What’s in a Word?

society

son

בן · בר · בת · ברת · בנות

Bottom line

Both mean son, and the difference is language, not sense: ben is Hebrew, bar is its Aramaic equivalent, which is why Targum renders ben as bar everywhere. Render both "son of," and keep whichever form the text itself uses in a name. What must not be lost is that bar in Aramaic also means outside or separate, which is why halachah prefers ben in a get and why the darshanim read a lesson into bar mitzvah.

Distinctions

ben (בן)

The Hebrew word, and the word of Tanach. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces it to the two-letter root ב-נ, building and producing: a child is what a marriage produces. From the same root he brings binyan (building), the building materials even (stone) and teven (straw), avnayim (a birthing stool, which helps the producing along), and binah/tevunah (understanding), which are the products of thought. He holds that bas (daughter) is also from ב-נ and should properly be banas, the nun dropping out in the singular and returning in the plural banos.

bar (בר)

The Aramaic word, at home in Aramaic texts. Wherever ben appears in Tanach the Targumim render it bar. The one apparent exception is Mishlei 31:2, a Hebrew pasuk that uses bar, and Malbim there argues that the word is Hebrew and means "choicest," not the Aramaic for son.

Bar in Aramaic also means outside or separate, in constant use in the Gemara; a baraisa is a Tannaic teaching from outside the Mishnah. Rabbi Pappenheim traces this second sense to the two-letter root ב-ר, exclusion or separation: bar is grain separated from its chaff, bor/boris is a cleaning agent that separates off filth, and bari (against shema) is the certainty in which all other options have been excluded; to which one may add the common bar minan, "apart from us." On this reading bar means son because the child was separated from his mother's person at birth.

That double meaning has a halachic consequence. Rabbi Yaakov Margolis of Regensburg (Seder HaGet) rules that in a get one writes "so-and-so ben so-and-so" and not bar, even though bar is standard in other shtaros, because a get must be as clear as possible and bar carries more than one meaning. The Maharshal upholds the ruling for a different reason: nobody would actually read "outside" there, but bar could be taken as an abbreviation for ben reb, and honorifics are kept out of a get. The Maharik disputes the ruling; the Rema codifies it twice (Even HaEzer 126:30 and 129:7).

bat / bas (בת) and the bar mitzvah

The Aramaic for daughter is barat, but the Targumim tend to leave the Hebrew bas untranslated (Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgaman), so bas serves in Aramaic too; hence bas mitzvah even in an Aramaic phrase. Why the boy is a bar mitzvah rather than a ben mitzvah has three answers on record. Rabbi David Ovadiah of Tiberias, in the name of Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk: because bar also means outside, teaching the boy that he now stands on the threshold of adult life, able to choose which path he takes. Rabbi Alexander Sender Feuerstein: the Aramaic word says he must master not only the Written Torah, mostly Hebrew, but the Oral Torah, mostly Aramaic. Rabbi Meir Mintzberg: ben connotes the son as the product of his parents' building, and bar the opposite, the son as separate and independent of them, which is exactly what the day marks, that his growth is now his own responsibility.

Rendering guidance

  • Render both "son of," and do not translate the connector in a name. "Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai" stays bar; "Yehoshua bin Nun" stays bin. Do not normalize one to the other, and note that Rashbi appears in both forms.
  • Trap: an English "son of" absorbs ben and bar alike, so any source discussing why a get says ben, or why the boy is a bar mitzvah, cannot be translated word for word; keep the Hebrew and Aramaic words themselves in the sentence and explain around them.
  • Bar in its other sense: "outside," "external," and in a Talmudic context often best left as baraisa, bar minan, milsa d'bar.
  • Ben in the construct before a noun works as an adjective in Hebrew (a ben mavess, a ben shanah); render by sense, not by "son of." See HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Shemos 12:43.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Boys and Bars," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach (2019-05-25): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8257-boys-and-bars.md. Primary loci: Mishlei 31:2 with Malbim; Rabbi Yaakov Margolis, Seder HaGet; Rema, Even HaEzer 126:30 and 129:7; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Meturgaman; HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Shemos 12:43; Rabbi Yehuda ben Kalonymos of Speyer, Yichusei Tannaim V'Amoraim, on why Rashbi is sometimes "Rabbi Shimon" plain and sometimes "Rabbi Shimon ben/bar Yochai."