wetness

Distinctions

lach (לח)

Three times in the Torah and four more in Tanach: Yaakov's still-lach branches (Bereishis 30:37), the nazir's grapes, whether lachim or dried (Bamidbar 6:3), and Moshe Rabbeinu at 120, "his eye had not dimmed and his leicho had not fled" (Devarim 34:7); also of flora that has not dried out (Shoftim 16:7-8; Yechezkel 17:24, 21:3). It is common in Mishnaic Hebrew (Demai 2:3; Eduyos 5:4; Menachos 9:2; Bechoros 6:3; Mikvaos 9:2; Niddah 4:3, 7:2).

The word is a test case in root theory. Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem), the biliteralist, gives the root as lamed-ches; Ibn Janach (Sefer HaShorashim) offers lamed-vav-ches or lamed-yud-ches; Radak and Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch) settle on lamed-vav-ches. Rabbi Moshe Tedeschi Ashkenazi relates lach to rach, soft. Pappenheim, with Ibn Saruk, takes lamed-ches as an element meaning moisture itself, and hangs a family on it: lechi, the cheek, a concentration of inner moisture, and from the cheek's flatness luach, a board; lechem, which restores inner moisture; and melach, salt, which draws liquid out.

ratuv (רטוב)

All the classical lexicographers agree on the root reish-tes-beis. It occurs twice in Tanach, both in Iyov: a well-watered plant, ratov before the sun (8:16), and the man robbed of his clothing, soaked by the mountain runoff, yirtavu (24:8). It is the Targumim's standing rendering of lach, and Rashi (Iyov 8:16, 24:8; Sukkah 10b), Ibn Ezra (Iyov 8:16), and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) simply define ratuv as lach. That the Targum renders lach by ratuv, as Rashi and Ibn Ezra note, suggests the two are not strictly synonyms at all: lach is native Hebrew, ratuv Aramaic.

Pappenheim (Yerios Shlomo) distinguishes them twice over. Quantitatively: lach is only slightly wet, not enough to wet what touches it, often something already partly dried, like Yaakov's branches or harvested grapes still moist inside as against raisins; ratuv has enough liquid to show on the surface and certainly to wet what touches it. Qualitatively: lach is the inner moisture of every living thing, without which it withers, while ratuv is moisture arriving from outside and sitting on the surface.

Mishnaic Hebrew keeps ratuv for wet (Tevul Yom 3:6; Uktzin 2:2) but far more often uses rotev, juices or sauce (Pesachim 7:2; Nedarim 7:6; Zevachim 3:4; Chullin 7:5, 9:1; Taharos 1:4, 3:1). Pappenheim reads rotev off ratuv, liquid too abundant to be absorbed, and equates it with biblical marak (Shoftim 6:19-20), a link already drawn by pseudo-Rashi to Nedarim 52a.

ra'anan (רענן)

Twenty occurrences in Tanach, only one in the Torah (Devarim 12:2). Ibn Ezra there equates it with ratuv, and in at least one place the Targum renders it so (Tehillim 92:15). Radak gives the root as reish-ayin-nun, Ibn Saruk as a four-letter reish-ayin-nun-nun. Rabbi Avraham Bedersi (Chosam Tochnis, the first Hebrew synonym lexicon) makes the distinction directly: ratuv is moisture from external water, ra'anan the internal moist freshness that lets a thing keep growing rather than dry and wither.

rutfash (רטפש)

A hapax: Elihu says that when a sick man's merits intercede, Hashem heals him so that "his flesh is revivified (rutfash) beyond his youth" (Iyov 33:25). Four-letter roots are rare in Tanach, so the commentators tie it back to ratuv. Rav Hirsch (Bereishis 25:6): the final shin is paragogic, leaving reish-tes-peh, equal to ratuv's reish-tes-beis by the peh-beis interchange. Rabbi Yosef Kara, Rabbi Yosef Kimchi, Sforno, Metzudas Zion (Iyov 33:25), Radak (Tehillim 103:5), and pseudo-Rashi (Nedarim 41a): a portmanteau of ratuv and pash, expansion, and Malbim similarly from ratuv and tafash, smeared. Rabbi Yosef Kimchi and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) read it as a cognate of ratuv, its first two letters matching ratuv's and its last two matching ratuv's last two in at-bash.

tofeach (טופח)

Rabbinic only (Eduyos 4:6; Keilim 8:3-4, 10:8; Taharos 1:9, 3:1, 8:8-9; Machshirin 3:5), and familiar from tofeach al menas lehatfiach (Berachos 25b; Yoma 78a), wet enough to make something else wet. Its root tes-peh-ches means something else in Tanach, the source of tefach, a handbreadth (the article calls tefach a cubit), and of words for length and extension; the column suggests, as its own proposal, that a thing soaked through swells in its dimensions.

mefulam (מפולם)

Three appearances in the Gemara, with no evident biblical or Mishnaic relatives for the root peh-lamed-mem: mefulamos fish accepted from a gentile on Yom Tov (Beitzah 24b); bohu as the mefulamos stones sunk in the deep from which water flowed (Chagigah 12a); and mefulamos stones, quarried from the sea bed and so untouched by any tool, fit for the mizbeach (Zevachim 54a; see Derech Chochmah to the Rambam, Hilchos Beis HaBechirah 1). Rashi in all three places: wet. Rabbi Nosson of Rome (Sefer HeAruch) instead defines it hearty, plump, or fat, and the column reconciles the two on the model of tofeach, so saturated as to be bloated. Ralbag (Bereishis 1:2) takes another road, reading mefulamos from palmoni (Daniel 8:13), itself from ploni and almoni, so that bohu means mysterious stones; so too the Rema (Mechir Yayin to Esther 2:1; Toras HaOlah 3:73).

Rendering guidance

• Trap: "wet" will absorb lach and ratuv. Use "moist" for lach, "wet" or "soaked" for ratuv, and keep the pair apart wherever halachah is at stake: how saturated a fabric must be before light squeezing on Shabbos is sechitah, and when a wet food counts as a liquid for bishul, both turn on it. Lach against yavesh is "moist" against "dry" (Bamidbar 6:3).
• Leicho at Devarim 34:7 is Moshe Rabbeinu's inner vitality, not surface wetness; "his freshness had not fled" reads correctly, "he was not wet" does not.
• Ra'anan of a tree is "leafy" or "verdant," of a person "fresh"; do not render it "wet," which is ratuv's word even though Ibn Ezra equates them.
• Tofeach al menas lehatfiach is a fixed halachic phrase. Leave it transliterated and gloss it once: damp enough to wet something else.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Titzaveh: Wet Words," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 15 Adar I 5784 (2024-02-24): https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/titzaveh-wet-words; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/11276-titzaveh-wet-words.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 1:2, 25:6, 30:37; Bamidbar 6:3; Devarim 12:2, 34:7; Shoftim 6:19-20, 16:7-8 (the article prints 16:8-7); Yechezkel 17:24, 21:3 (the article adds a 30:37 that does not exist); Iyov 8:16, 24:8, 33:25; Tehillim 92:15, 103:5; Daniel 8:13; Esther 2:1; Sukkah 10b; Berachos 25b; Yoma 78a; Beitzah 24b; Chagigah 12a; Zevachim 54a; Nedarim 41a, 52a; Machberes Menachem; Ibn Janach and Radak, Sifrei HaShorashim; Ibn Parchon, Machberes HeAruch; Pappenheim, Yerios Shlomo; Bedersi, Chosam Tochnis; Sefer HeAruch. Arabic, Persian, and Greek derivations in the original are omitted here.