return

Distinctions

shuv, teshuvah (שוב, תשובה)

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: the two-letter root ש-ב denotes returning to a prior place or situation. He groups with it hashavah, returning a lost object (Devarim 22:1) or stolen goods (Vayikra 5:23), since both address something earlier in time and set it right; lehashiv, "to answer," because the answer fills the hole the question opened; and shev/yeshivah, "dwelling," because settling in a place creates a home base one always comes back to.

Pappenheim adds a second sense that carries the whole idea of teshuvah: ש-ב can mean reverting to one's natural state even where that was never one's prior state. So Shabbos is a return to man's natural condition of rest even for someone who has never rested; so too lasheves, to sit, and shevi, a captive whose movement has been arrested. On the same logic Avraham's servant could ask whether to "return" (hasheiv ashiv) Yitzchak to Charan (Bereishis 24:5), a place Yitzchak had never been, since it was his father's homeland and so his natural place.

The article grounds this in Yechezkel 33:18-19 read with Berachos 29a. Chazal explain the righteous man who "returns" from his righteousness as one who sinned, repented, and went back to sinning, that is, an actual prior state. They do not say the same about the wicked man who "returns" from his wickedness, because righteousness is man's natural state and sin is not; the baal teshuvah returns to what he always was, whether or not he was ever there.

chazarah (חזרה)

Neither chazarah nor its verbs chazar/chozer occur anywhere in Tanach; they are Mishnaic Hebrew, and they mean variously to regret, recant, retract, repeat, return, or repent. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur: the Targumim regularly render Hebrew sivuv, "go around, circle about," with the Aramaic chazar and its cognates. So chazarah carries the picture of wheeling about in place, the correction of course rather than the arrival.

On the root ח-ז-ר in Tanach, the only word the article finds is chazir, "pig." Rabbi Menachem Ricanati (to Vayikra 11:2): the pig is a chazir because in the future Hashem will "return" to us the permission to eat it, our relationship to it reversing course. Rabbeinu Bachaya and Rabbi David Ibn Zimra hold this is not to be taken literally. Rabbi Yosef Ibn Kaspi: the name comes from the pig's habit of turning around backwards and walking in circles.

Rendering guidance

• Teshuvah in a mussar sefer: repentance, and where the drashah turns on the root, gloss it "the return." Do not render it "atonement"; that is kapparah and belongs to a different cluster.
• Shuv in a pasuk: return or turn back. Where the pasuk is about reverting to sin (Yechezkel 33:18), "turns back" carries the sense.
• Chazarah in Rabbinic Hebrew: going back, reverting, retracting, or repeating, whichever the context wants; chozer bo is "retracts."
• Trap: English "return" will absorb both words. When a passage uses them together (the colloquial chazar b'teshuvah), do not write "returned in return." Render the pair by its two motions: he turned his life around and came back.
• Do not use chazarah to explain a Biblical verse's word choice; the word is not Biblical.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Return to Sender: The True Meaning of Teshuva," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 6 Tishrei 5780 (2019-10-05): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8422-return-to-sender-the-true-meaning-of-teshuva.md. Primary loci: Hoshea 14:2; Devarim 30:2, 22:1; Vayikra 5:23, 11:2; Bereishis 24:5; Yechezkel 33:18-19 and 18:21-27; Berachos 29a; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo / Cheshek Shlomo on the root ש-ב; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur on the Targumic chazar; Ricanati to Vayikra 11:2.