waving

Distinctions

Which korban takes which

Tenufah is stipulated for the breast of a shelamim given to a Kohen (Vayikra 7:30, 7:34, 10:14-15; Bamidbar 6:20), the Omer (Vayikra 23:11-12), the shtei halechem and their lambs (Vayikra 23:20), the ram of the miluim with its menachos (Shemos 29:24, Vayikra 8:27) and its breast given to Aharon (Shemos 29:26-27, Vayikra 8:29), the Leviim at their inauguration (Bamidbar 8:11, 8:13, 8:15, 8:21), the asham and oil of the metzora (Vayikra 14:12, 14:24), the minchah of the sotah (Bamidbar 5:25), the cooked shank of the nazir's ram (Bamidbar 6:20), and possibly bikkurim (Mishnah Menachos 5:6). Terumah is stipulated for the right thigh of the shelamim (Vayikra 7:32, 7:34, 10:14-15; Bamidbar 6:20) and the thigh of the miluim ram (Shemos 29:27). Several pesukim require both of breast and thigh together (Shemos 29:27, Vayikra 9:21, 10:15), and Toras Kohanim (Tzav, parshasa 11) derives from the mixing that whatever needs tenufah needs terumah and the reverse.

The two axes

Mishnah Menachos 5:6 implies that one of the two is vertical and the other horizontal. Rashi (to Shemos 29:26-27, Vayikra 7:34, 10:15): terumah is up and down, tenufah is back and forth; Ibn Ezra (long commentary to Shemos 29:27) reads the same way. Rashi (to Shemos 29:24, following Menachos 62a) adds the meaning: the horizontal tenufah toward the four directions declares that all four are Hashem's, and the vertical terumah that heaven and earth are His; tenufah wards off harmful winds that travel horizontally, terumah harmful dews that come down from above. Peirush HaRokeach and Baal HaTurim (to Vayikra 7:30) find the hint in the count: in the shelamim parashah (Vayikra 7:28-38) forms of tenufah appear four times (three, with an extra hei counted as a fourth) and forms of terumah twice, matching four lateral directions against two vertical ones.

Rabbeinu Avraham ben HaRambam (to Shemos 29:24) holds that tenufah itself means both back and forth and up and down, evidently because in practice whatever requires the one requires the other; that settles the practice but not the words.

Why breast and thigh are named as they are

Rashi (to Vayikra 10:15) says outright that he does not know why the breast is tied to tenufah and the thigh to terumah when both limbs undergo both. Peirush HaRokeach (to Shemos 29:27, Vayikra 7:34) answers from the shape: the breast is a broad flank, fitting the widthwise tenufah, while the thigh stands upright, fitting the up-and-down terumah; see also Ramban to Vayikra 10:15. Rabbi Yosef Bechor Shor (to Shemos 29:24) answers that the two are simply synonyms and the Torah alternates them to avoid repeating itself, with no significance in which limb gets which.

Targum Onkelos complicates the picture. To Shemos 29:24 it renders tenufah with an Aramaic cognate of terumah, that is, as lifting rather than horizontal waving. Rabbi Yaakov Zev Lev (Me'at Tzari to Shemos 29:24) reads this as Onkelos disagreeing with Rashi and defining tenufah as up and down; and since Onkelos renders terumah of the miluim thigh (Shemos 29:27) as "separating" rather than lifting (Me'at Tzari there), he is not simply following Bechor Shor's synonymy either.

terumah as separation

Shemos 25:2, the donations for the Mishkan: Rashi glosses terumah as "separation." Rabbi Yehuda Kalats (Miseach Ilmim there) explains why it must be so: no physical lifting is involved in giving a donation, and the trei mi'meah reading cannot apply because no fixed amount was prescribed for the Mishkan; so terumah here is simply setting a portion of one's wealth aside for the sacred. (Tenufah likewise stands for a donation at Shemos 35:22.) As the Kohen's tithe, Mishnah Terumos 4:3 sets one fortieth for the generous, one fiftieth for the average, one sixtieth for the stingy, and the Zohar (Korach 179a), the Rambam (commentary to that Mishnah) and Sefer HaChinuch (mitzvah 507) parse the word itself as trei mi'meah, two per hundred, that is one fiftieth. At Vayikra 23:17 Rashi glosses Lechem Tenufah as Lechem Terumah, reading it as the loaves' raised sanctity rather than a physical wave.

The roots

In both words the initial tav is not part of the root: ר-ו-ם and נ-ו-פ. Ibn Janach (introduction to Sefer HaRikmah) and the Rambam (commentary to Mishnah Terumos 1:1) note that in rabbinic Hebrew the tav of terumah is treated as radical, hence torem.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim on ר-ו-ם, core meaning height and esteem: ram, marom, re'em, ramah (an arcing throw upward), mirmah (a crooked rather than straight way of acting), rimah (the worm that seems to hover above the ground) and rimon. Terumah is lifting one item up out of the rest of one's possessions for a higher purpose.

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim on נ-ו-פ, core meaning upward movement: l'hanif (to lift, especially a sickle), l'nofef (to wave), nafah (a sifter), nof (the top branch), anaf (a form of anger), anafah (a bird), niuf (licentiousness). His resolution of the two: terumah is specifically the up-down axis, while tenufah is the broader term covering both axes, and the proof is the nafah, a sifter worked back and forth so that the fine flour falls down, which is both motions at once. Meshech Chochmah (to Shemos 29:27) and HaKtav VeHaKabbalah (to Devarim 23:26) make much the same point. He explains anaf as the anger that sets the body shaking, a tenufah-like motion, anafah as the bird easily provoked or whose flight resembles a wave, and niuf as motions of the same kind. This anaf is spelled with an alef; Rav Hirsch (to Tehillim 48:3) connects tenufah rather to anaf with an ayin, a branch, which spreads sideways from the trunk and not upward, matching back-and-forth motion that is not up and down.

Nofes, flowing honey (Tehillim 19:11, nofes tzufim), belongs to נ-ו-פ. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim ties it to nof, since the nectar sits at the top of the branch, or to tenufah, since honey was placed on coals and its scent waved about a room (see Rashi to Mishlei 7:17). Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras (Aholei Yehuda) reads nofes as figuratively lifted above other foods for its esteem, and reads ramos (Iyov 28:18), from terumah's root, the same way, a gem so rare it is figuratively raised above the rest. Ramos as topographical heights gives Ramos Gilad and the modern place-names built on it. Rabbi Yehoshua Steinberg reads the name Remalyahu as ר-ם plus the lamed plus three letters of the Shem; others take it from an otherwise unattested ר-מ-ל.

Rendering guidance

• Default: tenufah "waving," terumah "raising" (or "the raised portion"), and say once in a note that Rashi assigns the horizontal to the first and the vertical to the second.
• Trap: "elevation offering" and "wave offering" each absorb both words, and a pasuk like Shemos 29:27 or Vayikra 10:15, which names both acts for the same limbs, becomes a tautology in English. Give two verbs there: "waved ... and raised."
• Terumah the tithe stays transliterated and is never "wave offering." Terumah the Mishkan donation is "the portion set aside" or simply "donation," following Rashi's "separation" at Shemos 25:2; do not import lifting into it.
• Where a passage cites Bechor Shor's synonymy, do not translate the two words differently in that quotation, or his point disappears. Where it cites Rashi or the Rokeach, do.
• Lechem Tenufah (Vayikra 23:17) follows Rashi as "bread of terumah," the loaves raised in sanctity, not "waved bread," unless the passage is about the physical act.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Behaaloscha: Lift & Wave," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 16 Sivan 5784 (2024-06-22): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11422-behaaloscha-lift-wave.md. Primary loci cited: Shemos 25:2, 29:24, 29:26-27, 35:22; Vayikra 7:28-38 (7:30, 7:32, 7:34), 8:27, 8:29, 9:21, 10:14-15, 14:12, 14:24, 23:11-12, 23:17, 23:20; Bamidbar 5:25, 6:20, 8:11-21; Toras Kohanim, Tzav parshasa 11; Menachos 62a; Mishnah Menachos 5:6 and Terumos 1:1, 4:3; Zohar Korach 179a; Sefer HaChinuch 507; Rashi and Ibn Ezra ad loc.; Ramban to Vayikra 10:15; Peirush HaRokeach and Baal HaTurim to Vayikra 7:30; Rabbeinu Avraham ben HaRambam and Rabbi Yosef Bechor Shor to Shemos 29:24; Me'at Tzari to Shemos 29:24 and 29:27; Miseach Ilmim to Shemos 25:2; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim on ר-ו-ם and נ-ו-פ; Meshech Chochmah to Shemos 29:27; HaKtav VeHaKabbalah to Devarim 23:26; Rav Hirsch to Tehillim 48:3; Tehillim 19:11 with Rashi to Mishlei 7:17; Iyov 28:18. The article's aside identifying ramos with corals or shell per modern linguists is omitted here.