The Wormy Place
“Know from whence you came, to where you are going, and before Whom you are destined to give an accounting.” These are the famous words of Akavya ben Mahalalel as recorded in the Mishnah, and, in some circles, these words are recited at every funeral. As the Mishnah explains, the answers to the questions are that one comes from a putrid drop, one is going to a dusty place of rimah and toleah, and one is destined to present an accounting of their life’s deeds before the King of Kings, the Holy One Blessed be He (Avot 3:1). In this essay, we focus on the words rimah and toleah—which are both associated with “worms”—in order to differentiate between these two apparent synonyms.
The morbid fact that all men are destined to arrive at a place of “rimah and toleah” is mentioned several times in the Talmud. In one instance, this fact is mentioned in a supplication that one sage recommended saying if one had to flatulate in the middle of reciting the prayers (Brachot 24b). In another case, a good-looking man convinced himself not to go out and sin by reminding himself that his physical body is destined to rot and decompose while turning into rimah and toleah (Nedarim 9b). In a third passage, the Talmud (Bava Batra 17a) states that there were seven righteous people whose post-mortem bodies were not subject to rimah and toleah: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aharon, Miriam, and Benjamin. Finally, in another instance, the Talmud relates that Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, said about himself that his innards will not be subject to rimah and toleah after his death (Bava Metzia 83b). In all of these cases, the words rimah and toleah appear together as a tandem, just as they do in the Mishnah that we cited in the beginning of this essay. The phrase is also used in the Midrash (Shemot Rabbah §20, Vayikra Rabbah §18, Devarim Rabbah §11, and Kohelet Rabbah§5, 12), but curiously it never appears in the Talmud Yerushalmi.
Let’s unpack the phrase “rimah and toleah” by looking at each word separately, and then looking at how they are used together. The word rimah appears seven times in the Bible, five of which occur in the Book of Job(Job 7:5, 17:14, 21:26, 24:20, 25:6) and two of which occur elsewhere (Ex. 16:24, Isa. 14:11). In these final two cases, one refers to the fact that the manna left from Friday to Shabbat did not become infested—“and there was no rimah in it” (Ex. 16:24). This stands in stark contrast to what the Torah reported a few verses earlier that manna left over from previous days to the next became infested with worms, using the verb form of vayarum (an inflection of rimah) to denote “infestation,” and the noun tolaim to denote “worms” (Ex. 16:20).
Among the classical Hebrew lexicographers, Ibn Janach and Radak in their respective Sefer HaShorashim write that the word rimah derives from the triliteral root reish-mem-mem. The same is understood by Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Parchon in his Machberet HeAruch. However, Menachem ibn Saruk in MachberetMenachem writes that rimah actually comes from the biliteral root reish-mem. Either way, the semantic range of words deriving from either of those two roots—as well as the root reish-vav-mem—include “lifting,” “exalting,” “separating,” “removing,” “producing,” and “throwing.”
Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim (in both Yeriot Shlomo and Cheshek Shlomo) expands on Ibn Saruk’s understanding that rimah derives from reish-mem by specifically connecting “worms” to the “throwing” meaning of this root. The way he explains it, the sort of “throwing” denoted by this root is when one throws something upwards in such a way that the object will travel in a semi-circle form and when it reaches its peak, it will freefall downwards, adding gravity and its own weight to the force of the impact. This is the theory behind ballistic missiles. In the case of rimah, these “worms” do not have legs that they can use to jump, but instead they gather up their inner fortitude to “throw” themselves and form an arc as they land on their intended spot. Interestingly, when discussing the word rimah and its etymological basis, Rabbi Pappenheim suggests that perhaps the word rimmon (“pomegranate”) derives from rimah because that fruit is highly susceptible to worm infestation. [To learn more about Hebrew synonyms for “throwing,” see my earlier essay “A Real Toss Up” (Dec. 2019). In my book G-d versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry, I discuss how Rimmon was an alternate name for the Syrian god Hadad and the Canaanite god Baal.]
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (to Ex. 16:20) writes that when an inanimate item (like food) is left on the ground, it appears lifeless. But if that item then becomes infested with worms that are moving about on top of it, it suddenly appears alive, as though the item had been “lifted” from its state of lifelessness into a state of animation. He uses this optical illusion in the eye of one who sees something infested with worms to explain the connection between the word rimah and the “lifting” meaning of the roots mentioned earlier. As an aside, Rabbi Hirsch stresses that his explanation is based on how worm-infestation appears to the naked eye, but has no bearing on the etiological question of whether such worms are created by spontaneous generation or are born of eggs (which was a controversial issue in his time).
Alternatively, we could account for the etymology of rimah by noting that when worms swarm upon something rotting, they “ascend” upon the item in question as though “lifted up” on top of it (such an explanation is somewhat implied by the Malbim in Sefer HaCarmel).
Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh of Carpentras in Aholei Yehuda offers two more theories as to the etymology of rimah: First, he argues (in line with the science of his times) that “worms” are generated by excess fat when a rotting food item becomes hot and putrid. According to this, he sees the root reish-mem-mem mentioned by the lexicographers as somehow related to the three-letter root chet-mem-mem, but he does not explain how the letters reish and chet might be interchangeable. Secondly, he sees rimah as related to the “lifting” meaning of the aforementioned roots, arguing that a worm is such a small and insignificant creature that its body barely appears to “lift” off the ground.
Rabbi David Chaim Chelouch (Michtam L’David Luach HaShorashim to Ps. 24:4 and Ohr Chadash Luach HaShorashim to Ex. 16:20) takes a different approach. He understands that in many roots in the Hebrew language, the meanings derived from a single root can refer to one thing and its polar opposite. This is because such exact opposites are always thematically related (in an inverse relationship), and thus could be semantically/etymologically related. In line with this thinking, he writes that reish-mem can refer to something objectively “uplifted” and “exalted” (ram) or to its complete opposite—the lowest of the low (rimah, a “worm”). He also notes that this root can refer to something in between, like mirmah (“trickery”) or ramai (“trickster”) which give off the impression of being wise and exalted, but are really the opposite.
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Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is an author and freelance researcher based in Beitar Illit. He studied in Yeshiva Gedolah of Los Angeles, the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Beth Medrash Govoha of America in Lakewood, and received semichah from leading rabbis. He also holds an MA in Jewish Education from Middlesex University/London School of Jewish Studies. Rabbi Klein authored two popular books that were published by Mosaica Press, as well as countless scholarly articles published in various venues. His articles on Hebrew synonyms are commissioned by Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem and have appeared on their website since 2016.
