of what the search yields, the finding of the thing sought. From חפירה there is משם חפר אכל (Iyov 39:29), from there it searches out food, that is, it obtains the food it searched for.

From כריה comes every הכרה, recognition, in Tanach. Either it is the close examination and searching of the mind to find a thing out thoroughly, as הכר לך מה עמדי (Bereishis 31:32), discern what of yours is with me; הכר נא, הכתנת בנך (Bereishis 37:32), examine now, is it your son's coat; and הכר נא למי החתמת (Bereishis 38:25), examine now, whose is the seal. Or it is the finding of what was sought, as ויכירה ויאמר כתנת בני (Bereishis 37:33), and he recognized it and said, it is my son's coat, and ויכר יהודה (Bereishis 38:26), and Yehudah recognized.

לא תכירו פנים במשפט (Devarim 1:17), you shall not recognize faces in judgment, and לא תכיר פנים (Devarim 16:19), you shall not recognize faces, are not נשיאות פנים, showing favor, as in לא תשא פני דל (Vayikra 19:15), you shall not favor the poor man, but הכרת פנים, recognizing faces. The judge must not say that this man's face testifies of him that he is righteous or wicked, as הכרת פניהם ענתה בם (Yeshayahu 3:9), the look of their faces testifies against them; nor say, I have known this man's righteousness or wickedness for many days, and presumably in this case too he is innocent or guilty. So too כי את הבכר בן השנואה יכיר (Devarim 21:17), for he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the hated wife: after examining and searching out to whom to give the double portion, to the son of the beloved because he is her son or to the son of the hated one because he is the firstborn, the outcome must be precedence for the firstborn. By the words of Chazal (Yevamos 47a), יכיר, יכירנו לאחרים, he shall recognize: he shall make him recognized to others; that is, he is believed when he says of him that he knows him to be the firstborn. Rav Pappenheim adds that לא תבשו, תהכרו לי (Iyov 19:3) may belong to this sense: you are not ashamed to make out against me a lineage of wickedness and wrong.

There is recognition without prior examination, as ויכר יוסף את אחיו (Bereishis 42:8), and Yosef recognized his brothers: he certainly did not first examine whether these men were his brothers or not, but recognized them the moment he saw them. Yet the whole of הכרה is finding after a search, for הכרה is not ידיעה, knowing. ידיעה is knowing a thing in itself, knowing the thing itself thoroughly. הכרה is knowing a thing as set apart from others it is mixed among, which is complete only after examining them all, when one stands clear of the rest by the signs found in it. It rests on experience, on knowledge that came before: having known the thing earlier and lost sight of it, one sees it again with the same signs and recognizes it, knowing it is the very thing already seen. Where the signs are plain and strike the eye at first glance without need of much examining, it seems to us that we did not examine at all; but it is not so, for the senses have already examined it without our setting them to it.

הכרה is said as well of the intent to take up with someone in order to do him good, as מצאתי חן בעיניך להכירני (Rus 2:10), I have found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me. Recognizing a thing does not depend on finding favor, so the meaning is the intent to take trouble with me for my benefit, as if you knew no one but me. So too ואין לי מכיר (Tehillim 142:5), and I have no one who acknowledges me; and, in the same way, מודע לאישה (Rus 2:1), an acquaintance of her husband's, and בועז מודעתנו (Rus 3:2), Boaz our acquaintance: knowing and recognizing for good. Rav Pappenheim places here too את הבכור בן השנואה יכיר (Devarim 21:17), he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the hated wife, and לא תכיר פנים (Devarim 16:19), you shall not recognize faces, as recognition for good.

From this sense comes כרה with a tzere: ויכרה להם כרה גדולה (Melachim II 6:23), and he prepared a great feast for them, the meal people make for one another when they have become acquainted. In construct, נות כרת רעים (Tzefaniah 2:6), the grounds of the shepherds' acquaintance: a place where shepherds make one another's acquaintance. The noun of the act is מכרה, the deed through which people come together into acquaintance, as כלי חמס מכרתיהם (Bereishis 49:5), instruments of violence are their bond: the deed of the instruments of violence was their מכרה, through which they became friends and acquaintances.

The place from which a man's lineage and connections, his doings and his worth, are known is also called מכרה, as מכרתיך ומלדתיך (Yechezkel 16:3), your origins and your birthplace; בארץ מכרותיך (Yechezkel 21:35), in the land of your origins; על ארץ מכורתם (Yechezkel 29:14), to the land of their origin. The place where a man was born is called מולדתו, his birthplace; the place where he lives as a sojourner is called מגוריו, his dwelling; the place where he does his business is called מכרה. Those with whom he trades and is acquainted are his מכרים, as איש מאת מכרו (Melachim II 12:6), each man from his acquaintance, and מאת מכריכם (Melachim II 12:8), from your acquaintances: they know one another through trade.

Recognition takes a nun in two ways. One is the passive verb, as ולא נכר שוע לפני-דל (Iyov 34:19), and the rich man is not recognized before the poor, and נכרו בחוצות (Eichah 4:8), recognized in the streets. The other is a nun added to the root, which gives the noun נכר, as מכל בן נכר (Bereishis 17:12), from any son of a stranger, and it means the absence of recognition. A thing not recognized is called נכר, removed from recognition, as ודשנו את המזבח (Bamidbar 4:13) is the clearing of ashes from the altar and ותשרש שרשיה (Tehillim 80:10) the taking out of roots. Rav Pappenheim gives a second reason: הכרה is rooted in כריה, searching out what is hidden, which is the wish to recognize a thing, and that wish belongs only to what is not yet recognized for what it is. It is human nature, when something strange comes before a man, to want to know it and recognize it thoroughly. So the noun נכר is itself a word of recognition, but the noun of the trying and the wish: a thing one still wishes to recognize and still strains to, that is, a thing not yet recognized.

נכר is like זר, a stranger, but זר comes from נזירות and הפרשה, separation and setting apart: one separated from something in respect of kinship. נכר comes from הכרה: one who lacks acquaintance.

With the yod of relation, נכרי, a foreigner, places a man among others like him: where there are many who are not recognized, each is called נכרי, one of a body of many who are not recognized, as לעם נכרי, to a foreign people, that is, to some people among the peoples that are not known; לנכרי תשיך (Devarim 23:21), to the foreigner you may lend at interest, to a man of a nation that is not known. נכר is said as well of one with whom it is not fitting to have acquaintance, as את הנכרי תגש (Devarim 15:3), the foreigner you may press, and לנכרי תשיך (Devarim 23:21): one with whom you should have no acquaintance, though you know him well. So too הסירו את אלהי הנכר (Bereishis 35:2), put away the foreign gods: gods that you must not recognize; and מנכריה אמריה החליקה (Mishlei 2:16), from the foreign woman who makes her words smooth: the woman who ought to be to you as a stranger, the reverse of ואין לי מכיר (Tehillim 142:5), I have no one who acknowledges me.

Sometimes נכרי is used for strangeness alone, as נכרי ואל שפתיך (Mishlei 27:2), a stranger and not your own lips. It does not mean a man you do not know, or one of another people, or one you ought not know, but זר, one not related to you. Since the beginning of the pasuk already said יהללך זר ולא פיך (Mishlei 27:2), let a stranger praise you and not your own mouth, the beauty of style required נכרי in its second half, so as not to use one word twice for one matter. So too זר מעשהו... נכריה עבדתו (Yeshayahu 28:21), strange is His deed... foreign is His work, and לא יהיה בך אל זר ולא תשתחוה לאל נכר (Tehillim 81:10), there shall be no strange god among you, and you shall not bow to a foreign god.

As a verb, פן ינכרו צרימו (Devarim 32:27), lest their foes make it strange, is transitive: they would exchange the recognized thing for something foreign and strange. So too ואתתם לא תנכרו (Iyov 21:29), and their signs you do not make strange; וינכרו את המקום הזה (Yirmiyahu 19:4), and they made this place strange; ביום נכרו (Ovadiah 1:12), on the day he was made strange. The passive, בשפתו ינכר שונא (Mishlei 26:24), with his lips a hater is unrecognized: through the smoothness of his lips his hatred is not recognized. The reflexive, ויתנכר אליהם (Bereishis 42:7), and he made himself strange to them: he presented himself as a stranger; and והיא מתנכרה (Melachim I 14:5), and she is disguising herself.

All the commentators take יתנכר in גם במעלליו יתנכר נער (Mishlei 20:11) as transitive, even by his deeds a youth is known: from a child's doings one recognizes what he will become. Rav Pappenheim asks two questions of them all. What does גם, even, add: what is there besides his deeds by which he could be known? And every other reflexive form of נכר is intransitive, as ויתנכר אליהם (Bereishis 42:7) and והיא מתנכרה (Melachim I 14:5); why should this one alone be transitive? So he holds that here too it is intransitive, and נער, a youth, goes with גם: even a youth disguises himself by his deeds. Not only a grown man of full understanding disguises himself by his deeds, making himself out pure and upright when he is not; even a young child without full understanding sometimes knows how to deceive people by his deeds, like Esav, איש ציד, a man of the hunt, who knew how to deceive his father.

From הכרה comes כור, as מכור הברזל (Devarim 4:20), out of the iron furnace; וכור לזהב (Mishlei 17:3), and a furnace for gold; כור סגים כסף (Yechezkel 22:18), a furnace, the dross of silver. It is a kind of oven in which raw metals dug from the ground are melted, called כור for the recognition, since through it the pure metal, mixed at first with the earth and not recognizable, comes to be recognized; in the sense of הנני צורפם ובחנתים (Yirmiyahu 9:6), behold I will smelt them and test them. Since the furnace for melting raw iron ore needs more firing than the furnaces for other metals, iron being the hardest of them, one who escapes great distress is said to have come out of the iron furnace. Or כור is from כריה, since the earth dug from the ground is put into it; and the name may be from כריה as a pit dug to melt the metal ore in.

From כור comes ככר: ככר זהב (Shemos 25:39), a talent of gold; ככר כסף (Melachim I 20:39), a talent of silver; ככר עפרת (Zechariah 5:7), a talent of lead. It is the weight of metal put into the furnace at one time, or the weight of metal that comes out of it at one time; compare איפה, a measure of grain that is baked at one time. From כור too come כירה and כירים, stoves: תנור וכירים (Vayikra 11:35), an oven and a stove; ככיור אש בעצים (Zechariah 12:6), like a fire-pan among wood; from כריה, a digging in the ground. Bread baked in it is called ככר, as וככר לחם אחת (Shemos 29:23), and one loaf of bread, that is, the one baked on the stove. The vessel made for washing is called כיור, as ועשית כיור נחשת (Shemos 30:18), and you shall make a copper laver, because it has the shape of a כור.

From כריה also comes כר, as כר נרחב (Yeshayahu 30:23), a broad pasture, and לבשו כרים הצאן (Tehillim 65:14), the pastures are clothed with flocks. It is a kind of field, very fat and moist, good for sowing and for grazing, and a trench is dug round about it to drain off the excess moisture, so it is called כר. The fat field called כר, when it is very large, is called ככר: ככר הירדן (Bereishis 13:10), the plain of the Yarden; ואת הנגב ואת הככר (Devarim 34:3), and the Negev and the plain; ומן הככר סביבות ירושלם (Nechemiah 12:28), and from the plain around Yerushalayim.

Because the כר is trenched round, the square plots with a trench round them that are made around a besieged city are called כרים, as ושים עליה כרים, and set כרים against it, and לשום כרים (Yechezkel 21:27), to set כרים. The picked soldiers who work at the כרים are called כרי, as לכרי ולרצים (Melachim II 11:4), to the Kari and to the runners, or כרתי, as והכרתי והפלתי (Shmuel II 8:18), and the Kereisi and the Peleisi, and על הכרתי ועל הפלתי (Shmuel II 20:23), over the Kereisi and over the Peleisi. Rav Pappenheim also suggests that the כרים made against a fortified city to throw down its walls, ושים עליה כרים (Yechezkel 4:2), and set כרים against it, take their name from the כרים of the flock, since they have horns to butt with, like the rams butting at the wall that Sefer Yosipon tells of.

A kind of grain measure is also called כר, as כר סלת וששים כר קמח (Melachim I 5:2), kor of fine flour and sixty kor of meal, and מעשר הבת מן הכר (Yechezkel 45:14), the tenth of a bas from the kor. It is the measure that holds the amount of grain needed to sow a field called כר; compare איפה, the quantity for one baking. ככר כסף, a talent of silver, is likewise silver in the quantity put into the smelting furnace.

The flock that grazes on the rich pasture called כר is called כרים: עם חלב כרים (Devarim 32:14), with the fat of pasture flocks; ועל הכרים ועל כל הטוב (Shmuel I 15:9), and the pasture flocks and all that was good; כיקר כרים (Tehillim 37:20), like the preciousness of pasture flocks. The singular is שלחו כר (Yeshayahu 16:1), send a sheep of the pasture flock. The saddle cloth made from the skin of a כר is also called כר, as ותשמם בכר הגמל (Bereishis 31:34), and she put them in the camel's cushion; and this is the sense of ובצבים ובפרדים ובכרכרות (Yeshayahu 66:20), and in covered wagons and on mules and in cushioned carriages: carriages dressed with cushions and coverings. Possibly כיקר כרים כלו בעשן (Tehillim 37:20), like the preciousness of כרים they are consumed in smoke, speaks of costly cushions made from the skins of the flock, which are ruined when they come into smoke, as in כי הייתי כנאד בקיטור (Tehillim 119:83), for I have become like a wineskin in the smoke.

A kind of dance is called כרכור, as ודוד מכרכר בכל עז (Shmuel II 6:14), and David was dancing with all his might: dancing like the sheep that graze on the כר, which have good pasture and are lively and very healthy, in the sense of וירקדם כמו עגל (Tehillim 29:6), He makes them dance like a calf, and תרקדו כאילים (Tehillim 114:6), you dance like rams. Possibly ובפרדים ובכרכרות (Yeshayahu 66:20), and on mules and in כרכרות, means carriages that leap, in the sense of ומרכבה מרקדה (Nachum 3:2), and a leaping chariot.

From כר, a kind of field, the one who works the כר is called, with an added aleph, אכר: in respect of sowing grain, as בושו אכרים (Yirmiyahu 14:4), the farmers are ashamed, and אכר וצמדו (Yirmiyahu 51:23), the farmer and his yoke; in respect of grazing the pastures, as אכרים ונסעו בעדר (Yirmiyahu 31:23), farmers, and those who move about with the flock; and in respect of both sowing and grazing, as אכרים וכרמים (Divrei HaYamim II 26:10), farmers and vinedressers. From כר as ground fat and fine for seed comes, with an added mem, כרם, ground fine for trees, whether a vineyard of vines or an olive grove: ועד קמה ועד כרם זית (Shoftim 15:5), as far as the standing grain and the olive groves. Those who work a כרם are called כורמים, as אכרים וכרמים בהרים (Divrei HaYamim II 26:10), farmers and vinedressers in the hills, and לכרמים וליגבים (Melachim II 25:12), as vinedressers and husbandmen.

From כר as digging comes the verb כרת, cutting: כריה cuts the soil and parts one piece from another. כרת is said of plain cutting, severing one thing from another, as ותכרת את ערלת בנה (Shemos 4:25), and she cut off her son's foreskin; ונכרתה הנפש ההיא מעמיה (Vayikra 7:27), that soul shall be cut off from its people, that is, cut off and parted from the good laid up for its people; ספר כריתות (Yeshayahu 50:1), a bill of severance; אשר נכרתו מימי הירדן (Yehoshua 4:7), that the waters of the Yarden were cut off; אשר כרתו לפני העגל אשר כרתו לשנים (Yirmiyahu 34:18), which they cut before Me, the calf that they cut in two. It is said too of a thing's coming to an end, cut off wholly from existence, as ולא יכרת כל בשר (Bereishis 9:11), and all flesh shall not be cut off; ולא תכרת הארץ ברעב (Bereishis 41:36), and the land shall not be cut off by the famine; להכרית הצפרדעים (Shemos 8:5), to cut off the frogs. And it is said of making a covenant, a cutting for good, which he explains at the root בר.

Also from כר is the verb מכר, selling, which by its forms and senses in Tanach comes from כריה and cutting and from recognition and estrangement. Reasoning bears this out: every sale has digging and cutting, since the seller cuts the thing off from the rest of his goods and from his possession, and it has recognition and estrangement, since the buyer comes into acquaintance with the thing he takes and the seller becomes a stranger to what he sold and estranged from it. Yet the language draws a difference within selling between where the sense is digging and cutting and where it is recognition and estrangement.

Where the sale is complete and final, the verb is מכר with the mem, from recognition and estrangement, as וימכור את בכרתו (Bereishis 25:33), and he sold his birthright; כי מכרו מצרים (Bereishis 47:20), for the Egyptians sold; לא ימשל למכרה (Shemos 21:8), he shall have no power to sell her; וטבחו או מכרו (Shemos 21:37), and slaughtered it or sold it. The noun is ממכר, ממכר לעמיתך (Vayikra 25:14), a sale to your fellow; or מכר pointed with segols, מביאים דאג וכל מכר (Nechemiah 13:16), bringing fish and all kinds of wares, from estrangement, on the pattern of ונכר לפעלי און (Iyov 31:3), and estrangement for the workers of iniquity. From this the word serves for a complete handing over, as כי צורם מכרם (Devarim 32:30), unless their Rock had sold them; כי ביד אשה ימכר (Shoftim 4:9), for into the hand of a woman He will hand over; נכר אותו אלהים בידי (Shmuel I 23:7), Hashem has delivered him into my hand. The reflexive, יען התמכרך לעשות הרע (Melachim I 21:20), because you have sold yourself to do evil, and אשר התמכר לעשות הרע (Melachim I 21:25), who sold himself to do evil: he gave himself over to evil deeds.

Where there is no complete sale but only part of one, that is, hire, where the seller is not wholly estranged from the thing and the buyer gains no complete and final acquaintance with it, the verb comes without the mem, as כר: from digging and cutting, since he does an act of cutting in the thing but is not wholly estranged from it. Its forms then follow the verb כרה, as וגם מים תכרו מאתם (Devarim 2:6), and water too you shall acquire from them: you shall hire wells from them as a whole, to draw from them as much as you need, for it was not the practice to take water from them by measure for six hundred thousand people and their animals. The wells stayed with their owners and only the water was cut off from their possession, so the word falls under כריה. So too ואכרה לי בחמשה עשר כסף (Hoshea 3:2), so I acquired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, which was likewise not a purchase but hire; and יכרו עליו חברים (Iyov 40:30), will partners trade over him: commerce and dealing, where they agree among themselves how much each will lay out and how much each will earn.

The noun with a suffix: ונתתי מכרם (Bamidbar 20:19), I will pay their price, that is, what is paid to hire wells of water. ורחק מפנינים מכרה (Mishlei 31:10), her price is far beyond pearls: the sum fitting to give a woman of valor hired as a wife is far beyond pearls. Taking a wife is not like acquiring other goods, which a man may do with as he pleases; taking a wife is like hire, for the woman's own person stays in her own domain and not in her husband's, except for what touches the marriage. Without the suffix the noun is מכרה, as ומכרה מלח (Tzefaniah 2:9), and a salt pit, on the pattern of מקרה, a happening.