action
survivor
פליטה · פליט · שריד · קליטה · מקלט · שרד
Bottom line
Pleitah is rescue by expulsion: the man is spit out of the danger, so a palit is a refugee. Klitah is rescue by reception: the man is taken in, as a miklat receives him, so render it refuge or taking in. Sarid is the one who could not get out and lived anyway: survivor or remnant. The trap is the stock pair sarid u'palit, where "survivor" will swallow both; keep them apart as "survivor nor refugee."
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| פליטה / פליט | pleitah / palit | escape, deliverance / refugee | saved by being spit out of the danger; the root means "emit, expel" |
| שריד | sarid | survivor, remnant | trapped and unable to flee, yet came through (Malbim, Bedersi); one of a small few (the Gra) |
| קליטה / מקלט | klitah / miklat | refuge, taking in | saved by being received into a shelter; not inherently about rescue |
Where the authorities disagree
What separates sarid from palit. Malbim and Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (Chotam Tochnit): a palit was in the thick of the calamity and fled out of it; a sarid was caught in the middle, could not escape, and survived regardless. The Vilna Gaon (to Yeshayahu 1:9) adds that sarid means one of the exclusive few who came through. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Shain reads it as a matter of whose war it was: survivors of wars waged by non-Jews are palit (Bereishis 14:13; Yechezkel 33:21-22), survivors of wars waged by Jews are sarid (Bamidbar 21:35; Devarim 2:34, 3:3; Yehoshua 10:28 and on), because a Jewish army may not besiege a city on all four sides (Sifrei to Matos §157; Rambam, Hilchos Melachim 6:7), so its enemies were never sealed in to be "spit out." The Bottom line follows Malbim and Bedersi, which governs every occurrence.
Where klitah comes from. Rabbi Yitzchak of Zeldin (Shoresh Yesha): ק-ל-ט is a metathesis of ל-ק-ט, "gather," since the sheltered are gathered into one safe spot. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg: a metathesis of ק-ט-ל, "kill," since the one received by a sanctuary escapes being killed. Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi-Ashkenazi (Otzar Nirdafim §380) derives pleitah from a two-letter root ל-ט; Rabbi Steinberg derives klitah from that same root, making the two words cousins. The Bottom line stays with the plain triliteral roots.
Bigdei srad (Shemos 31:10 and parallels). Rashi and Rashbam, following Targum Onkelos, take srad as "service" and the garments as the travel covers for the Mishkan's vessels (Bamidbar 4:1-15), Rashi conceding that ש-ר-ד is not used that way elsewhere. Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni read it as a cognate of sarid, covers made from the cloth left over. Ramban and Yoma 72a-b take them to be the bigdei kehunah themselves.
Distinctions
pleitah (פליטה)
Root פ-ל-ט. The core sense is not rescue but discharge: spitting out, releasing, emitting. Targum to Yonah 2:11 uses its Aramaic cognate for the fish spitting Yonah out; the Gemara (Chullin 108b, 111a, 112b) uses polet for a vessel expunging absorbed taste. Rescue is the special case of being ejected from a fate: the idolater's property is palat, spared the destruction his body suffers (Sanhedrin 10:4), and the Sotah's remaining body is not palit from her punishment (Sotah 1:7). The expulsion can run the other way, the sinners in the wilderness expelled from the Clouds of Glory and left to Amalek (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Seitzei §10; Rashi to Devarim 25:18). Personal names from this root are common: Palti, Paltiel, Platyah, and the Geonic Paltoi.
sarid (שריד)
Root ש-ר-ד. The leftover, the one still standing when the rest are gone. Malbim and Bedersi separate it from palit by the absence of flight. It pairs with palit as a stock phrase for total annihilation (Yehoshua 8:22; Yirmiyahu 42:17; Berachos 7a, Yoma 72b and 77a, Megillah 12b, Sanhedrin 44b, 95b, 105b, Avodah Zarah 4b). Sarid is also a place on Zevulun's border (Yehoshua 19:10-12).
klitah (קליטה)
Root ק-ל-ט. The abstract noun is post-biblical; Tanach has miklat, the place that receives (twenty times, in Bamidbar and Yehoshua, plus Divrei HaYamim I 6:42, 6:52), always of the ir miklat, and kalut, an animal whose hooves are closed rather than split (Vayikra 22:23; Bechoros 6:7, 7:6). The Mishnah's verb is plain reception: an object caught (kalat) by a person or a dog on Shabbos (Shabbos 11:6), dye that takes to the cloth (Shabbos 1:6). Reception need not save: when David passed Shaul's family before the Aron, those it was kolet were the ones put to death (Yevamos 79a), which Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad (Benayahu there) explains as their being held immobile before it. The Masoretic siman at the end of Vayishlach uses klitah for the parashah's 154 pesukim, though the word for survival in Bereishis 32:8 is pleitah.
Rendering guidance
- The stock pair שריד ופליט: "neither survivor nor refugee," or "no remnant and no fugitive." Do not render both with "survivor"; the pasuk is exhaustive by covering two different ways out.
- פליט in a narrative (Bereishis 14:13): "a fugitive" or "a refugee," not "a survivor," since the point is that he got away.
- שריד standing alone: "remnant" where the sense is quantitative (Yeshayahu 1:9 with the Gra), "survivor" where it is about a person who lived through it.
- Trap: English "escape" covers both the palit who fled and the sarid who merely was not killed; mark the flight in the palit line explicitly.
- Trap: קלט does not mean "save." Translate it "receive," "take in" or "catch," and let the rescue follow from the context, since the same verb is used for being seized to one's death (Yevamos 79a).
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Vayishlach: Saving Survivors," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 Kislev 5784 (2023-12-02): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/vayishlach-saving-survivors; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11148-vayishlach-saving-survivors.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 14:13, 32:8; Shemos 31:10 and parallels; Vayikra 22:23; Bamidbar 4:1-15, 21:35; Devarim 2:34, 3:3, 25:18; Yehoshua 8:22, 10:28-40, 19:10-12; Yeshayahu 1:9; Yirmiyahu 42:17; Yechezkel 33:21-22; Ovadiah 1:17; Yonah 2:11 with Targum; Divrei HaYamim I 6:42, 6:52; Yevamos 79a with Benayahu; Yoma 72a-b; Chullin 108b, 111a, 112b; Shabbos 1:6, 11:6; Sotah 1:7; Sanhedrin 10:4; Bechoros 6:7, 7:6; Sifrei to Matos §157; Rambam, Hilchos Melachim 6:7; Chotam Tochnit; Shoresh Yesha; Otzar Nirdafim §380.