refusal

Distinctions

Mi'un (מיאון)

Cognates of mi'un appear forty-six times in Tanach. Vayima'en of Edom, who when Yisrael appealed for permission to cross their territory on the way to Eretz Yisrael flatly refused and even threatened military action (Bamidbar 20:21); of Yaakov refusing to be comforted for Yosef (Bereishis 37:35), of Yosef refusing Potifar's wife (Bereishis 39:8), of Yaakov refusing to put his right hand on Yosef's firstborn (Bereishis 48:19), of Amnon deviously feigning sickness by refusing to eat (Shmuel II 13:9), and in several other places. Nonetheless, the more familiar Hebrew word for refusal is siruv.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740-1814) derives mi'un from ein / ayin, "no," "is not," "has not": one who refuses stubbornly tries to ignore what he has rejected.

Siruv (סירוב)

A hapax at best, and even that instance is not universally agreed upon. When Hashem tells Yechezkel not to fear repercussions from the people over his prophecies, He calls them saravim and salonim (Yechezkel 2:6). The commentators agree that salonim are a kind of thorn; on saravim there are two approaches.

• Menachem Ibn Saruk (920-970), Rashi (1040-1105), Radak (1160-1234) and others explain that the people were "rebels" and "refusers," and Menachem goes so far as to define meridah by sarvanus and saravanim by mardus; on their reading this is the only instance in Tanach of the root ס-ר-ב in the sense of refusing.
• Menachem's famous interlocutor Donash Ibn Labrat (920-990) disagrees with that assessment, proffering instead that saravim is a kind of thorn, just as salonim is.
• Rashi, Mahari Kara and others compare salonim to silon (Yechezkel 28:24), which they likewise take as a thorn.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, however, distinguishes the two. He traces both to the two-letter root ס-ל, repeated action: salonim, said of the people, are those who repeatedly bother and provoke others, while a silon is a thistle whose many prickly spikes stab one who holds it again and again.

In that same perek Hashem uses forms of meri / meridah six times and Targum renders each with a cognate of siruv; and where Yechezkel 2:3 uses pesha for rebellion, Targum renders it with an Aramaicized meridah. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (1469-1549) points out in Sefer HaTishbi and Meturgeman that most instances of the Hebrew meridah, meri and mi'un in the Torah are rendered by the Targumim as siruv. The Targum renders vayima'en as vesarev at Bereishis 37:35, 39:8, 48:19 and Bamidbar 20:21. In light of this, Rabbi Klein writes, it seems that the two are indeed synonyms but are sourced in different languages: mi'un and its cognates, appearing many times in Tanach, seem to be genuine Hebrew, while siruv, which at most appears once, seems to be a borrowed Aramaic loanword, and so became more popular in post-biblical Hebrew when Aramaic had a stronger influence on the language. There is, however, another approach to the question, given below.

In rabbinic Hebrew sarvan is settled: the Mishnah (Berachos 5:3) rules that a chazan who errs is replaced at once, and warns that the replacement must not be a sarvan. The Rambam and Bartenura: ordinarily one asked to lead should show humility and decline at first, but here, replacing a chazan mid-tefillah, refusing the honor is out of place. One who badgers another and will not let up is misarev (Nedarim 8:7), and the word there is read two ways. Tosafos Yom Tov (s.v. hayu mesarvin) keeps it a word of refusing: he refuses to give up on changing the other's mind, refusing to accept the position of the other, who is unwilling, and so keeps pressing him to agree. Rabbi Klein notes the other reading: there misarev is not a word of refusing at all but of pressing, urging. The form sometimes takes an extra hei, mis'harev, for pestering (Rashi to Bava Kamma 28a, 32b, Chullin 94a).

Some derive this misarev from rahav, on the shafel pattern (Dr. Alexander Kohut, Aruch HaShalem s.v. סרב; Jastrow, pp. IX, 1023), and so the Bavli has mis'harev, meaning urging (Shabbos 10a; Bava Kamma 28a, 32b; Chullin 94a). In some places, similarly, sarhev means haste, like rahav (Berachos 47a; Shabbos 10a, 129b; Chullin 7b; Targum to Mishlei 1:16, 6:8; Targum Sheni to Esther 10).

Where they part

The early commentary to Targum Onkelos ascribed to Rabbi Yaakov Dienna (published under the various names Patshegen, Tzintzenes HaMan, and Sefer HaYair) asks why Onkelos, who typically renders mi'un as siruv, does not do so at Shemos 22:16, the verse that if the father of a seduced girl refuses to give her to the seducer for marriage the seducer must pay a penalty. The Hebrew reads im ma'en yema'en, yet Onkelos translates it as though it said, "and if the father does not wish." The meaning does not necessarily change; it is the wording that is unexpected.

Rabbi Dienna resolves this by positing that mi'un and siruv are not perfect synonyms and that their meanings do not always line up. Mi'un refers specifically to a case where somebody was asked to do something, perhaps a favor, and refused to comply; siruv implies a stronger refusal than simple non-compliance, the utter rejection of a proposition. Since the father declares publicly, before the court and before his daughter, that he does not want her to marry the seducer, he can be expected to use more toned-down verbiage, and so Onkelos did not want to render mi'un by siruv, which would imply more intense language than the father would likely use in public.

Similarly at Bamidbar 22:13, where Bilaam reports that Hashem me'en to let him go with Balak's men, Targum again avoids siruv, rendering "there is no will before Hashem to allow." Rabbi Dienna accounts for the unexpected phrasing by explaining that Onkelos felt the more vulgar siruv to be somewhat disrespectful when the refusal is Hashem's, and so rendered the passage creatively, a bit differently. On this approach the difference between the two lies in their meanings as well as their etymological roots, siruv somehow implying a more intense form of refusing than mi'un does. (On the difference between ma'en and me'en, see Midrash Sechel Tov to Shemos 7:27.)

The two technical senses

Mi'un in the Mishnah (Moed Katan 3:3, Yevamos 13:1-6, Bava Metzia 1:8, Sanhedrin 1:3, Chullin 1:7) is the procedure by which a girl married off rabbinically rather than by Torah law (for example, if she was orphaned of her father and her mother or brothers married her off) refuses her husband and is allowed to marry another. Siruv is refusing to heed a summons to beis din or refusing to listen to its ruling; such a man, held in contempt of the court, may be subject to sanctions resembling excommunication, and the dayanim may give the opposing litigant permission to petition a non-Jewish court. Rabbi Klein notes that a man in siruv is more brazen (mechutzaf) than a girl doing mi'un, so the two technical senses fit with Rabbi Dienna's view that siruv is the stronger refusal.

As for the English suffix in "refusenik": according to the Oxford English Dictionary the -nik of beatnik, no-goodnik, peacenik and kibbutznik is borrowed from Yiddish and Russian, and is said to have come into vogue especially after the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Biblical Refuseniks," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 June 2021.

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Of Thorns and Thistles," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 6 August 2022.

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Biblical Refuseniks," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).

Cited in the essay: Bereishis 37:35, 39:8, 48:19 with the Targum; Shemos 7:27 with Midrash Sechel Tov, 22:16; Bamidbar 20:21 with the Targum, 22:13; Shmuel II 13:9; Yechezkel 2:3, 2:6 with Menachem Ibn Saruk, Donash Ibn Labrat, Rashi, Mahari Kara and Radak, 28:24; Mishnah Berachos 5:3 with the Rambam and Bartenura, Nedarim 8:7 with Tosafos Yom Tov s.v. hayu mesarvin, Moed Katan 3:3, Yevamos 13:1-6, Bava Metzia 1:8, Sanhedrin 1:3, Chullin 1:7; Bava Kamma 28a, 32b and Chullin 94a with Rashi; Targum Onkelos; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Sefer HaTishbi and Meturgeman; the commentary to Targum Onkelos ascribed to Rabbi Yaakov Dienna (Patshegen, Sefer HaYair), to Shemos 22:16 and Bamidbar 22:13; the Oxford English Dictionary; Aruch HaShalem s.v. סרב; Jastrow, pp. IX, 1023; Berachos 47a; Shabbos 10a, 129b; Chullin 7b; Targum to Mishlei 1:16, 6:8; Targum Sheni to Esther 10.