What’s in a Word?

body

sleep

שינה · תרדמה · תנומה · לינה · דורמיטא · ישן

Bottom line

Sheinah is ordinary sleep, and doubles as the general term. Tardeimah is deep sleep, the sleep that overpowers a man rather than being chosen. Tenumah is drowsiness or dozing, the half-asleep state in which one still answers to his name. Linah is not sleep at all but staying overnight, and it applies equally to meat and to a corpse. Ibn Ezra's ranking, tenumah under sheinah under tardeimah, is the majority reading and the safe default; the Netziv reads the words as stages of one cycle, which inverts tardeimah.

Distinctions

sheinah (שינה)

Ibn Chayyuj, Ibn Janach and Radak: root י-ש-נ. Rabbi Yitzchak Zeldin (Shoresh Yesha) notes the root carries both "sleep" and "old" and holds them one idea; Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 24:1) supplies the sense, that age drains a man and leaves him needing sleep. Menachem Ibn Saruk gives the biliteral ש-נ, which Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim reads as "doubling" (shnayim, shanah to repeat, shinun, shinui, shein, shanah the year, yashan); sheinah belongs there because a sleeping man rehearses the day's thoughts a second time. Rav Hirsch: sheinah is ordinary sleep, the senses weakened but not severed, and he groups yashein with yashan, ishon laylah (Mishlei 7:9) and ishon bas ayin (Tehillim 17:8), all words for a deficiency.

tardeimah (תרדמה)

All the early lexicographers give ר-ד-ם. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 2:21) links it to ר-ת-ם, tying, through the dalet-tav interchange: in tardeimah the senses are fettered and the man cannot move at will; he suggests Eliyahu HaNavi sat under a rosem tree (I Melachim 19:4) for its narcotic effect. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim derives it from the biliteral ר-ד, downward movement, the root of rodeh (ruling by keeping others down, Bereishis 1:28; Vayikra 25:43) and meridah; tardeimah is sleep that lords itself over a man, taking him unwilling in the middle of what he was doing, and Rabbi Tedeschi-Ashkenazi reads it the same way. Bereishis Rabbah 17:5 and 44:17: tardeimah comes in three senses, ordinary slumber (Adam), prophetic slumber (Avraham, Bereishis 15:12), and mortima, read either as a death-like sleep or as hibernation.

tenumah (תנומה)

Root נ-ו-מ (Ibn Chayyuj, Ibn Janach, Radak) or the biliteral נ-מ (Ibn Saruk, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim). The Mishnah's misnamnem (Yoma 1:7; Pesachim 10:8; Megillah 2:2) is its diminutive, and the Gemara defines it (Megillah 18b): nim velo nim, tir velo tir, a state in which a man called by name answers, cannot give a reasoned answer, but can recognize a correct one. Rabbi Tedeschi-Ashkenazi ties the word to ne'um, speech, since one in that state can still talk.

the three ranked

  • Ibn Ezra (to Bereishis 2:21; Koheles 12:2): tardeimah deeper than sheinah, sheinah deeper than tenumah. Radak (to Bereishis 2:21, Tehillim 121:4, and Sefer HaShorashim) cites this and adds that the vayishan following tardeimah in one pasuk is a later stage, ordinary sleep during which Adam could feel, while he recovered. Peirush HaRokeach likewise makes tardeimah a strong sheinah.
  • Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4) sets the two together in the shofar charge: awake, sleepers, from your sheinah, and rouse yourselves from your tardeimah. Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch reads two sinners there, one lately slipped and easily roused, one long astray; Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer ties the pair to tekiah and the broken teruah.
  • Rabbi Yosef Nechemias (to Mishlei 6:11) counts five, adding linah as the time for sleeping and shechivah as the act of lying down.
  • The Vilna Gaon (to Mishlei 6:4): in sheinah thought has stopped, in tenumah the lids are shut but the mind still works; elsewhere (to Berachos 60b), the eyes are at rest in sheinah and not in tenumah.
  • Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (Chosam Tochnis) makes it circumstantial, not a matter of depth: sheinah goes with tranquility, tenumah with indolence, and tardeimah is either the end of a long sleep or the sleep of extreme fright, from the pasuk where a dark dread falls on Avraham with it (the article prints Bereishis 14:12; the locus is 15:12).
  • Malbim (to Yeshayahu 5:27): sheinah is natural sleep, tenumah sleep from extraordinary exhaustion; elsewhere (Tehillim 121:4) tenumah is one kind of sheinah.
  • The Netziv (HaEmek Davar to Bereishis 2:21) rejects Ibn Ezra: tardeimah is the lighter sleep of one just dropping off, which is why it precedes vayishan. Rabbi Ezra Reuven Dangoor similarly makes tenumah the first stage of sheinah, chronological rather than lighter. Rabbi Avraham Zacut (Ikkarei HaTalmud) makes tenumah the broken sleep of one kept awake by suffering and tardeimah the sleep of one so overwhelmed by it that he has no other recourse.

linah (לינה) and durmita (דורמיטא)

Roots ל-ו-נ and ל-י-נ (or ל-נ per Ibn Saruk); Shadal (to Bereishis 24:23) holds both one word. Eliezer asked for room lalin and Rivkah answered lalun (Bereishis 24:23-24). But linah is leaving something overnight, not sleeping, which is why it governs sacrificial meat (Shemos 23:18, 34:25; Devarim 16:4), a worker's wages (Vayikra 19:13), and a hanged body (Devarim 21:23). Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim ties linah to laylah; malon is any overnight lodging (Bereishis 42:27); and the same root gives "complaining," which Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 15:24) bridges as seeking shelter. As for durmita, the Zohar (Vayigash 207b) associates it with misah, death, on the sound, and Rabbi Chaim Vital calls it the Aramaic for sleep; the Aderet corrects him, since Targum consistently renders tardeimah by sheinsa (Bereishis 2:21; Mishlei 19:15; Iyov 4:13, 33:15) and the word appears in no Aramaic text at all.

Rendering guidance

  • שינה: "sleep." תרדמה: "deep sleep." תנומה: "slumber," "drowsiness," "dozing." מתנמנם: "dozing," or "half asleep" where the Gemara's definition is in play.
  • לינה: "staying overnight," and of an object "left overnight." Never "sleeping" when the subject is meat, wages, or a body.
  • Trap: English "sleep" and "slumber" cover all three, and loose usage destroys Rambam's shofar line, where sheinah and tardeimah are two conditions in one sentence. Render that pair "sleep" and "deep slumber," in that order.
  • Second trap: Bereishis 2:21 has tardeimah and vayishan consecutively, and they are not a repetition. Give them two English words, and say whose ranking you follow, since Radak and the Netziv order the depth oppositely.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Bereishit: Sleepy Words (Part 1/2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 29 Tishrei 5784 (2023-09-25), https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/bereishit-sleepy-words-part-12, and "Sleepy Words (Part 2/2)," 6 Cheshvan 5784 (2023-10-19), https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/sleepy-words-part-22; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11119-bereishit-sleepy-words-part-12.md and .../11120-sleepy-words-part-22.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 1:28, 2:21, 15:12, 24:1, 24:23-24, 42:27; Shemos 15:24, 23:18, 34:25; Vayikra 19:13, 25:43; Devarim 16:4, 21:23; I Melachim 19:4; Yeshayahu 5:27, 56:10; Tehillim 17:8, 121:4; Mishlei 6:4, 6:11, 7:9, 19:15; Iyov 4:13, 33:15; Koheles 12:2; Megillah 2:2 and 18b; Yoma 1:7; Pesachim 10:8; Berachos 60b; Bereishis Rabbah 17:5, 44:17; Zohar Vayigash 207b; Rambam, Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4. Two citation slips: the article prints Bereishis 14:12 for Bedersi's proof-text (the locus is 15:12) and 3:21 for Targum's sheinsa (2:21). Its Latin derivation of durmita and its citation of Alexander Kohut for Rabbi Avraham Zacut are omitted.