where
At a glance
In short
Eifoh is the plain where, the most common word and, for Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter, the one for run-of-the-mill questions. Ayeh (and its cognates ey, ayekah) is where is, and for Shapira-Frankfurter, followed by Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, it carries a further charge: the searcher expected the thing to be here and is surprised it is not. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer and Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim instead set the two apart by how vague the question is. Anah is to where, a question of destination rather than of present place (Pappenheim), and with a prefixed mem, me'ayin, it flips to from where, a question of origin.
Distinctions
Ey, ayeh (אי, איה)
- Rabbi Pappenheim (1740 to 1814): the root is א-י, a query about a specific location. From it he derives ee, an island, which is literally "where is it?", since water on every side leaves no landmark by which to find it.
- Rabbi Wertheimer notes that besides "where," ey sometimes questions whether or how a thing actually exists, and can also mean "which."
Examples are ayeh (Bereishis 18:9), its cognate ayekah (Bereishis 3:9) and ey (Bereishis 4:9, to Kayin about Hevel).
Eifoh (איפה)
Rashi to Iyov 38:4: a compound of ey, "which," and poh, "here," so that the question is literally "which here?" The Aramaic heicha and heichan are built the same way, from hei, "which," and ka or kan, "here." English "where" is somewhat reminiscent, as if w for "which" plus "here," but linguists trace the English word differently.
An, anah, le'an (אן, אנה, לאן)
An (Shmuel I 10:14; Iyov 8:2), with its more common derivatives anah in Biblical Hebrew and le'an in Rabbinic Hebrew. Root א-ן. Rabbi Pappenheim: where ayeh and eifoh ask after a thing's current location, this root asks after its destination, "to where." He derives aniyah, a ship, from it: a ship is pushed about by the water instead of running straight to its port, so its destination cannot be read off its course, and the word for it is the question itself. Rabbi Klein adds, from his own paradigm of the interrelation of time and space in Hebrew, that anah is borrowed from the spatial to the temporal to ask after a target time, "until when" (Bamidbar 14:11).
Me'ayin (מאין)
Rabbi Klein has noted before that a mem added to a root tends to flip its meaning, so this root's destination question becomes one of origin: "from where" (Bereishis 29:4; Bamidbar 11:13; Tehillim 121:1).
Where the authorities disagree
Which of ayeh and eifoh is the vaguer question.
- Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer (1866 to 1935): ayeh is the general question, used when one has no inkling at all where the thing is, while eifo is used when one has a general sense of the place and is asking exactly where.
- Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim similarly understands eifoh as a vaguer question about location than ey/ayeh, whose root queries a specific location.
What ayeh adds beyond location. Along these lines, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter (1743 to 1826), Rav Hirsch's great uncle, writes in HaRechasim LeVikah that eifoh is for run-of-the-mill "where is" questions, while ayeh is used when someone searching is surprised the thing is not in its expected place, so that ayeh means, in effect, "Why is this not here?" Applied to Adam hiding after his sin, the ayekah of Bereishis 3:9 asks rhetorically why he was not in his regular place, the obvious answer being that he was hiding because of his sin. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (1785 to 1865) expands on this approach for the angels' ayeh Sarah ishtecha (Bereishis 18:9): Sarah would have been expected to be setting the table for the guests, all the more so with Avraham weak after his bris, so the question was why she was not where they expected her. (Bava Metzia 87a adds that the angels' question was also rhetorical: they knew where she was, and asked in order to endear her to her husband by highlighting her superlative modesty.)
What eifoh means where it is not "where."
- Rashi (to Bereishis 27:33 and 43:11), as Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi (1455 to 1525) elucidates him, allows eifoh the senses "now" (Yeshayahu 22:1) and "what, who" (Shoftim 8:18), and Radak in Sefer HaShorashim evidently follows.
- Others point out that in some cases eifo is an interjection, a general expression of confusion and astonishment, and does not necessarily mean "where."
- Rabbi Uriel Frank (Kovetz HaMa'yan, Teves 5770) treats whether eifoh (איפה) and eifo (אפוא) are one word or homonyms.
Radak on this root
Sefer HaShorashim
א-פ-ה
To bake. Baking is always said of bread; of other foods, he says, the word is cooking.
A thing named by what it becomes
וּמַצּוֹת אָפָה (Bereishis 19:3), he baked matzos, and וְאַף אָפִיתִי עַל־גֶּחָלָיו לֶחֶם (Yeshayahu 44:15), I have baked bread on its coals, are על שם סופו, after what the thing ends as, since it is not called לחם, bread, until it is baked. So too וְטַֽחֲנִי קָמַח (Yeshayahu 47:2), grind flour; וַתִּקַּח אֶת־הַבָּצֵק (Shmuel II 13:8), she took the dough and kneaded it; וּבִגְדֵי עֲרוּמִּים תַּפְשִֽׁיט (Iyov 22:6), you strip the garments of the naked; נִשְׁבְּרָה קִרְיַת־תֹּהוּ (Yeshayahu 24:10), the city of emptiness is broken; יָהֵב חָכְמְתָא לְחַכִּימִין (Daniel 2:21), He gives wisdom to the wise; יוּמַת הַמֵּת (Devarim 17:6), the dead man shall be put to death; and וְיָֽצְאוּ יְלָדֶיהָ (Shemos 21:22), her children come out, though they were not born but only fit to be children.
The forms
וַתֹּפֵהוּ מַצּֽוֹת (Shmuel I 28:24), she baked it into matzos; אֵת אֲשֶׁר־ תֹּאפוּ אֵפוּ (Shemos 16:23), bake what you will bake. The baker: תַנּוּר בֹּעֵרָה מֵֽאֹפֶה (Hoshea 7:4), an oven burning from the baker, that is, מצד האופה שמבעירו, from the side of the baker who kindles it, and מִחוּץ הָֽאֹפִים (Yirmiyahu 37:21), from the street of the bakers. In the passive, לֹא תֵֽאָפֶה חָמֵץ (Vayikra 6:10), it shall not be baked leavened, and חָמֵץ תֵּֽאָפֶינָה (Vayikra 23:17), they shall be baked leavened. The noun is מַֽאֲפֵה תַנּוּר (Vayikra 2:4), an oven's baking.
תֻּפִינֵי
תֻּֽפִינֵי מִנְחַת פִּתִּים (Vayikra 6:14), the bakings of a mincha of pieces, is another pattern, the alef exchanged for a quiescent vav with a nun added at the end. It is said in the plural because the offering was baked many bakings: scalded in boiling water, then baked in the oven, then fried again in a pan.
וּמַצּוֹת אָפָה (בראשית יט, ג), וְאַף אָפִיתִי עַל־גֶּחָלָיו לֶחֶם (ישעיה מד, טו), על שם סופו כי לא יקרא לחם עד שיאפה. וכן וְטַֽחֲנִי קָמַח (ישעיה מז, ב), וַתִּקַּח אֶת־הַבָּצֵק וַתָּלָושׁ [וַתָּלָשׁ] (שמואל ב' יג, ח), וּבִגְדֵי עֲרוּמִּים תַּפְשִֽׁיט (איוב כב, ו), נִשְׁבְּרָה קִרְיַת־תֹּהוּ (ישעיה כד, י), יָהֵב חָכְמְתָא לְחַכִּימִין (דניאל ב, כא), יוּמַת הַמֵּת (דברים יז, ו) וכן וְיָֽצְאוּ יְלָדֶיהָ (שמות כא, כב), והם לא נולדו אלא ראוים להיות ילדים. וַתֹּפֵהוּ מַצּֽוֹת (שמואל א' כח, כד), אֵת אֲשֶׁר־תֹּאפוּ אֵפוּ (שמות טז, כג), כמו תַנּוּר בֹּעֵרָה מֵֽאֹפֶה (הושע ז, ד), כלומר מצד האופה שמבעירו, מִחוּץ הָֽאֹפִים (ירמיה לז, כא). והנפעל לֹא תֵֽאָפֶה חָמֵץ (ויקרא ו, י), חָמֵץ תֵּֽאָפֶינָה (ויקרא כג, יז). והשׁם מַֽאֲפֵה תַנּוּר (ויקרא ב, ד). ומשקל אחר בהתחלף האל"ף בוי"ו נחה ובתוספת נו"ן בסוף, תֻּֽפִינֵי מִנְחַת פִּתִּים (ויקרא ו, יד). ואמר בלשון רבים לפי שהיתה אפויה אפויות הרבה, חולטה ברותחין ואחר כן אופה בתנור וחוזר ומטגנה במחבת. לשון האפייה לעולם על הפת, כי על שאר המאכלים הוא לשון בשול.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Where are You," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 16 November 2019.
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 3:9, 4:9, 18:9, 27:33, 29:4, 43:11; Bamidbar 11:13, 14:11; Shoftim 8:18; Shmuel I 10:14; Yeshayahu 22:1; Tehillim 121:1; Iyov 8:2, 38:4; Bava Metzia 87a; Rashi to Iyov 38:4 and to Bereishis 27:33 and 43:11, with Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo s.v. אי, אן, and Yerios Shlomo; Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer, Beiurei Shemos Nirdafim s.v. אי / איה / אנה / איפה; Rabbi Yehuda Leib Shapira-Frankfurter, HaRechasim LeVikah; Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, HaKsav VeHaKabbalah to Bereishis 3:9 and 18:9; Rabbi Uriel Frank, Kovetz HaMa'yan, Teves 5770.