straying from a path

Distinctions

zenus (זנות)

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; the word names the departure from what was expected of her, not a trade. Moshe warns before his death that the people will stray, v'zanah, after foreign gods (Devarim 31:16). Avodah zarah and adultery both throw off a loyalty that was owed, one to Hashem and one to a spouse, which is why Hoshea and Yechezkel especially describe faithlessness to Hashem in the language of sexual straying.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces the word to the biliteral ז-ן, the nucleus of sustenance: hazan es haolam kulo in bentching, and mazon, food. Physical plenty in excess draws a person toward wholly physical pursuits, and where the surplus energy finds no outlet in labor or in learning it turns to craving; the Gemara warns that idleness leads to immorality (Kesubos 59b). Once zenus named departure from the sexual norm, it widened to departure from any expectation, avodah zarah included.

stiyah (סטיה)

Spelled with a sin in Tanach, with a samech in Rabbinic works. The sotah (Bamidbar 5) is the wife suspected of having turned aside from the path of fidelity. The satan is an adversary who blocks a person from continuing on his path. A shoteh is one whose conduct is unpredictable and follows no path at all, and from there the word covers anything 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 whose leaves do not grow three from one point (Succah 32b). The Gemara says a person does not sin unless a ruach shtus, a spirit of deviance, has entered him (Sotah 3a).

Rabbi Moshe Shapiro adds shitah, an ordered and systematic approach, as the same root inverted: the settled path against the departure from it, a pattern common in Hebrew where a root holds a thing and its opposite. He also reads the place name Shittim, where the people strayed after the daughters of Moav (Bamidbar 25:1), from stiyah.

the letter tet as a root

Rabbi Aharon Marcus proposes, as a singular view, that a single letter can bind words the way a root does, and that tet itself carries motion to the side: stiyah (deviation), natah (incline), hitah (turn aside), tateh (broom), tach (plaster), taah (err). On this reading the working letter of chet, sin, is its middle tet, so that to sin is to move off to the side. He adds that avon belongs with ivvus, warped, the sinner on a contorted path, and pesha with posea, one who has taken steps in the wrong direction. This is his own theory and stands on no earlier authority; use it as a derashah, not as lexicography.

Rendering guidance

• Zanah / v'zanu of the nation after other gods: "stray after," "go astray after." "Whoring after" is the older English convention and reads coarse in a sefer; "be unfaithful to" loses the path image.
• Zonah in Vayikra 21:7 is a halachic category, not an occupation. Where the halachah is the subject, keep zonah and gloss it.
• Shoteh in a halachic list (cheresh, shoteh v'katan) is "one who is not of sound mind," not "fool." Of a plant or a bechor it is "irregular" or "abnormal."
• Trap: English "stray" would absorb zenus, stiyah, and also toeh and taus, which are a separate cluster (see straying-toeh-taut.md); toeh is wandering in error, while these two are leaving a path that was known.
• The three words for sin, chet, avon and pesha, have their own entry (sin-chet-avon-pesha.md); Rabbi Aharon Marcus's readings above are additional to what is recorded there, not a replacement for it.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Straying from the Path," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 Elul 5778 (2018-09-08): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/straying-from-the-path; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7927-straying-from-the-path.md. Primary loci: Vayikra 21:7; Devarim 31:16; Bamidbar 25:1; Kesubos 59b; Yevamos 16b; Succah 32b; Sotah 3a.