What’s in a Word?

other

veil

צעיף · רדיד · רדידים · עיפא · סודר

Bottom line

Tza'if is the veil: the covering a woman spreads over her face, the word used of Rivkah and of Tamar. Redid is the shawl or wrap, a thin garment worn over the head and shoulders, and in Rambam's usage the outer wrap without which a woman would not appear in public. Targum Yonasan renders tza'if as redida and Onkelos as eifa, so the two Hebrew words are close, but the difference to hold is that tza'if is defined by what it covers, the face, while redid is defined by how it hangs, thin and draped downward.

Distinctions

tza'if (צעיף)

Three times in Chumash, all in Bereishis: Rivkah covers herself with a tza'if on seeing Yitzchak (24:65), and Tamar puts one on when she sets aside her widow's clothing (38:14) and removes it afterward (38:19). The classical lexicographers (Ibn Saruk, Ibn Janach, Radak) assign it the root צ-ע-פ.

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 over 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 over her face.

On Onkelos' eifa: Rabbi Avraham Vilner, son of the Vilna Gaon (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) accounts for the dropping: a Hebrew tzadi commonly becomes an Aramaic ayin (as tzemer becomes amar), and since tza'if already has an ayin after its tzadi, the first letter simply fell away. Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo explains that eifa in Aramaic means doubling or folding (Targum Onkelos to Shemos 26:9, 28:16), because the tza'if was so sheer that it had to be folded over to be opaque enough to hide the hair beneath it. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg adds that this Aramaic ע-פ is close to the Hebrew ע-ב (av, thick), peh and beis being interchangeable. Rabbi Yitzchak Ratzabi explains the folding differently, that the tza'if was worn with its edges folded to fit the wearer, or that it was an extra covering over another; he also reads the initial tzadi as a hint to tzei (go out), the tza'if being what a woman wore when going outside.

Rav Hirsch has two comments. To Bereishis 24:65 he relates צ-ע-פ to ש-א-פ, drawing into oneself, as one draws the tza'if close and wraps it snugly. To Bereishis 40:6 he relates it to the phonetically similar ז-ע-פ (troubled): a tza'if veils the face from without, while a troubled countenance is a veiling from within, the liveliness gone out of the expression.

redid (רדיד)

Twice in Tanach: the city watchmen strip the redid from the woman searching for her beloved (Shir HaShirim 5:7), and redidim appear among the finery of the daughters of Tzion (Yeshayahu 3:23). Once in the Mishnah, on how much of a string hanging from a redid counts as part of it for tumah (Keilim 29:1). Sefer HaAruch 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) compares it to a tallis, and Radak calls it a thin garment.

Rambam gives the social sense: women had the practice of not appearing in public, even with their hair covered, unless wrapped in a redid (Hilchos Ishus 13:11, 24:12), and the suspected sotah is brought 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 his redid (Hilchos Sanhedrin 23:3).

On the name: Metzudas Tzion (to Yeshayahu 3:23) takes it from the thinness of the cloth, since merudad, from ר-ד-ד, is what has been beaten down thin (Targum Onkelos to Shemos 39:3). Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras begins the same way and then offers a notarikon of ra'ah (see) and dod (beloved), a redid being the ornament whose wearing draws closeness.

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 overpowers him), and nerd, the spice of Shir HaShirim 1:12 and 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; it was the inner covering, "lowered" in rank beneath an outer decorative one (a tzanif, or the tza'if itself); or it was the light covering a woman wore while sleeping, which is what ties it to tardemah.

sudar (סודר)

Not part of the pair, but worth knowing: in the Mishnah (Shabbos 3:3, 20:2, Yoma 6:8, Sanhedrin 6:1, 7:2-3, Tamid 7:3, Keilim 29:1) the sudar is the shawl or cloth worn by a man, and it can also mean a cloth waved as a signal. It is a loanword from the Greek soudarion, from the Latin for a cloth to wipe off sweat.

Rendering guidance

  • Tza'if: veil. "Shawl" and "headcloth" are both defensible, but "veil" is what carries the two Chumash narratives, Rivkah covering herself before Yitzchak and Tamar concealing her identity from Yehudah.
  • Redid: shawl, or wrap. In Rambam's halachos, "wrap" reads better than "veil," since the point is going out into the street properly covered, not concealing the face.
  • Trap: English "veil" will absorb both, and "shawl" will absorb both the other way. Where tza'if and redid stand together (as they do wherever Onkelos and Targum Yonasan are compared on one pasuk, or in Rabbi Pappenheim's account of an outer and an inner covering), give "veil" to tza'if and "shawl" to redid and hold it.
  • Eifa in Onkelos is not a third garment; it is Onkelos' Aramaic for tza'if. Translate it "veil" and note the Aramaic if the sense of folding is at issue.
  • Sudar is a man's, so do not render it with the same English used for either of the women's coverings; "cloth" or "shawl" by context.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Chayei Sarah: All Wrapped Up," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach (2024-11-23): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11584-chayei-sarah-all-wrapped-up.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 24:65, 38:14, 38:19, 40:6; Shir HaShirim 5:7, 1:12, 4:14; Yeshayahu 3:23; Mishnah Keilim 29:1; Targum Onkelos to Shemos 26:9, 28:16, 39:3; Rambam, Hilchos Ishus 13:11 and 24:12, Hilchos Sotah 3:5, Hilchos Sanhedrin 23:3; Sefer HaAruch s.v. radid; Metzudas Tzion to Yeshayahu 3:23; Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 24:65 and 40:6. The article's academic material, a proposed root permutation from Gesenius and a journal essay on the dating of Shir HaShirim, is omitted here under house rule 9, as is the Proto-Indo-European derivation given for sudar.