Use of גנז in Aggadic
Passages.
Passage 66 (TZ, p. 60) תוספתא
פאה ד:יח
מעשה במונבז המלך שעמד וביזר אוצרותיו
בשני בצורת. שלחו
לו אחיו אבותיך גנזו אוצרות והוסיפו
על של אבותם...אמר להם
אבותי גנזו אוצרות למטה ואני גנזתי
למעלה.
Tosefta Peah 4:18
It is related of King Monobaz
that he dissipated his hoards in years of scarcity. His brothers wrote him: Your
fathers stored up hoards and added to those of their fathers... He replied: My
fathers stored up hoards below but I am storing up above.
Passage 67 שבת קה:
אמר ר' שמעון בן פזי א"ר יהושע
בן לוי משו' בר קפרא כל
המוריד דמעות על אדם כשר הקב"ה
סופרן ומניחן בבית גנזיו.
Shabbath 105b
R. Simeon b. Pazzi (290-320) said
in the name of R. Joshua b. Levi (220-250) in Bar Kappara's (200-220) name: If
one sheds tears for a worthy man, the Holy One, blessed be He, counts them and
lays them up in His treasure house.
The root גנז appears six times in
Scripture: Ezekiel 27:24 גנזים ,ונגנזי בנתמ ; Esther 3:9 and 4:7 גנז;
and Ezra 5:17 and 6:1 ,גנזיא and
7:20 ,גנוזי. The Ezekiel reference is difficult in its own right and, possibly,
is not to be related in meaning to the root being discussed here. The Esther references
clearly mean, and have been rendered, "the king's treasuries." The
occurrences in Ezra are in Aramaic and mean "treasures." W.
Baumgartner lists the post-biblical verbal form as a denominative of the
Aramaic noun גנז. Our concern here is only with its usage in post-biblical
Hebrew.
The basic meaning of גנז is
"to store away." The Hebrew noun גנז* is "that which is stored
away" and by extension "the place where objects are stored."
These usages appear in passages and 67 and throughout Talmudic and midrashic
literature. So in aggadic passages; in the halachic literature, however, גנז
has assumed a specialized meaning. . . When these objects cease to be
functional, they may neither be used for secular purposes nor destroyed. Due to
their sacred status, they are to be stored away for safekeeping. גנז, then
implies sanctity, not profanity. (Sid Zalman Leiman, “The Talmudic and
Midrashic Evidence for the Canonization of Hebrew Scripture” [PhD Dissertation;
University of Pennsylvania, 1970], 159-61)
