slaughter

Distinctions

Shechitah (שחיטה)

Root ש-ח-ט.

• Malbim: shechitah names the specific halachic act, cutting the animal's neck through the esophagus and the trachea.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740-1814), cited by Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, reads it wider: shechitah is a general term for any act that causes a living being's death, and halachic slaughtering is one case inside that term, not its whole definition. His two proofs: Chullin 17a rules that for the Noahide "his nechirah (stabbing) is his shechitah," and Moshe warns that the nations will say Hashem "slaughtered them (vayishchatem) in the wilderness" (Bamidbar 14:16), which cannot mean a literal neck-cut but a bringing-about of death.

Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia relates the rabbinic nechirah, stabbing an animal in its neck (the typical Noahide way of killing an animal, as opposed to properly slaughtering it), to chor, a hole, because it too involves making a hole; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives nichirayim, nostrils, from the same chor, a nostril being a hole in one's face.

Shadal (to Bereishis 9:3 and Shemos 23:18): shachat is related to sachat, squeezing, since slaughter presses the blood out; zevach is from zav, since its purpose is to make the blood flow.

Zevichah (זביחה)

Root ז-ב-ח.

• Malbim: slaughtering with a stated purpose, whether a ritual korban or meat for a festive gathering.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim narrows it: zevichah is a species of shechitah, killing for the purpose of sacrifice.
• Ralbag, who does not offer full definitions of these words, stands in two places: to Devarim 12:21 he says zevichah does not per force name the same act as shechitah and can also include nechirah (stabbing), which is a halachically unacceptable way of killing (see Targum Yonasan to Bamidbar 22:40); to Vayikra 1:1 he writes that shechitah and zevichah are in fact synonyms.
• Mahari Assad (Kovetz Ohr Yisrael 39): shechitah is said of kodashim and zevichah of chullin, and he asks why Chullin then opens hakol shochtin and Zevachim kol hazevachim. Sefer HaChochmah of the Rokeach (Shaar HaChiluk §5, p. 18): zevach is said of an offering, tevach of a small slaughter, and shechitah of either, large or small.
• Sifrei (Naso 23) counts zevichah and shechitah among the pairs where the Torah speaks in two expressions for one thing.

Tevichah (טביחה)

Root ט-ב-ח.

• Malbim argues that it is killing an animal for food in a general way, even outside the context of ritual slaughtering.
• Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim: it is a kind of shechitah defined by its reason, here ordinary human consumption.

The word appears three times in Chumash: u'tevoach tevach at Yosef's banquet (Bereishis 43:16), the thief who slaughters the animal he stole (Shemos 21:37), and the curse "your ox will be slaughtered (tavuach) before your eyes, and you will not eat from it" (Devarim 28:31); basically all other instances in Tanach fall outside the Chumash. The ordinary thief repays double (Shemos 22:3), but one who slaughtered or sold the stolen animal pays four times its value for ovacaprines and five for bovines. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer (1866-1935) uses the sense of tevichah to explain why the Torah chose that word there: without it one might have thought the penalty falls only on a thief who slaughtered the animal for no good reason or to anger its owner, and that a thief who slaughtered it to eat the meat rather than to make a profit could excuse himself. The word blocks the excuse, and the fourfold or fivefold payment stands.

Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach (990-1050), cited by Wertheimer, dissents on the word entirely: tevichah means cooking (compare Arabic tovech), so Yosef told his steward to cook, not to slaughter. Wertheimer answers that in a wide range of rabbinic sources tevichah plainly means slaughtering. In later Hebrew a tabach is a butcher (one who cuts up meat already slaughtered) or a cook; Modern Hebrew mitbach is a kitchen.

Tabach (טבח) as a title

Two occupations in Tanach are described with tevichah-related words: Potiphar, the Egyptian courtier to whom Yosef was sold, is sar ha'tabachim ("minister of tabachim," Bereishis 37:36), and Nevuzaradan, the Babylonian general who destroyed the first Beis HaMikdash, is rav ha'tabachim ("chief of tabachim," Melachim II and Yirmiyahu).

• Rashi to Bereishis 37:36: Potiphar was in charge of all those who slaughtered the king's animals.
• Ibn Ezra and Ramban follow Targum Onkelos: he was Chief Executioner, or at least chief warden over those on death row, which seems also to be the meaning of Nevuzaradan's title. The link is plain, an executioner slays men as a slaughterer slays beasts.
• Ibn Ezra to Daniel 2:14 says instead that Potiphar was Pharaoh's Chief Cook, so, Rabbi Klein observes, Ibn Ezra seems to contradict himself.

Rabbi Klein notes that there might be an etymological link between zevichah and tevichah: the two differ only in the first letter of the root and share BEIS-CHES at the end, Hebrew zevichah is rendered in Aramaic as devichah with zayin morphing into dalet, and dalet is sometimes interchangeable with tes. It is therefore understandable that when the Mishnah (Eduyos 8:4) declares that liquids in the Mikdash are ritually pure, Pesachim 17a disputes whether this applies to beis mitbachaya (the Mikdash's slaughter-house) or beis midbachaya (its sacrifice house).

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Slaughtering and Butchering," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 8 December 2018.

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Shemini: The Nosey Truth," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 6 April 2024.

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

Cited in the essay: Bereishis 37:36 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban and Targum Onkelos, and 43:16; Shemos 21:37, 22:3; Vayikra 1:1 with Ralbag; Bamidbar 14:16, and 22:40 with Targum Yonasan; Devarim 12:21 with Ralbag, and 28:31; Melachim II and Yirmiyahu on Nevuzaradan; Daniel 2:14 with Ibn Ezra; Mishnah Eduyos 8:4; Chullin 17a; Pesachim 17a; Malbim, Yair Ohr (זבח\טבח\שחט); Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo (עמ' 46-47); Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, HaKsav VeHaKabbalah; Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer; Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach; Rabbi Binyamin Mussafia; Mahari Assad, Kovetz Ohr Yisrael 39; Sefer HaChochmah, Shaar HaChiluk §5, p. 18; Shadal to Bereishis 9:3 and Shemos 23:18; Sifrei, Naso 23.