What’s in a Word?

society

youth

נער · נערה · עלם · עלמה · נערים

Bottom line

Naar and naarah are the wide words: youth, lad, young woman, and by extension anyone serving as an attendant, whatever his age. The strict age sense (a girl from twelve until six months past maturity) is halachic, not biblical usage. Elem and almah are the young person whose growth is still hidden: render young man and maiden. The one thing not to get wrong is that naar in Tanach is not an age bracket; it is applied to a three-month-old Moshe and to a fifty-seven-year-old Yehoshua, and in the latter sort of case it means an attendant.

Distinctions

naar / naarah (נער, נערה)

The Gemara (Kesubos 39a) defines a naarah as a girl from twelve until six months after she reaches maturity, which would put a naar at thirteen. Rashi (to Bereishis 25:27) reads ne'arim of Yaakov and Esav as thirteen years old, and the same explains Yishmael being called a naar when the angels came to Avraham (Rashi to Bereishis 18:7; see Bereishis 17:25).

The usage in Tanach will not sit inside that bracket. Rivkah is a naarah when Eliezer chooses her, yet by Seder Olam (ch. 1) she was three and by Sifrei (to Devarim 33:21) fourteen. Baby Moshe is a naar at three months (Shemos 2:6); Yishmael is one at sixteen (Bereishis 21:12, 21:17-20); Yosef at seventeen (Bereishis 37:2) and still at thirty (Bereishis 41:12); Binyamin at thirty-one (Bereishis 44:22, 44:33); Avshalom at twenty-one (Shmuel II 18:32); Rechavam at forty-one (Divrei HaYamim II 13:7); Yehoshua at fifty-seven (Shemos 33:11). Midrash Mishlei (to Mishlei 1:4) stretches the term to twenty, twenty-five, even thirty, which still leaves the extremes unaccounted for.

Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi holds the halachic sense and explains the outliers as resemblance: the Torah calls a person a naar when he is naar-like in some respect. Yosef at seventeen busied himself with his hair and his eyes, so his conduct earned him the word (Rashi to Bereishis 37:2). Rechavam was called a naar at forty-one for being immature and weak in leadership. Yosef at thirty is called a naar by Pharaoh's butler in order to disparage him, to say he was unworthy of the greatness ahead (Rashi). Binyamin and Avshalom are "boys" relative to their fathers, whatever their years. Baby Moshe's voice was like a naar's, or his mother had made him a sort of wedding canopy in the basket (Sotah 12b). And Yehoshua is called a naar in the context of serving Moshe, since anyone functioning as another's attendant can be called a naar regardless of age (so too Radak to Yehoshua 6:23). Yitzchak at thirty-seven (Bereishis 22:5) and Yishmael at fifty-one (Bereishis 22:3) fit that same explanation, both attending Avraham.

Rabbi Shimon Dov Ber Analak of Siedlce reads naar from the quality rather than the years: the young man's drive, which lets him shake off (l'na'er) whatever stands in the way of what he means to do.

Rashi (to Kesubos 44b) notes a spelling rule: naarah written deficiently, with no final hei, can include a girl under twelve; written full with the hei, it excludes her.

elem / almah (עלם, עלמה)

Many meforshim relate elem and almah to eilum and ne'elam, hidden. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 13:15): an elem is a young naar not yet developed, his potential still hidden and unrealized. Peirush HaRokeach notes that the boy who carried messages between David and Yonasan is called a naar throughout (Shmuel I 20:1-42) and an elem at exactly the point where their pact had to be kept hidden from Shaul (20:22).

From that link the meforshim distinguish the pair. Peirush HaRokeach: an almah is less outgoing than a naarah, so Rivkah may already have passed the stage of naarah and still be called an almah because she was hidden away from people; he adds that the word teaches how sheltered she was, never even having been propositioned. Rabbeinu Efrayim ben Shimshon (to Bereishis 24:43): almah of Rivkah, and elem of David (Shmuel I 17:56), imply one who hides his words, which is a mark of wisdom; so naarah would speak to her age and almah to her mind. Ibn Ezra (to Shir HaShirim 1:3) holds simply that an almah is younger than a naarah, which would let Rivkah be an almah in years and a naarah in maturity and stature. Rabbi Shimon Dov Ber Analak: elem names not the drive but the sheer strength of that age, and is related to alim with an aleph, the standard Targum for ometz/amitz.

Chizkuni (to Bereishis 24:44) denies any difference of meaning: naarah is Hebrew and almah Aramaic. The narrator calls her a naarah (24:16) because the Torah is in Hebrew, and Eliezer says almah (24:43) because he thought her family in Charan knew only Aramaic; Chizkuni himself notes that they in fact spoke Hebrew, since her mother and brother say naarah (24:57).

Miriam is called an almah at six years old (Shemos 2:8, Shemos Rabbah 1:13), which is young for the word, and the Gemara (Sotah 12b) accordingly explains it by derashah: she hid the fact that she was Moshe's sister, or she acted with the strength and vigor of an older young woman.

Rendering guidance

  • Naar: youth or lad in a narrative, attendant where the person is serving someone (Yehoshua before Moshe, the lads accompanying Avraham). Naarah: young woman, or girl where she is plainly a child.
  • In halachic context naarah is a technical stage, between ketanah and bogeres; leave it transliterated there rather than translating it, since "young woman" will not carry the twelve-to-twelve-and-a-half definition.
  • Almah: maiden. Elem: young man. Where a source is working the hidden sense, say so in the note; the English word cannot carry it.
  • Trap: "young man" and "girl" will absorb naar and elem, naarah and almah, without a seam. The Rivkah narrative is the test: she is a naarah in Bereishis 24:16 and an almah in 24:43, and every explanation above turns on the two words being visibly different in the English. Give her "young woman" in the one and "maiden" in the other, and let a note carry why.
  • Do not render naar by an age ("a boy of thirteen") in Chumash. The pesukim do not support it, and Rabbi Mizrachi's defense of the age sense works by resemblance, not by literal age.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Chayei Sarah: Boys and Girls (Part 1)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach (2020-11-14): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8922-chayei-sarah-boys-and-girls-part-1.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 24:14, 24:16, 24:28, 24:43, 24:55, 24:57, 25:27, 18:7, 21:12, 21:17-20, 22:3, 22:5, 37:2, 41:12, 44:22, 44:33; Shemos 2:6, 2:8, 33:11; Shmuel I 17:56, 20:1-42; Shmuel II 18:32; Divrei HaYamim II 13:7; Kesubos 39a; Sotah 12b; Rashi to Kesubos 44b; Seder Olam ch. 1; Sifrei to Devarim 33:21; Midrash Mishlei to Mishlei 1:4; Shemos Rabbah 1:13; Radak to Yehoshua 6:23; Ibn Ezra to Shir HaShirim 1:3; Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 13:15. The article defers yeled/yaldah and bachur/besulah to its second part, so they are not treated here.