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Distinctions

Tza'if (צעיף)

Three times in Tanach, all in Bereishis: Rivkah bashfully covers herself with a tza'if on meeting Yitzchak (24:65), and Tamar, disguising herself, removes her widow's clothing and covers herself in one (38:14), and afterward removes it (38:19).

Several read the word as a contraction.

• Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo (Midrash Sechel Tov to Bereishis 24:65) parses it as mutza al paneha, spread upon her face;
• Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Ohalei Yehudah) as tza (from mutza, spread) plus af (from apayim, face);
• Rabbi Saadia al Damari (Midrash HaBeiur there) as a notarikon of tzaf al paneha, floats on her face.

The classical lexicographers (including Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Radak) all trace it to the root צ-ע-ף. Wilhelm Gesenius argues that צ-ע-ף is a permutation of ע-ט-ף, wrapping, by the interchange of tes and tzadi together with metathesis; Shadal (to Bereishis 24:65) cites this approvingly.

On Onkelos' eifa: Targum pseudo-Yonasan and Targum Yerushalmi (to 24:65, 38:14, 38:19) consistently render tza'if as redida, but Onkelos there consistently renders it eifa (ע-פ-א).

• Rabbi Avraham Vilner, son of the Vilna Gaon (1765 to 1808, Tirgem Avraham to Bereishis 24:65), explains it as tza'if with the initial tzadi dropped. Rabbi Yaakov Zev Lev (Me'at Tzari to Bereishis 38:14) explains that this may result from a Hebrew tzadi very often becoming an Aramaic ayin (as tzemer becomes amar): since tza'if already has an ayin after its tzadi, the first letter was simply dropped. (Eifah, with a final hei, is also the name of Avraham's grandson through Midyan, Bereishis 25:4, Divrei HaYamim I 1:33.)
• Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo explains that eifa in Aramaic means doubling, folding, or wrapping (see Targum Onkelos to Shemos 26:9, 28:16), because the tza'if was so thin as to be fairly see-through and had to be folded over to be opaque enough to obscure the wearer's hair. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg of the Veromemanu Foundation adds that this sense of the Aramaic ע-ף is similar to the Hebrew ע-ב (av, thick), and the two roots might be connected by the interchange of peh and beis.
• Alternatively, Rabbi Yitzchak Ratzabi (a prominent Yemenite rabbi in the Neve Achiezer neighborhood of Bnei Brak) explains that the tza'if was worn with its edges or sides folded to fit the wearer, and suggests that perhaps it relates to doubling because it was an extra head covering worn in addition to another. He also reads the initial tzadi as a hint to tzei (go out), understanding the tza'if as what a woman primarily wore when going outside (contrast redid, under Rabbi Pappenheim below).

Rav Hirsch has two comments.

• To Bereishis 24:65 he suggests that צ-ע-ף is related to ש-א-ף, by the interchange of tzadi with shin and of ayin with aleph: that root is drawing into oneself by inhaling, as one draws the tza'if close by wrapping it snugly.
• To Bereishis 40:6 he relates it to the phonetically similar ז-ע-ף (upset, troubled): a tza'if veils the face from without, while a troubled countenance is veiled from within, looking like that of a sleeping or dead person, the life missing from the expression.

Redid (רדיד)

Twice in Tanach: the city watchmen beat the woman searching for her beloved and strip her redid from her (Shir HaShirim 5:7), and redidim appear among the adornments the daughters of Tzion haughtily wore (Yeshayahu 3:23). A 1984 essay in Beit Mikra by the Bible scholar Samuel Shaviv takes the second as Yeshayahu borrowing from Shir HaShirim, which would make Shir HaShirim the earlier book and lend credence to the traditional view that Shlomo HaMelech wrote it, against the popular academic view that places it in the Persian period after the destruction of the First Temple.

Once in the Mishnah, on how much of a string hanging from a redid counts as part of it for tumah (Keilim 29:1).

• In that context Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HeAruch) defines a radid as a thin tza'if that women use to cover their heads.
• Ibn Ezra (to Yeshayahu 3:23 and Shir HaShirim 5:7) explains that in Arabic redid is something akin to a tallis, a shawl, and Radak (there) similarly calls it a thin garment.
• Radak relates the Hebrew redid to the Arabic arid; Sefer HeAruch and others connect it with the Arabic rida, a fabric for wrapping the upper body.

Rambam mentions a custom that women did not appear in public, even with their hair covered, unless wrapped in a redid (Hilchos Ishus 13:11, 24:12); by contrast the suspected sotah is made to appear before the onlookers without her redid as part of her degradation (Hilchos Sotah 3:5). It appears once more in his code, where a judge disqualified himself because a litigant had removed a feather from the judge's redid, a favor that compromised his impartiality (Hilchos Sanhedrin 23:3).

On the name:

• Metzudas Tzion (to Yeshayahu 3:23) implies that the thinness of the cloth gives it its name, since merudad, from ר-ד-ד, is what has been beaten down or subdued until very thin (see Targum Onkelos to Shemos 39:3).
• Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras first offers something similar and then suggests parsing redid as ra'ah (see) and dod (beloved), a redid being the ornament whose wearing exudes closeness by beautifying the wearer.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim traces redid to the biliteral ר-ד, whose core sense is descending: yeridah (going down, hanging down), marud (a lowered, embittered state), rodeh (ruling, since a ruler lowers others beneath him), mered (rebellion, shaking off being lowered), tardemah (a sleep that falls upon a man and overtakes him), and nerd, the spice mentioned three times in Tanach (Shir HaShirim 1:12, 4:13, 4:14), which falls as sap from the plant, or overpowers by its scent, or brings on sleep. He then gives three ways redid returns to that core: it hangs down from head or shoulders (Rabbi Ratzabi offers a similar explanation); many women wore two head coverings, an outer decorative one (a tzanif, or perhaps a tza'if, as above) and an inner one covering the hair, the redid, "lowered" in rank beneath the outer one (so rodeh); or it was a head covering women might wear lightly while sleeping, which ties it to tardemah. Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein adds a suggestion of his own, a "sort of feminist interpretation": that forcing women to cover their hair might be a form of ruling over them, which would fit the root's sense of ruling.

Sudar (סודר)

Not part of the pair. All Biblical cases of tza'if and redid refer to a shawl worn by a woman, while the Talmud has a term for a shawl worn by a man, sudar. It appears multiple times in the Mishnah (Shabbos 3:3, 20:2, Yoma 6:8, Sanhedrin 6:1, 7:2-3, Tamid 7:3, Keilim 29:1) and can also mean a cloth waved as a signal. Rabbi Ernest Klein's etymological dictionary of Hebrew derives it as a back-formation from a supposed plural sudarim, from the Greek soudarion, borrowed from the Latin sudarium, a cloth for wiping off perspiration, from sudor, sweat, which goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root sweid- or svoid-, to sweat. From the same root come English sweat, sweater, and exude, the Yiddish shvitz, and the Modern Hebrew sveder.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Chayei Sarah: All Wrapped Up," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 23 November 2024.

Cited in the essay: Bereishis 24:65, 25:4, 38:14, 38:19, 40:6; Divrei HaYamim I 1:33; Yeshayahu 3:23; Shir HaShirim 1:12, 4:13, 4:14, 5:7; Targum pseudo-Yonasan, Targum Yerushalmi, and Onkelos to Bereishis 24:65, 38:14, 38:19; Targum Onkelos to Shemos 26:9, 28:16, 39:3; Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo, Midrash Sechel Tov to Bereishis 24:65; Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras, Ohalei Yehudah; Rabbi Saadia al Damari, Midrash HaBeiur to Bereishis 24:65; Rabbi Avraham Vilner, Tirgem Avraham to Bereishis 24:65; Rabbi Yaakov Zev Lev, Me'at Tzari to Bereishis 38:14; Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, and Radak; Shadal to Bereishis 24:65, citing Gesenius; Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 24:65 and 40:6; Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg; Rabbi Yitzchak Ratzabi; Samuel Shaviv's 1984 essay in Beit Mikra; Mishnah Keilim 29:1, and for sudar Shabbos 3:3, 20:2, Yoma 6:8, Sanhedrin 6:1, 7:2-3, Tamid 7:3; Sefer HeAruch s.v. radid; Ibn Ezra to Yeshayahu 3:23 and Shir HaShirim 5:7; Radak to Yeshayahu 3:23; Rambam, Hilchos Ishus 13:11 and 24:12, Hilchos Sotah 3:5, Hilchos Sanhedrin 23:3; Metzudas Tzion to Yeshayahu 3:23; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim; Rabbi Ernest Klein's etymological dictionary of Hebrew, s.v. sudar.