other
table
שולחן · פתורא · טכא · טבלא
Bottom line
Shulchan is the Biblical table, and the Aramaic petora is its standard equivalent; render both "table." Taka also glosses as shulchan, but on the best reading it is the small personal tray-table set before one diner, while petora is the long communal one. Tavla is a board or table top, a flat surface without legs. Where petora and taka stand together the difference is size and privacy, not vocabulary.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| שולחן | shulchan | table | the Biblical word; a top on four legs (Rash MiShantz) |
| פתורא | petora | table | the Targumim's rendering of shulchan; the large, communal table (Yudelovitch) |
| טכא | taka | tray-table | glossed shulchan by Rashi; in practice the individual's table (Yudelovitch) |
| טבלא | tavla | board, table top | a flat surface with no legs attached (Rash MiShantz) |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether petora and taka are one word or two. Rashi glosses both with shulchan: petorah at Beitzah 29b, taka at Berachos 46b, Gittin 67b, and Kiddushin 81a. The texts pull the same way: the story of Abaye at Rabbah's table (Pesachim 115b) reads taka in our printed text, petora twice in the Rif (Pesachim 25b in his pagination), and petora in the narration with taka in Abaye's question in Rabbi David Abudraham's citation. Against this, Rabbi Mordechai Dov Yudelovitch of Lida: petora is a large table, taka a small private one, the portable tray set before a single person at a festive meal or before an honored guest. The Bottom line follows Yudelovitch, because every Talmudic taka fits an individual's table: Rava's own taka removed while the Reish Galusa's still stood (Berachos 42a).
Whether tavla is a shulchan. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi): tavla is simply the Rabbinic Hebrew for the Biblical shulchan. Rash MiShantz (to Ohalos 15:2): they differ, since a shulchan is a top fixed on four legs and a tavla has no legs, even a bare plank. Follow the Rash where a halachic passage turns on construction; HaBachur's equivalence is a translation gloss.
The root of shulchan. Ibn Janach and Radak: the triliteral ש-ל-ח, "send away, dispatch, sword," though how the senses connect is not evident. Menachem Ibn Saruk: a quadriliteral ש-ל-ח-נ of its own.
Distinctions
shulchan (שולחן)
All 21 occurrences in the Chumash are the ritual shulchan of the Mishkan bearing the lechem hapanim; in the other 50 in Tanach it can be an ordinary table at which a king or great man eats and feeds his household. The Mishnaic shulchani, "moneychanger" (Maaser Sheini 4:2, Bava Metzia 2:4, Meilah 6:5, Keilim 12:5), is so called because he worked from behind a table on which he laid the money.
petora (פתורא)
The Targumim render shulchan as petora throughout, and Rashi (Beitzah 29b) defines petorah as shulchan; petoraah is likewise shulchani, a moneychanger (Rashi to Chullin 54b). Hence the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 20:7; Tanchuma Balak 4) and Rashi (to Bamidbar 22:5) on Balak sending to Bilaam pesorah: Bilaam was a kind of moneychanger, the kings running to him to do business as merchants run to a moneychanger. Shabbos 36a records that patora and its diminutive patorta once meant a large table and a small one, and that after the Churban the two senses switched.
taka (טכא)
Rashi glosses it shulchan (Berachos 46b, Gittin 67b). Once the taka is removed at the end of a meal one has shown intent to bench and may not eat again until he does (Berachos 42a); Rava, eating at the Reish Galusa's, continued eating after his own taka was taken away, since he was relying on the Reish Galusa's taka, which still stood. The word is not in Tanach, but Shadal and Rabbi Ezra Reuven Dangoor read the obscure tuku of "and they are tuku at Your feet" (Devarim 33:3) as related to it: Klal Yisrael sit at Hashem's table to receive His directives and blessings, as a guest at his host's.
tavla (טבלא)
Mishnaic (Eruvin 5:1, Yoma 3:10, Keilim 2:3, Mikvaos 4:2) and Talmudic (Pesachim 57a). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi) equates it with shulchan and connects it to the Latin tabula; Rash MiShantz distinguishes it, as above.
Rendering guidance
- Default: שולחן and פתורא = "table"; טכא = "table" in ordinary narrative, but "his own table" or "tray-table" where the sugya contrasts it with another's; טבלא = "board" or "table top," "table" only where no legs are at issue.
- Trap: English "table" absorbs all four without a murmur. Two places where it must not: Berachos 42a, where the point is that Rava's personal taka went and the host's remained, so "the table was removed" flattens the story; and Ohalos 15:2, where a tavla rendered "table" imports legs the Rash denies.
- Where Aramaic petora renders Hebrew shulchan in a Targum, use one English word for both; the Targum is translating, not distinguishing.
- שולחני = "moneychanger," but keep the table in view in the Bilaam derashah, where the whole reading depends on it.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Terumah: A Table for Thee," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 8 Adar Alef 5784 (2024-02-17): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/terumah-a-table-for-thee; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11261-terumah-a-table-for-thee.md. Primary loci cited: Bamidbar 22:5; Devarim 33:3; Yeshayahu 65:11 (the article prints 7:5; the pasuk about setting a table for Gad is 65:11); Mishnah Maaser Sheini 4:2, Bava Metzia 2:4, Meilah 6:5, Keilim 2:3, 12:5, Eruvin 5:1, Yoma 3:10, Mikvaos 4:2, Ohalos 15:2; Berachos 42a and 46b, Beitzah 29b, Shabbos 36a, Pesachim 57a and 115b, Yevamos 63b, Gittin 67b, Kiddushin 81a, Chullin 54b; Bamidbar Rabbah 20:7; Tanchuma Balak 4; Rif, Pesachim 25b; Rabbi David Abudraham to the Haggadah; Sefer HaTishbi; Machberes Menachem. Modern academic lexicography for the origins of petora and taka is omitted under house rule 9.