The Unusual Word Tzafufim in Pirkei Avos|
עומדים צפופים ומשתחווים רווחים

David S. Farkas*

On a recent Shabbos afternoon I was learning the Yerushalmi to Peah when my thoughts turned – for reasons described below – to the famous passage in Pirkei Avos (5:5) עומדים צפופים ומשתחווים רווחים.

Every schoolboy is familiar with the phrase. The Mishna sets forth ten miracles regularly experienced in the times of the Temple. The eighth of these, as set forth above, is that though the people stood crowded in the Temple courtyard, they were nevertheless able to bow with sufficient space around them. The word צפופים, accordingly, means crowded.

This much is evident from the Mishna itself. But where does this word צפוף come from? Thinking about it further, I could recall no similar examples of the word elsewhere. Indeed, a check of the Concordance (Even-Shoshan) confirmed that no such word exists in all of Tanach.

No matter. There are many words in the Mishna that do not exist in Tanach. Perhaps the word is Mishnaic Hebrew, rather than Biblical. Yet here too, investigation showed no other examples of the word צפוף appearing in the Mishna. At this point we had the makings of a problem. It seems strange for such a familiar word to appear neither in Tanach, nor anywhere else in the Mishna. And yet it does not appear to be a foreign loan word either, with none of the hallmarks of Greek or Roman influence, or that of any other language. Where did it come from?

This is why I mentioned what I had been learning when my thoughts were turned in this direction. For in Peah (3:1, 26a in the excellent Oz Vi-Hadar edition) we find a debate among the two schools of Shammai and Hillel, in a case where numerous small patches of grain were planted between the trees of an orchard. The question is whether, for purposes of leaving Peah, they are to be treated as a single field or as many. The Gemara narrows the inquiry: אם במורווחין אף ב“ש מודים שהוא נותן פיאה אחת על הכל. אם ברצופין אף ב“ה מודים שהוא נותן פיאה מכל אחד ואחד.. If the trees are spread out, even B. Shammai would agree that the patches are treated as single field (i.e., the trees are not seen as intervening) and a single Peah should suffice. If the trees are close together, they are treated as an intervening separation, and even B. Hillel would agree that Peah should be taken from every patch. The Gemara concludes, אלא כי אנן קיימין בנטועין מטע עשר לבית סאה ב“ש עובדי להון כרצופין וב“ה עובדי להון כמורווחין.. The case must be of trees planted in a certain density (ten per beis se’ah), and the point at issue is whether or not this density is enough to cause the fields to be considered spread out.

Of course, what jumps out to the reader, just as did to me that Shabbos afternoon, is the contrast between רווחין and רצופין. This is the exact same contrast employed in the Mishna in Avos, yet here the word used is רצופין, not צפופים.

Nor is this the only case where such a contrast is used with this exact same pair of words. In Yerushalmi Moed Kattan 1:3 4a (also found in Sheviis 2:7 18a) R. Eliezer ben Yaakov permits diverting pooled water via a channel from tree to tree on Yom Tov, but does not allow an entire field to be irrigated. The Rabbis disagree, and the Gemara again narrows the field of inquiry, observing that if the trees were “spread apart”, all would agree irrigation is prohibited because one is watering more than he needs. If the trees were packed close together, on the other hand, all would agree watering is necessary to keep them from drying out. Thus, the Gemara concludes that the field in question was planted with the standard density mentioned above, ten trees per beis se’ah, and the point at issue between R. Eliezer ben Yaakov and the Rabbis is only whether this density is considered “spaced” or “packed”. מה אנן קיימין? אם במרווחין, דברי הכל אסור. אם ברצופין, דברי הכל מותר. אלא כי נן קיימין בנטועין מטע עשר לבית סאה: רבי ליעזר בן יעקב עבד לון כמרווחין, ורבנן עבדין לון כרצופין. Once again, we see the word רווחין contrasted with רצופין.

Finally, for a third example, see Yerushalmi Nazir 9:3 51b (also found in Kilayim 5:2 48a) We find there a debate as to whether vines planted at 4-cubit intervals are considered a vineyard, or merely a group of individual vines. R. Shimon bar Ba posits that the same question applies to a group of corpses found closely together, and whether or not they constitute a שכונת קברים, a burial ground. (Both questions have halachic import not relevant here.) R. Yose, however, says the two are not comparable: אמר רבי יוסי ולא דמייא. תמן מרווחין ורצפן במחלוקת, רצופין וריווחן דברי הכל. ברם הכא מהו פליגין בשבא ומצאן רצופין. In the case of the vines, even if they were properly spaced when planted and later crowded by adding vines, it would still be a matter of debate. And if they were initially crowded but later spaced by uprooting vines, all would agree it is a vineyard. But with respect to a burial ground, the whole question is when they were found close together, and one does not know how they were originally buried. (See Artscroll translation.) Again, for our purposes, the key point is only the wording. Here again, we see the word רווחין contrasted with רצופין.

All these three examples are from the Yerushalmi – that is to say, from Eretz Yisrael, where the Mishna was written. I have cited them because they show a clear contrast between רצופים and רווחים. These are clearly two parallel technical terms, one the opposite of the other. Thus, while we have not yet formally laid out a case, the reader can already anticipate the closing arguments: Can the real reading of the celebrated Mishna in Avos actually be רצופים, rather than צפופים?

Before pronouncing judgment, let us return to צפופים. We have already stated that no such word appears either in Tanach or anywhere else in the Mishna. If so, where does it come from?

Rashi, in Yoma 21a, where the Mishna in Avos is quoted, says it comes from the word צף, floating. As he explains, it was so tightly packed that people’s feet would actually come off the ground. Bartenura adds, in following Rashi, that their feet remained suspended in mid-air. However, we might wish to interpret Rashi to mean that their feet would rest on their neighbors’ feet packed in next to them. צף in the sense of both floating or being elevated upon something does appear in rabbinic literature, see Sotah 45a (and arguably in Tanach as well, see Eicha 3:54). However understood though, one gets the sense that Rashi was forced to devise this picturesque understanding of צפופים only because of the absence of any comparable words elsewhere. In Zevachim 15b, for example, the Mishna discusses the law of one Kohen standing on the foot of another (and whether it constitutes an interposition) and neither there nor in the ensuing Gemara is there any reference to צף. Further, if this was the true source of the word, shouldn’t the phrase, in fact, simply be צף, as in Sotah 44b צף על פני מים (cited by Bartenura) or צפים, as used in Mikvaos 2:8 אם היו המים צפים על גביו כל שהוא ישבר? This does not explain how we get the unusual word צפופים.

Aruch says it simply means “crowded” (דחוקים) as we translated it above. He brings two other examples in Rabbinic literature of the word צפוף in this sense, which, if not exactly a verse or a Mishna, would still be supportive. Yet neither of these examples are actually extant. The first is from Menachos 85b פעם אחת נצטפצפו אנשי לדקיא לשמן which we are apparently to read as, “it once happened that the people of Laodicea were hard-pressed for oil.” But this would only be a borrowed sense of the term, using “hard-pressed” for “pressed”, and from thence to “crowded”. Further, this too, is not the word צפוף for which we are looking, but only a variation thereof. And more fundamentally, none of our editions today even have such a word, instead reading פעם אחת נצרכו להן אנשי לודקיא לשמן

The Aruch’s other example is from Midrash Yelamdenu, which he quotes in connection with the second set of tablets, ראו האיך עומדין המלאכים צפופין ומרתתין לפני See how the angels are crowded and tremble before me. Yet we do not have the Midrash Yelamdenu, and Midrash Tanchuma – which is sometimes said to be identical with Yelamdenu – also does not have any such phrase.¹ We therefore cannot examine this Midrash closely, because it has been lost to us. Indeed, the use of the word “crowded” in the context of this snippet seems strange and out of place. In fact, simply by reading this solitary citation, one wonders if the word really should be כפופין (“bent in submission”) rather than צפופין. We cannot tell.²

A. Kohut, in Aruch Ha-Shalem, fares no better, simply citing other cases where theעומדים צפופים phrase is cited. He also cites possibilities where words similar to צפוף might theoretically be interpreted to mean דחוקים. However, all these examples are rather דוחק. For example, he cites Rosh Hashana 16b, where Jews in the middle category of merits and demerits are described descending to hell. Afterwards, they are מצפצפין ועולין. Rashi explains “they cry out”, and the Aruch says it means “they float out”, but Kohut conjectures it to mean “they are pushed out”, thus a kind of doubtful proof to the usage of צפוף in the sense of “crowded”. A few other similarly doubtful possibilities are put forward, none of which actually use the word צפוף in this form. (Interestingly, Kohut precedes these examples with the curious word אתפלפל – by which, I interpret it to mean, he intended to engage in pilpul for etymologists.)

The case is far different when we come to רצופין. The meaning of the word is “connected” or “contiguous”, and appears in the Bible on multiple occasions in the context of the flooring in the Temple (or in Esther 1:6, the King’s court). These floors – the source of the common word רצפה – were made out of hundreds of connected stones or tiles, from whence the word is easily applied to a large grouping of anything close together, be it people, graves, trees, or anything else.

Three different examples of the word רצופים used specifically in contrast with the word רווחים were cited above from the Yerushalmi. However, when used by itself a crowded field of examples can be shown in the Bavli as well. See Moed Kattan 9a מה יום כולו רצוף אף עשתי עשר כולן רצופין (Rashi – מה יום רצוף שאין בו הפסק אף כולהו י“א יום רצוף דליכא הפסק בינתיים); Bava Basra 37b אכלן רצופין אין לו חזקה (Rashi – כגון שנטועין יותר מי‘ בבית סאה); Negaim 11:9 רבי שמעון אומר, השתי אם היה רצוף, מיטמא. (Rash – שהחוטים רצופים זה אצל זה כעין רצפה שסמוכים זה אצל זה) The word is also found in the closely related meaning of “consecutive”, as in the requirement for adverse possession of land to be שלוש שנים רצופות three consecutive years, see Bava Basra 29b and Gittin 82a. Many more examples are cited both in the Aruch itself and by Kohut.

Thus, we arrive at the conclusion. In answer to the question posed above, there is good reason to suspect the original phrase was actually עומדים רצופים ומשתחווים רווחים. These two technical terms were often used in parallel contrast with each other in Eretz Yisrael. (That the two words together appear only in the relatively little-known Yerushalmi may, in part, be a reason why this point appears to have escaped notice thus far.) The word רצוף in the sense of crowded or contiguous is well documented throughout chazal, in both the Mishna and the Gemara, and even has a Biblical pedigree. The word צפוף, on the other hand, does not appear anywhere else that we can verify, is not found in Tanach or the Mishna, and can only be explained via questionable or creative etymology. The two words sound very similar and use essentially the same letters, and by a simple metathesis צפוף could easily and early on have arisen from רצוף.

Whether the jury is convinced or not, I am very far from “campaigning” to change a well-known word that Rashi and the Aruch were comfortable using. There is certainly no absolute proof that the reading I suggest is correct, and no manuscript evidence I am aware of to suggest there ever was a different reading. As I have had occasion to write in this space before, there is a perennial balancing act between the freedom of inquiry afforded by the principle of מקום הניחו לנו להתגדר, and actually suggesting change to established rule and precedent. Our thoughts must thus remain within the realm of conjecture. Only this, and nothing more.

* Mr. Farkas is a practicing labor attorney in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his rabbinic ordination from Ner Israel Rabbinical College in 1999. He can be reached at davidsfarkas at gmail.com