straying from a path

Distinctions

Zenus (זנות)

Straying from the paths of righteousness can be understood as deviance from the proper path, as children who reject the Torah they were taught are colloquially "off the derech." Zonah, colloquially a prostitute, literally refers to one who has strayed from a certain set of expectations. A zonah whom a kohen may not marry (Vayikra 21:7) is, for that issur, any woman who had relations with someone forbidden to her. Near Moshe's death Hashem tells him that the people will stray after foreign gods (Devarim 31:16), and the word for their straying is from this root. Idolatry and adultery are conceptually similar in that both eschew an expected loyalty, one to Hashem and one to a spouse, which is why Tanach, especially Hoshea and Yechezkel, uses words of sexual deviance to describe theistic infidelity.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740 to 1814) traces zenus, promiscuity, to the biliteral ז-ן, the nucleus of the words for sustenance: in bentching Hashem is He who sustains (zan) all of Creation, and mazon, food, is essential to sustaining life. He proposes that an over-abundance of mazon, a very physical substance, draws a person toward wholly physical endeavors, and this leads to lustful desires. Excess physical energy generally finds its outlet in strenuous activity (work, exercise, or Torah study); one who does not avail himself of such outlets enters dangerous territory, as the Gemara warns that inactivity leads to sexual misconduct (Kesubos 59b). This is the link between sexual deviance and sustenance. Once zenus named deviance from the sexual norm, it came to mean deviance from any expectation, and could apply to idol worship as well.

Stiyah (סטיה)

Spelled with a sin in Tanach, with a samech in Rabbinic works. The sotah is the wife suspected of having deviated from the path of fidelity. The satan is an adversary who impedes a person from continuing on a given path. A shoteh is a mentally incompetent person, whose erratic conduct is unpredictable and follows no specific path, and the word also covers the irregular: a bechor shoteh or bechor satan, a firstborn to his mother but not to his father (Yevamos 16b), and a hadas shoteh, a myrtle that deviates from the norm in not having three leaves growing together (see Succah 32b). The Gemara says a person sins only if a ruach shtus, a spirit of deviance, has entered him (Sotah 3a). From all of these Rabbi Klein concludes that the root ס/ש-ט refers to straying from a specific track.

Rabbi Moshe Shapiro (1935 to 2017) explains that shitah, a systematized and ordered approach (commonly an opinion in a Talmudic discussion), is also related to stiyah, and denotes its thematic diametric opposite: the systematized path against the one who deviates from it. Rabbi Klein calls this yet another example of a uniquely Hebrew phenomenon, in which words of polar opposite meaning are related in their roots. Rabbi Shapiro also relates the place name Shittim, where the people strayed after the women of Moav (Bamidbar 25:1), to stiyah.

The letter tes as a root

Rabbi Aharon Marcus (1843 to 1916) proposes what Rabbi Klein calls a wildly innovative idea: an individual letter, beyond making up roots, can sometimes itself be a root uniting the words that use it. The letter tes denotes movement to the side, that is, straying, as shown by stiyah (deviation), natah (incline), titah (turn aside), tata (broom), tach (plastering), taah (erred), and more. Most significantly, he argues that the active letter of chet, sin, is its middle tes, so that to sin is to move to the side, off the proper path. He adds that avon is related to ivvus, warped, the sinner being on a warped or contorted path, and pesha to posea, takes a step, the sinner having taken steps in the wrong direction.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Straying from the Path," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 8 September 2018.

Cited in the essay: Vayikra 21:7; Bamidbar 25:1; Devarim 31:16; Kesubos 59b; Yevamos 16b; Succah 32b; Sotah 3a; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo s.v. זן; Rabbi Moshe Shapiro; Rabbi Aharon Marcus.