In recent years, due to the profusion of social media and other sources that popularize speaking without filters, many words that were once taboo have become commonplace. Jewish culture has long dealt with uncomfortable terms by using puns and euphemisms. In the old days, for example, our grandmothers, fearful of even the word for cholera, made it into a Yiddish curse, khaleryah afh dir!, a plague on you! Using our root ח–ל–ה (het-lamed-heh), meaning malady or sickness, modern Hebrew restructured khaleryah and created the less malignant-sounding ‭ ‬חֺלִי‭-‬רָע(holi-ra), simply, a bad illness.

This root has many nuances in Scripture. In Exodus 15:26, God promises that he will not bring upon the Israelites ‭ ‬כָּל‭ ‬הַמַּחֲלָה (kol ha-mahalah), “all the maladies,” i.e., plagues, that He has brought upon the Egyptians. In 2 Chronicles 21:19, the sordid story of King Jehoram delineates a gruesome list of all the תַחֲלֻאִים‭ ‬רָעִים (tahaluim ra’im), “physical and psychological diseases,” he had suffered for his misdeeds. The maiden in the Song of Songs (2:5) laments metaphorically חוֹלַת‭ ‬אַהֲבָה‭ ‬אָנִי (holat ahavah ani), “I am faint with desire,” for her beloved. Amnon, son of King David, lusts after his half-sister Tamar, and הִתְחַלֹּות‭ ‬ (hit-halut), “feigning serious illness” (2 Samuel 2:13), rapes her when she comes to his room to nurse him back to health.

This Hebrew noun for serious illness sounds and looks like הַתְחָלוֹת (hat-halot), the word for new beginnings. Homonyms, or words that can look and/or sound alike but are derived from unrelated roots, which occur frequently in Hebrew, are tricky. In a verse in Proverbs 13:12, a word derived from our root, מַחֲלָה–לֵב (mahalah lev), “heartsickness,” is paired with the homonymous תּוֹחֶלֶת (tohelet), “hope deferred,” emphasizing that one is caused by the other. Then there is the use in Scripture of two similar-looking verbs. The first, from our root, is applied to an embattled King Ahaziah (2 Kings 1:2): וַיָּחַל‭ ‬(va-yahal), “He got injured.” The other completely unrelated term is from Exodus 32:11:‭ ‬וַיְחַל‭ ‬מֹשֶׁה‭ ‬(va-yehal moshe), “Moses prayed.”

Jewish tradition has long prioritized בִּקּוּר‭ ‬חלִים (bikkur holim), visiting the sick. Israeli citizens may use one of the country’s קֻפַּת‭ ‬חלִים (kupat holim), national health insurance funds, if they become a חלֶה (holeh), patient, at a בֵּית‭ ‬חלִים (beit holim), hospital, including at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem (pictured above).

And then there is the teenage girl with a crush on a classmate. She may be חלָה‭ ‬עָלָיו (holah alav), “pining after him”; then, a little later, she may be חלָה‭ ‬מִמֶּנּוּ (holah mi-mennu), “sick of him.”

A similar sounding pair of words from a Rosh Hashanah liturgical poem—neither of them from our root—seems particularly appropriate now:‭ ‬תִּכֽלֶה‭ ‬שָׁנָה‭ ‬(tikhleh shanah), “May this year end,” with all its curses, so that תָּחֵל‭ ‬שָׁנָה (tahel shanah), “a new year may begin,” with all its blessings. The cure can’t come soon enough.

Joseph Lowin’s columns for Hadassah Magazine are collected in HebrewSpeak, Hebrew Talk and Hebrew Matters.