speech
whistle
At a glance
In short
Shreikah is a whistle, used in two opposite settings: the whistle or hiss of astonishment at a ruined place that had been thriving, and the signal by which Hashem calls the masses to gather and, at the end of days, calls His people home. Rabbi Yaakov Berger notes that biblical shreikah seemingly always means whistling with the mouth alone, while the Aramaic mashrokita of Daniel is an instrument. Tziftzuf, its apparent synonym, is whistling, chirping, tweeting, the bird's sound. By extension it is a low, rapid whisper, or, as Rabbi Shaul Goldman explains, a babble meant to be heard but almost always unintelligible. Rashi and Ramban use it for the mindless prattle typified by lashon hara. In the Rema's halachic usage mitzaftzef is simply "to whistle."
Distinctions
Shreikah (שריקה)
Root ש-ר-ק.
- Radak (Sefer HaShorashim, and to Zecharyah 10:8) quite prosaically defines it broadly as moving the lips to produce a sound.
- Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon (Machberes HeAruch) expands on it: specifically puckering the lips and exhaling air through them; he adds that the vowel shuruk is related to the root because the mouth puckers to make its oo sound as though about to whistle.
- Rabbi Klein wondered whether Hebrew ש-ר-ק, whistling, is connected to Aramaic ש-ר-ק, smooth or slippery, since whistling makes a smooth sound, but Rabbi Shaul Goldman, to whom he turns on questions of language, rejected the supposition.
Two uses stand opposite each other in Tanach.
Shreikah of desolation: passersby whistle at the ruin of a place that had been thriving. So Eichah 2:15 to 16 of Yerushalayim after its fall, and so the warning already given to Shlomo HaMelech at the Beis HaMikdash's construction (Melachim I 9:8). Yirmiyahu warns of it constantly (19:8, 25:9, 29:18, 50:13). Rashi (to Eichah) defines it as a whistle or hiss through the teeth, and adds that in ancient times people whistled on encountering an important site that had fallen still.
Shreikah of summons: Hashem whistles to the fly at the edge of Egypt's rivers, impelling a multitude of Egyptian soldiers to gather and invade Ashur (Yeshayahu 7:18), and whistles to the nations to gather against Yisrael (Yeshayahu 5:26). In the most uplifting sense, He whistles to gather His people in from exile (Zecharyah 10:8); Rashi there explains it from the way whistlers whistle to call those who have gotten lost. In the same way, Hashem will invite all who have strayed to return to Him. The Tur (Orach Chaim §286) famously explains the reversed-alphabet acrostic that opens Tikanta Shabbos as alluding to tishrok, "He will whistle," the last four letters of the aleph-beis, the Final Whistle that brings the Redemption.
English screak and shriek are typically traced to the Proto-Indo-European root ker or skr; Rabbi Klein wonders whether the Hebrew shreikah had some influence on them, or whether both are onomatopoeic imitations of sounds heard in nature.
The sharakrak / racham (שרקרק, רחם)
Chullin 63a identifies the non-kosher racham (Vayikra 11:18; Devarim 14:17) as the sharakrak, a name clearly derived from ש-ר-ק, and teaches that its sitting on the ground and chirping or whistling is a sign of Mashiach's approach, citing Zecharyah 10:8. Perek Shirah gives that same pasuk as the racham's song. Maharsha (to Chullin 63a), Rabbi Avraham Palagi (Avraham Anochi to Yeshayahu §52) and Rabbi Shlomo Tapiero (Mikveh HaMayim to Yeshayahu 52:7) resolve the "feet of the herald" of Yeshayahu 52:7, where one would expect a herald's mouth, by this: the herald is the racham, whose feet on the ground as it chirps are the sign that portends the redemption. Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal (Eim HaBanim Semeichah 2:12), asked how the beginning of the redemption could come through Zionist pioneers who violate Shabbos, deflected the question by noting that in the Gemara too the harbinger is an impure bird, the racham, not a kosher one. Which bird is meant is discussed in Rabbi Amitai Ben-David's Sichas Chullin to Chullin 63a.
Mashrokita (משרוקיתא)
An instrument in Nevuchadnetzar's music (Daniel 3:5, 3:7, 3:10, 3:15), in the Aramaic part of Daniel; there is no real way of knowing which instrument is meant.
- Ibn Ezra (to Daniel 3:5) surmises that it is cogent to take the root as ש-ר-ק, so some wind instrument with a whistle-like sound (perhaps a band of pipers or flutists); Menachem Ibn Saruk (Machberes Menachem) lists it under that root, and Rashi to Daniel 3:5 makes a similar point briefly.
- Rabbi Yaakov Berger of Kiryat Sefer (Milon Leshon Mikra, unpublished) points out that biblical Hebrew shreikah seemingly always means whistling with the mouth alone, while the Aramaic mashrokita whistles through an instrument.
Tziftzuf (צפצוף)
Four times in Tanach as a verb for whistling, chirping, tweeting, all in Yeshayahu (8:19, 10:14, 29:4, 38:14). A noun of the same four letters, tzaftzafah, appears once, a type of willow (Yechezkel 17:5).
- Rabbi Moshe Kimchi (to Yechezkel) bridges the two meanings of the quadriliteral by noting that birds would gather at that willow and chirp there.
- Ibn Janach and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) trace tziftzuf to the four-letter צ-פ-צ-ף.
- Menachem Ibn Saruk instead reads it as the doubled biliteral צ-ף, and Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (Cheshek Shlomo), implicitly following him, writes at length on that root: its core is something that spreads on top of something else, giving tzofeh and mitzpeh (a gaze spread over a wide field), then tzipiyah (waiting, the man in trouble looking in every direction for his rescuer), and then tziftzuf, the bird's sound as the voice of its anticipation of its mate or its next meal.
Tziftzuf often refers to a low whisper, which sounds almost like whistling since the mouth is narrowed as in whistling: speaking quickly, constantly, low. It can also mean verbal pattering, and could refer to blabbering about rumors. Rashi and Ramban (to Vayikra 14:4) use it for the mindless prattling, typified by lashon hara, for which a person might be punished with tzaraas. Asked how that squares with "whistling," Rabbi Shaul Goldman explained that the original sense is bird-noise, also used for babbling or any speech meant to be audible but almost always unintelligible; that is the descriptive sense. Rabbi Klein adds that it could also refer, in a prescriptive sense, to speech whose meaning renders it unfit, such as rumors and lashon hara.
In Modern Hebrew tziftzuf is the sound of an alarm, and one who is mitzaftzef ignores the pleas of others and marches to his own beat. Rabbi Klein says this is probably borrowed from Yiddish fife (a cognate of English pipe), "whistle," which came to mean ignoring others, as one who keeps whistling while told to stop. He adds that he feels it is not insignificant that the Germanic piper/fifer repeat a p/f sound as tziftzuf repeats its f, and that he is convinced English cheep is connected to the tzif of tziftzuf.
Whistling as a practice
- The late Lubavitcher Rebbe encouraged his followers to whistle to express elated happiness, and perhaps to symbolize, or even bring about, the impending geulah. Rabbi Klein traces this to the Rashaz, who taught (Ohr Torah to Bereishis 49:11) that the shuruk, the vowel tied to shreikah, has three dots one below the other because a person should lower himself to the self-effacement of recognizing that he is nothing before Hashem, a level said to be reached through loving Hashem in the happiness of mitzvos, and which the Rashaz calls the entire purpose of the Messianic era.
- In other chassidic and mussar circles teachers commonly chide students not to whistle as a goyish practice.
- Rabbi Efrayim Greenblatt (Rivevos Efrayim 8:604) knows of no source forbidding it, though his cheder teacher told him it was forbidden.
- The Chazon Ish (cited in Orchos Shabbos ch. 21 fn. 60) said that nowadays whistling is a breach of modesty, though in Aliba D'Hilchasa (vol. 69 p. 83) Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky is quoted as never having heard this from him.
- Rabbi Klein's teacher Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Lerner (Shemiras HaGuf VeHaNefesh Tinyana p. 454) cites a bevy of Kabbalistic sources that whistling can arouse harsh judgments, and that the arch-heretic Jacob Frank used whistling as evil magic.
Also discussed in
- Animal soundsמצפצף / mitzaftzef (צ-פ)
Radak on these roots
Sefer HaShorashim
צ-פ-צ-ף
To chirp: chirping in birds, he says, is as speech in man. In another sense, the צַפְצָפָה, a kind of willow, and the inferior kind.
Chirping
וּפֹצֶה פֶה וּמְצַפְצֵֽף (Yeshayahu 10:14), opening the mouth and chirping; הַֽמְצַפְצְפִים וְהַמַּהְגִּים (Yeshayahu 8:19), those who chirp and those who mutter; אִמְרָתֵךְ תְּצַפְצֵֽף (Yeshayahu 29:4), your speech will chirp. כְּסוּס עָגוּר כֵּן אֲצַפְצֵף (Yeshayahu 38:14), like a sus, an agur, so I chirp, he explains as כסוס כעגור, like a sus, like an agur. Chirping in birds is as speech in man. The sense of אִמְרָתֵךְ תְּצַפְצֵֽף is like that of תִּשַּׁח אִמְרָתֵךְ (Yeshayahu 29:4), your speech will be low, in the same pasuk.
The צַפְצָפָה
In another sense, צַפְצָפָה שָׂמֽוֹ (Yechezkel 17:5), set as a צַפְצָפָה: a kind of willow, in Arabic צפצ"ף. It is the inferior kind, as Chazal said (Sukkah 34a) that ערבי נחל, willows of the brook, excludes the צפצפה that grows among the mountains.
The pasuk as Chazal read it
Chazal read the pasuk so (Sukkah 34a): קָח עַל־מַיִם רַבִּים צַפְצָפָה שָׂמֽוֹ, taken by abundant waters and set as a צַפְצָפָה, is I made them like the willow that grows by abundant waters, and they made themselves like the צפצפה that grows among the mountains. On their reading, he says, שָׂמוֹ is Yisrael setting itself so.
How Yonasan renders it
Yonasan renders צַפְצָפָה שָׂמֽוֹ as גְפַּן נִצְבָא שַׁוְיֵיהּ, he made it a planted vine. Radak takes the Targum to mean that although they took seed and sowed it, he set it as a planted vine, that is, it grew quickly.
וּפֹצֶה פֶה וּמְצַפְצֵֽף (ישעיה י, יד), הַֽמְצַפְצְפִים וְהַמַּהְגִּים (ישעיה ח, יט), אִמְרָתֵךְ תְּצַפְצֵֽף (ישעיה כט, ד). כְּסוּס עָגוּר כֵּן אֲצַפְצֵף (ישעיה לח, יד), פירושו כסוס כעגור. וענין הצפצוף בעופות כענין הדבור באדם. וענין אִמְרָתֵךְ תְּצַפְצֵֽף כמו תִּשַּׁח אִמְרָתֵךְ (שם). וענין אחר צַפְצָפָה שָׂמֽוֹ (יחזקאל יז, ה), מין ממיני הערבה ובערבי צפצ"ף. והיא הפחותה כמו שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל (סוכה לד, ע"א) ערבי נחל פרט לצפצפה הגדלה בין ההרים. והם פירשו הפסוק כן (שם) קָח עַל־מַיִם רַבִּים צַפְצָפָה שָׂמֽוֹ אני עשיתי אותם כערבה הגדלה על מים רבים והם שמו עצמם כצפצפה הגדלה בין ההרים. ולדבריהם פירוש שָֹמוֹ שם ישראל עצמו. ויונתן תרגם צַפְצָפָה שָׂמֽוֹ גְפַּן נִצְבָא שַׁוְיֵיהּ, רוצה לומר אף על פי שלקחו זרע וזרעו שמו כגפן נטועה כלומר כי במהרה גדלה.
ש-ר-קhis headword שׂרק
שׂוֹרֵק, the choicest of the kinds of vine; and שְׂרֻקִּים, patterned in colours, or, as some explain, groomed with a comb.
The vine
נְטַעְתִּיךְ שׂוֹרֵק (Yirmiyahu 2:21), I planted you a choice vine, and וְלַשֹּׂרֵקָה בְּנִי אֲתֹנוֹ (Bereishis 49:11), and to the choice vine his donkey's foal. It is the choicest of the kinds of vine. Rav Ibn Giat writes that it is the good kind whose grapes have no stone in them, and Targum Yonasan (Yeshayahu 5:2) renders it כְּמַצַב גֶפֶן בְּחִירָא, like the planting of a choice vine. Some explain עֹבְדֵי פִשְׁתִּים שְׂרִיקוֹת (Yeshayahu 19:9) the same way, workers of flax of the choicest kind, and so, it is said, in Arabic א"ל שר"ק is the name for the fine sort in silk.
What שְׂרֻקִּים means
שְׂרֻקִּים וּלְבָנִים (Zecharyah 1:8), שְׂרֻקִּים and white, Radak explains as patterned: their colour red and white and black, as though they were speckled or patched. So עֹבְדֵי פִשְׁתִּים שְׂרִיקוֹת (Yeshayahu 19:9), on this reading, is workers of flax dotted with colours, and Chazal speak of לובשי סריקין של זהב (Kiddushin 31a), wearers of סריקין of gold, which Radak explains as a garment figured with gold. Some explain שְׂרֻקִּים as groomed with a comb, and so Chazal (Moed Katan 10b), רבא שרא לסרוקי סוסיא, Rava permitted combing a horse, which Radak explains as combing it with a comb of iron. And so Chazal (Keilim 12:2) say קנה מאזנים של שריקות טמא, the beam of the scales of the שריקות is tamei, where the שריקות, Radak explains, are מוכרי פשתן שרוק, sellers of combed flax.
Radak’s root שׂרק
נְטַעְתִּיךְ שׂוֹרֵק (ירמיה ב, כא), וַיִּטָּעֵהוּ שֹׂרֵק (ישעיה ה, ב), וְלַשּֽׂרֵקָה בְּנִי אֲתֹנוֹ (בראשית מט, יא). הָלְמוּ שְׂרוּקֶּיהָ (ישעיה טז, ח), נכתב בו הנח עם הדגש. והוא המשובח ממיני הגפן. וכתב הרב אבן גיאת שהוא מין הטוב מן הגפנים שהענבים לא ימצא בהם חרצן. ותרגום יונתן(ישעיה ה, ב) כְּמַצַב גֶפֶן בְּחִירָא. ויש מפרשים כן עֹֽבְדֵי פִשְׁתִּים שְׂרִיקוֹת (ישעיה יט, ט), המשובח ממין הפשתן וכן יקרא בלשון ערבי א"ל שר"ק הטור שבמשי. שְׂרֻקִּים וּלְבָנִֽים (זכריה א, ח), מצויירים כלומר שעינם אדום ולבן ושחור כאילו הם נקודים או טלואים. וכן עובדי פשתים שריקות, כלומר מנקדים בצבעים. וכן בדברי רבותינו ז"ל (קידושין לא, סוף ע"א) לובשי סריקין של זהב, כלומר מלבוש מצוייר של זהב. ויש מפרשים שְֹרֻקִּים מתוקנים במסרק. וכן בדברי רבותינו ז"ל (מועד קטן י, ע"ב) רבא שרא לסרוקי סוסיא, כלומר להסריק הסוס במסרק של ברזל. וכן בדברי רבותינו (כלים פרק שנים עשר. משנה ב, דף כא, ע"א) קנה מאזנים של שריקות טמא פירוש מוכרי פשתן שרוק.
To whistle or hiss: the moving of the lips with a sound.
Whistling
וְשָׁרַק לוֹ מִקְצֵה הָאָרֶץ (Yeshayahu 5:26), He will whistle to him from the end of the earth, and אֶשְׁרְקָה לָהֶם וַאֲקַבְּצֵם (Zecharyah 10:8), I will whistle to them and gather them.
Hissing, and the nouns
שָׁרְקוּ וַיָּנִעוּ רֹאשָׁם (Eichah 2:15), they hissed and wagged their head. The nouns are שְׁרִקוֹת עֲדָרִים (Shoftim 5:16), the whistlings of the flocks, and וְיֹשְׁבֶיהָ לִשְׁרֵקָה (Michah 6:16), and her inhabitants for a hissing.
Radak’s root שׁרק
וְשָׁרַק לוֹ מִקְצֵה הָאָרֶץ (ישעיה ה, כו), שָֽׁרְקוּ וַיָּנִעוּ רֹאשָׁם (איכה ב, טו), יִשְׁרֹק י"י לַזְּבוּב (ישעיה ז, יח), יִשֹּׁם וְיִשְׁרֹק (ירמיה יט, ח), אֶשְׁרְקָה לָהֶם וַֽאֲקַבְּצֵם (זכריה י, ח). שְׁרִקוֹת עֲדָרִים (שופטים ה, טז), וְיֹֽשְׁבֶיהָ לִשְׁרֵקָה (מיכה ו, טז). ענין השריקה הנעות השפתים בקול.
Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, Berlin 1847. Public domain, digitised by Sefaria from the National Library of Israel.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Voeschanan - A Time to Whistle," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 9 August 2025.
Cited in the essay: Bereishis 49:11; Vayikra 11:18, 14:4 (Rashi and Ramban); Devarim 14:17; Melachim I 9:8; Yeshayahu 5:26, 7:18, 8:19, 10:14, 29:4, 38:14, 52:7; Yirmiyahu 19:8, 25:9, 29:18, 50:13; Yechezkel 17:5 (Rabbi Moshe Kimchi); Zecharyah 10:8 (Rashi, Radak); Eichah 2:15 to 16 (Rashi); Daniel 3:5 (Ibn Ezra, Rashi), 3:7, 3:10, 3:15; Chullin 63a; Perek Shirah; Tur, Orach Chaim §286; Rema and Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim §338:1; Radak and Ibn Janach, Sefer HaShorashim; Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon, Machberes HeAruch; Menachem Ibn Saruk, Machberes Menachem; Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, Cheshek Shlomo; Rabbi Shaul Goldman; Rabbi Yaakov Berger, Milon Leshon Mikra (unpublished); Maharsha to Chullin 63a; Rabbi Avraham Palagi, Avraham Anochi to Yeshayahu §52; Rabbi Shlomo Tapiero, Mikveh HaMayim to Yeshayahu 52:7; Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, Eim HaBanim Semeichah 2:12; Rabbi Amitai Ben-David, Sichas Chullin to Chullin 63a; the Lubavitcher Rebbe; the Rashaz, Ohr Torah to Bereishis 49:11; Rabbi Efrayim Greenblatt, Rivevos Efrayim 8:604; the Chazon Ish, cited in Orchos Shabbos ch. 21 fn. 60; Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, in Aliba D'Hilchasa vol. 69 p. 83; Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Lerner, Shemiras HaGuf VeHaNefesh Tinyana p. 454.