[Avodah] What is a saris?

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 09:45:05AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: Saris definitely means eunuch; when Yeshaya says "ve'al yomar hasaris
: hen ani etz yavesh", he doesn't mean "royal servant"...
: As for Haman, if saris is meant literally, perhaps he was castrated for
: the sake of his career after he had his children.

What about "Potiphar saris Par'oh" (Bereishis 39:1)? Or is that why
eishes Potiphar was looking for men elsewhere?

I would think that "al yad Heigai, seris hammelekh, shomer hannashim"
(Esther 2:3) makes sense for him to have been a saris. However, "heigai"
might be "aga", which in turn means both "court officer" and "eunoch" in
Sanskrit. OTOH, wouldn't that make him "haheigai", with a hei hayedi'ah
(or "heigai hashomeir" maybe) or have the word "echad" in there somewhere?

I think it's simpler to say that since so many kings used eunochs in
certain roles, the word shifted meaning to also include others in similar
roles. Just as "aga" did. In fact in Hebrew such drift is more likely
given the phonetic similarity to "sar".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
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