Kohut Aruch HaShalem – Chilazon

1. חִלָּזוֹן

(a type of eye disease; see inside — eine Art Augenkrankheit (German: a kind of eye disease))[1]

In the chapter “On Which Blemishes” (Bekhorot 6:2, fol. 35), it says: if there was in its eye dak, tevallul-chilazon, nachash, or einav.[2]

The Gemara there (38b) says: chilazon is a permanent blemish, such that one may slaughter on account of it, and this is nachash, meaning that its eye is speckled like a snake.

Some explain that chilazon is tevallul. And the Targum on Leviticus 21:20 translates it in Onkelos as חליז בעיניה, “ḥaliz in his eye,” and the Jerusalem Targum has חלזונא.[3]

Benjamin Mussafia says: In Greek it means “hail,” and it is the name of a small, round, clear growth, like a hailstone, found between the eyelid and the eye, or in the eye itself.

Ḥanokh Yehudah Ha-Kohen (Alexander Kohut) says: Rabbeinu Binyamin’s intention is the Greek χάλαζα (Greek: hailstone / hail), meaning “hail”; see further under חלזון ו׳.

The term was then borrowed for the sty in the eye, which is also called in German Gerstenkorn (German: barleycorn; stye). This is also the view of K.B. and R.M.L. But, in my humble opinion, I am not satisfied with this, because there is a very serious difficulty: why did the translator not render it in accordance with the rabbinic interpretation in Bekhorot there? For there they ask: what is tevallul? A white spot that cuts across the iris and enters into the black part [of the eye]. And in the Gemara there, Rabbi Yose says: if the white enters into the black, this is a blemish. See Rashi there; see also סרה א׳ and תבלול. If so, why should the translator, on his own initiative, depart from the halakhic approach and choose different names?

The Raavad already wrote in his commentary to the above-cited Sifra:

“And I am astonished at the translator, who renders tevallul as ḥaluz [and it should read, according to Rabbeinu’s version, ḥaliz], for it does not accord with the exposition of the Sages.”

Now I have come to reveal to the attentive ear that the translator was in fact following the halakhah, and that chilazon is one thing and ḥaliz is another. For the latter is Arabic خلس (Arabic: mixed/blended color, here explained as a mixture of white and black), meaning a mixture of white and black, and this accords with the view of Rabbi Yose.

But Rabbeinu and all who came after him lumped the two words chilazon and ḥaliz together, until the scribes altered the translator’s reading for us and wrote chilazon במקום ḥaliz.

However, with respect to chilazon in the Mishnah, the Gemara in Bekhorot, and the Sifra, one must know that its essential meaning is Arabic حلزون (Arabic: snail / spiral-shelled creature), and in Aramaic חלזונא, Schnecke (German: snail).

It is a general name for kinds of ḥomet, shablul, and shell-bearing creatures found in the sea; see further under חלזון ג׳. It was then borrowed as the name of an eye disease, for just as a snail or slug goes along when it comes out of its shell, and mucus/slime falls from it and dissolves — see אֲשֻׁת — so too this disease, wherever it reaches in the eye or in the pupil, draws mucus after itself.

See also the additions of the scholar Fleischer to the work of the scholar Lewy. And I found conclusive proof for this explanation in the manuscript commentary of Rabbeinu Gershom Me’or HaGolah to Bekhorot (in the Angelica manuscript collection, fol. 102b), where he writes:

“Chilazon is called in the vernacular לימ״ץ;
Einav: that there is in his eye something like a grape;
[Nachash]: that his eye is speckled like a snake.”

Now, in the entry ענב, Rabbeinu followed him [Rabbeinu Gershom]; see also the entry דק. And likewise in the present entry, when he says, “meaning that his eye is speckled like a snake” — these too are the very words of Rabbeinu Gershom. But Rabbeinu Gershom explained this only about nachash in the Mishnah, whereas the word chilazon he explained only by means of the foreign gloss לימ״ץ.

Therefore it is clear to me that there is something missing here in the text, and that the Arukh should also read as follows:

“Explanation: chilazon — לימ״ץ;
einav — that there is in his eye something like a grape;
nachash — that it is speckled like a snake.”

And in the printed editions, and likewise in the manuscripts, by scribal error the text dropped out from the first nachash — as Rabbeinu wrote in citing the Gemara, “this is nachash” — until the second nachash in Rabbeinu Gershom’s explanation. For otherwise the word chilazon would remain without any explanation.

The word לימ״ץ in Rabbeinu Gershom’s explanation is Old French / Romance limace (Latin/Italian: slug or snail), Provençal limausé (French/Old French: slug or snail; probably limace), Italian lumaca (Italian: snail/slug), from Latin limax (Latin: slug/snail), and Greek λείμαξ (Greek: slug/snail).

Through this, the foreign gloss attributed to Rashi in Kilayim 1:6 is also clarified; see אשת. And Rashi on Leviticus 11:30, under ḥomet, has לימצ״ה; and the same appears in Radak under the roots חמט and שבל. Consequently, I have no doubt that in Rashi on Bekhorot 35a, s.v. chilazon, where it says, “a disease that is called לימון,” it should read לימץ, and this is exactly like Rabbeinu Gershom; indeed, the whole explanation agrees strikingly with Rabbeinu Gershom’s explanation.

What emerges from all this is that the disease called chilazon was borrowed from the general name for species of snail and slug, for the reason we have explained. But Rabbeinu Gershom’s two other explanations, concerning einav and nachash, which were also copied by Rabbeinu, the author of the Arukh, are difficult to explain. And all the commentators were forced in their attempts to solve these two words, because they assumed that they were hewn from the Hebrew language. But to me it is clear that they were born on the knees of Arabic.

For nachash is Arabic لحم (Arabic: flesh/meat), meaning a thick piece of flesh protruding from the body and rising upon it as something superfluous, and in German Fleischwulst (German: fleshy swelling / fleshy growth).

And in the matter itself, the words of Rambam in his commentary to Bekhorot are very, very pleasing. He writes:

“Chilazon and nachash are two names drawn after one matter: namely, when something like superfluous flesh comes out and extends until it covers part of the black of the eye. And its well-known name among physicians in the vernacular is טפרה.”

This is Arabic ظفرة (Arabic: pterygium; film/growth over the eye), Augenkrankheit, Fell im Auge (German: eye disease, film in the eye). See also the Bartenura on Bekhorot there.

And the explanation of einav, in my humble opinion, also comes from Arabic عنبة (Arabic: grape; grape-like swelling), meaning a blister or swelling that emerges on the human body. Perhaps this is what Rashi intended in Bekhorot when he gave the foreign gloss for (עצב) [read: עינב] as מיי״ל, that is Old French maille (French/Old French: spot, speck, mesh/mark).

Likewise, in Shabbat 78a he glosses the word ברקית as מייל״א, and it means a white spot that emerges in the black of the eye, Geschwür an dem Irishäutchen im Auge (German: ulcer/growth on the iris-membrane in the eye). See also Rashi to Bava Metzia 78a, s.v. נהורייתא.

But despite all this, I remain uneasy about this explanation of the foreign gloss, for it is quite possible that in Bekhorot one should read טייל in place of מיי״ל; and such too is Rabbeinu Gershom’s foreign gloss on einav. See the entry דק and what I wrote there.

If you want, the next step can be a tighter “publication-ready” version in smoother English while keeping all the philological detail.

2. חִלָּזוֹן

schneckenförmige Verzierung (German: snail-shaped decoration)

In chapter 12 of Kelim (mishnah 1): “Or if he attached a חִלָּזוֹן to its head, it is impure.” Explanation: this is its shape: ○.

And it is called חִלָּזוֹן, like the חִלָּזוֹן, because it is rounded/encircled.

A.B.: The author of the Arukh drew in his book the shape of the חִלָּזוֹן, and he did the same regarding the axe/adze whose עושפו is removed; see there under בקע ג׳.

[AḤYH]

See above, in the introduction to Part I, page LXV, what I wrote regarding the drawing/shape in the book of the Arukh.

And the present drawing testifies that Rabbeinu’s explanation is correct: חִלָּזוֹן means something rounded/encircled, and it is called by the name of the חִלָּזוֹן, which is a shelled creature — see the following entry after this. They would place it on utensils as decoration.

And when the Mishnah says טמאה, “it is impure,” this means that the חִלָּזוֹן itself is impure/susceptible to impurity. And so it is stated explicitly in the Tosefta, Kelim Bava Metzia, chapter 2: “Or if he attached a חִלָּזוֹן to its head — the חִלָּזוֹן is impure.”

But in the commentary of R. Shimshon to Kelim, he did not bring the word חִלָּזוֹן.

3. חִלָּזוֹן

From the Arabic and Syriac recorded in the entry חלזון א׳, and it is a general name for all creatures with a casing/shell: Schal- / Muschelthier, Schnecke, Purpurschnecke (German: shelled creature / mollusk, snail, purple-snail).

At the beginning of Chelek (Sanhedrin 91a): “He went up to the mountain and saw that today there was not even one חלזון there; and the next day rains came down, and the whole mountain was filled with חלזונות.”

Targum Yerushalmi I translates יֵירַשׁ הַצְּלָצַל (the cicada will make destitute – Deuteronomy 28:42) as חלזונא.

In the Pesikta of ויהי בשלח פרעה (Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 92): “And did they not grow?” He said to them: “This חלזון, as long as it grows, its shell grows with it.”

In the chapter במה מדליקין, in the Gemara where R. Yishmael says, “One may not light with עיטרן” (Shabbat 26a): יוגבים (Jeremiah 39:10, and there also 52:16) — “these are the trappers of חלזון, from the Ladder of Tyre until Haifa.”

And in the chapter כלל גדול, in the Gemara of “one who traps a deer and slaughters it” (Shabbat 75a): “One who traps a חלזון and wounds it is liable only once.”

In the first chapter of Megillah, in the Gemara of אבל עצי כהנים (Megillah 6a): “By your life, they will all need you by means of the חלזון.”

At the end of the preceding halakhah of the chapter התכלת (Menachot 44a): “The Rabbis taught: this חלזון — its body resembles the sea, its formation resembles a fish, it rises once in seventy years, and with its blood they dye תכלת; therefore its price is expensive.”

A.B.: “This one too — its shell grows with it.”

A.H.:

Since in the printed edition, from the citation in Shabbat onward, it is a separate entry, R. Binyamin was forced to note “this one too,” etc. That is to say: the חלזון mentioned in the three citations — Shabbat, Megillah, and Menachot — is also of the class of shelled creatures, meaning a kind of חומט or שבלול.

And in truth it was almost printed as a separate entry, because in this entry, from the Sanhedrin citation mentioned above until the Menachot citation, the meaning of חלזון is like in Arabic and Syriac — see further חלזון א׳ — a shelled creature, Schal-Muschelthier (German: shelled mollusk / shell-creature). And there are many species of it; see what the scholar Lewysohn wrote in expansion of the matter in his book Zoologie, p. 280 and onward.

And the superior species is the one called by Aristotle and Pliny Πορφύρα (Greek: purple-fish / purple-shell), purpura (Latin: purple-fish / purple-dye shell), and in German Purpurschnecke (German: purple-snail / purple-dye snail).

And this is understood in Megillah there, where it expounds שפוני (Deuteronomy 33:19) as “this is the חלזון.” And Rashi explains שפוני as something important, hidden away and valuable. And in Sifrei, וזאת הברכה, section 354, it explicitly has the reading: ספוני — זה חלזון, “hidden treasures — this is the חלזון,” because Zevulun’s portion complained before the Omnipresent, etc.; see there.

And so it is expounded in Midrash, chapter 3: שפוני — זה חלזון. And so too, according to the matter, Targum Yerushalmi I translated there the word שפני: וחלזונא יאחדון ויצבעון מאדמי תיכלתא — “and they will gather חלזונא, and they will dye from the red/dye-materials of תיכלתא.”

And through שפע ימים and שפוני טמוני, treasures of חלזונות fell to the lot of Zevulun pleasantly, because the value of the חלזונות was great in ancient times, and especially that species with whose blood they dye תכלת, as is stated there in Menachot.

And Rashi explains there: גופו — “the appearance of its body”; תבנית דיוקנו — “the form of its likeness.” Thus far. And it seems to me that the opening word ברייתו fell out, and the explanation תבנית דיוקנו refers back to the word ברייתו.

And so Rabbeinu Gershom Me’or HaGolah explains in manuscript to Menachot, in the Angelica manuscript collection, fol. 4:

גופו דומה לים — the appearance of its body.
וברייתו — its form.

Thus far.

And I see that the intention of Rabbeinu Gershom Me’or HaGolah, and likewise the intention of Rashi, is that גופו, meaning “the appearance of its body,” means the appearance of the juice/liquid squeezed from the body of the חלזון, which is תכלת; and ברייתו, meaning the appearance of the external form and structure of the חלזון, resembles a fish.

And this is proof for what the scholar Lewysohn wrote, that חלזון is also called in Roman/foreign language pelagia (Greek/Latin: sea-creature; marine thing), after the species of חלזון that resembles the sea, pelagus (Greek/Latin: sea). And the form of the חלזון resembles a fish, because the opening of the shell in which the חלזון dwells is curved and long.

But the Tosafists on Shabbat 73b, s.v. מפרק, understood that חלזון is an actual fish. And this is also the opinion of Rambam in Hilchot Tzitzit 1:1, and he further wrote that its blood is black like ink, etc. And he intended the fish called Tintenfisch (German: inkfish; squid/cuttlefish). And this is very far-fetched; see Lewysohn, p. 283.

But what the aforementioned scholar conjectured there, that משקרי חלזוני in Avodah Zarah 28b is Greek μύτακα (Greek: mussel/sea-mussel, according to Kohut’s discussion), in German Miesmuscheln (German: mussels), and so too is the opinion of the scholar Lewysohn in עמת״ל — this is not correct.

And in my humble opinion, it is actually a translation/copying of a Greek and Roman word: πορφύρα, purpura (Greek/Latin: purple-shell; purple-dye mollusk). For in Arabic شقر (Arabic: reddish / red-hued) means “very red.” And if so, לייתי משקרי חלזוני means: “Let him bring from the red ones among the חלזונות,” that is, פורפורשנעקען (German/Yiddish: purple-snails). And Rashi gives the foreign gloss לימי״ן, “a kind of חלזון,” but it should read לימ״ץ; see further חלזון א׳.

And were I not afraid, I would say that from this matter is also what they expounded in Bereishit Rabbah, end of chapter 91, on קחו מזמרת הארץ (Genesis 43:11): “Things that are praised/famed in the world: חלזון, חמר, etc.” Its meaning too is פורפורשנעקע (German/Yiddish: purple-snail). For חמר in Arabic حمر — חמר אדום, roth (German: red). And see further חמר ט׳ and what I wrote there. And the commentators explained it with difficulty.

But the חלזון in Yerushalmi Shabbat 1:3 — “חלזון has sinews and bones” — is not from the name mentioned above; see further the following entry.

And חלזון in Sefer Yetzirah, in the introduction, is what is called in German Auster (German: oyster). See Saalschutz there, p. 285, in the note.

* חלזון — the name of a place. And in a manuscript of the Talmud, and in Rabbeinu’s reading in the entry חדייב, the more correct reading is: חלזון. See its entry after the entry חלון.

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* חלזון — either from Greek χάλαζα (Greek: hailstone; hail), meaning ברד, “hail” — see also חלזון א׳ — or it is a scribal/printing error; see inside.

Yalkut, Va’era, remez 185, in the name of Tanḥuma:

“How did the hail fall? … Like this חלזון it would fall and cut down the trees, as it says, ‘He killed their vine with hail,’ etc.”

Targum Yerushalmi renders הצלצל as חלונא. But it is better [to explain] that it is the recorded Greek term. And so too regarding חנמל, which is stated there nearby: its explanation is likewise so; see also the entry חנמל.

But in Tanḥuma the reading is: יורד בפלכין, “it descended with/by פלכין,” and in Shemot Rabbah, end of section 12, the reading is: כפילקין. And this is the essential reading: its explanation is Greek πέλεκυς (Greek: axe), meaning גרזן, “axe.” See also the entry פלכין.

And it appears that the word חלזון became corrupted in place of פלכון.

And in Yalkut Tehillim, remez 863, the reading is in fact בפילקיס — but it should read כפילקיס.

And in Yalkut Tehillim, remez 820, and Shocher Tov, Psalm 78, the reading is בפילקין, but it should read כפילקין.

And similarly כפילכין, in the entry פלכין, according to the first printed edition. And there it is explained by means of the Greek word פיליקין (Greek-derived: axe), according to the reading of manuscript H.B.

פוליכסו should read פוליכוס, that is πέλεκυς (Greek: axe), according to manuscript L.Y. And its meaning is that the hail descended with such force and strength as an axe that cuts down trees.

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* חלזון, חלזה — a mistaken form in place of חלזה; see the entry there.