What’s in a Word?

body

razor

תער · מורה · מתער

Bottom line

Taar is the plain word for a razor; the Torah uses it for the nazir (Bamidbar 6:5). Morah is the word the Neviim use in the same formula (Shoftim 13:5, 16:17; Shmuel I 1:11), and it is contested: Radak renders it razor throughout, while Targum and Rashi render it scissors by Shimshon and the fear of men by Shmuel. No source distinguishes the two words where both mean a razor, and no source in the column draws one. So render both "razor" unless the passage is Shmuel I 1:11, where the reading itself is the question.

Distinctions

taar (תער)

Bamidbar 6:5, "a taar shall not pass over his head." Rav Hirsch (to Bamidbar 6:5) relates it to ע-ר-ה, laying bare or exposing. That also explains mitaar, a sword's scabbard: as the razor takes off the hair and lays the skin bare, so the sword appears suddenly when it is drawn out.

morah (מורה)

The word in the Neviim for the same prohibition. Three etymologies are offered. Rashi (to Shoftim 13:5) ties it to י-ר-ה, "shoots" or "throws away," since the razor throws the hair off. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim takes the root as מ-ר, transferring or switching, the root of temurah (transferring kedushah from one animal to another) and mumar (one who leaves Torah for another religion): shaving away hair clears the way for new hair to replace it. And Vayikra Rabbah 10:5 hears "fear" in it: why is the taar called a morah? Because hair fears (morah) only the razor, which shaves it with a shaving of destruction, as it says "do not destroy the corner of your beard" (Vayikra 19:27).

The dispute at Shmuel I 1:11

Targum (to Shoftim 13:5 and 16:17) renders morah as scissors by Shimshon, and Targum (to Shmuel I 1:11) renders it "fear of men" by Shmuel; Rashi follows the same split in each place. Radak renders morah "razor" everywhere, and explains that Targum and Rashi are following Rabbi Yossi, who holds (Nazir 66a) that Shimshon was a nazir but Shmuel was not; on that view Chana's vow cannot be about a razor, so morah there must mean the fear of other men. Radak himself holds like Rabbi Nehorai, that Shmuel was a nazir, and so keeps "razor."

Rendering guidance

  • תער: "razor," always.
  • מורה: "razor" by default, following Radak.
  • Trap: at Shmuel I 1:11 the choice of English decides the machlokes. "No razor shall come upon his head" commits to Rabbi Nehorai and Radak; "no fear of man shall come upon him" commits to Rabbi Yossi, Targum and Rashi. Do not choose silently; where the passage bears on whether Shmuel was a nazir, give one reading in the body and the other in a note.
  • Trap: English "razor" absorbs taar and morah both, which is usually harmless, but not where Vayikra Rabbah 10:5 is being darshened. There the derashah runs on the sound of morah as fear, and the English must hold both: "the razor, the morah, of which the hair alone is afraid."
  • Do not manufacture a distinction between the two words in a footnote. The article looked and found none, and could not account for why the Torah says taar and the Neviim say morah.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Razor's Edge," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 12 Sivan 5778 (2018-05-26): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7768-razors-edge.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 6:5; Shoftim 13:5 and 16:17; Shmuel I 1:11; Vayikra 19:27; Vayikra Rabbah 10:5; Nazir 66a (Rabbi Yossi against Rabbi Nehorai); Targum and Rashi to Shoftim 13:5, 16:17 and Shmuel I 1:11; Radak there; Rav Hirsch to Bamidbar 6:5. The article's unattributed suggestion that morah derives from ע-ר-ה with the ayin dropped is omitted here under the Orthodox-sources rule.