From Flow to Routine: The Story Behind שִׁגְרָה

The Hebrew word שִׁגְרָה is commonly used to describe the usual, regular order of things—what we might call a routine. It’s often contrasted with states of emergency (חירום) or with more pleasant interruptions like vacations or leisure time.

The origin of שִׁגְרָה is intriguing. It appears to be a Hebrew mirror of the Aramaic word שִׁיגְרָא, though this Aramaic form itself isn’t widely documented in this meaning across Aramaic dialects. Instead, it likely evolved from a phrase found in medieval rabbinic literature: שיגרא דלישנא—a formula that itself stems from השגרת לשון, which appears a few times in the Jerusalem Talmud (e.g., Berakhot 2:3; 4:4). This phrase refers to saying something fluently, by habit—sometimes so much so that it leads to errors in speech or storytelling.

In fact, from the root שג"ר in Aramaic, we get verbs that express the idea of flow or streaming. For example, the verse in Jeremiah (9:17) "וְתֵרַדְנָה עֵינֵינוּ דִּמְעָה" ("Our eyes shall shed tears") is translated into Aramaic as וִישַׁגְרַן עֵינָנָא דִמְעִין. Similarly, a later midrash says: “Immediately their eyes משגרות דמעות”—"send out" or "stream" tears.

Already in Mishnaic Hebrew, we find a borrowed sense of the verb שָׁגַר:

• "If one’s prayer is שגרה בפיו, he prays the eighteen blessings" (Mishnah 4:3)

• "If my prayer is שגרה בפי, I know it is accepted" (Mishnah 5:5)

• "If his prayer is שגורה בפיו, it is a good sign for him" (Tosefta Berakhot 3:3)

In these examples, the meaning is that the prayer flows easily and naturally from the speaker's mouth—it is well-formed and habitual.

The noun שִׁגְרָה first appears in its modern sense in the preface to Sefer Ha-Rikmah, a treatise by the 11th-century Spanish grammarian Rabbi Jonah Ibn Janah, translated by Rabbi Judah Ibn Tibbon. There, in a passage discussing translation errors, Ibn Tibbon writes:

"…especially when the שגרת הלשון (habitual flow of Arabic) is in our speech and thoughts…"

Later in the translation itself, the phrase שגרת דבריהם ("their habitual speech") also appears. Still, the word didn’t gain significant traction in Hebrew until modern times.

In modern Hebrew literature, the revival of the term שגרת הלשון can be traced to a likely retranslation of the old שיגרא דלישנא. Poet Hayim Nahman Bialik, in his 1915 essay Revealing and Concealing in Language, wrote:

"But such moments are very rare, both in the שגרת הלשון and in the שגרת החיים…"

Some view this as the moment when שִׁגְרָה was granted its broader, contemporary usage: the general state of regularity or normalcy—‘the usual state of things.’

From שִׁגְרָה, modern Hebrew derived the adjective שִׁגְרָתִי ("routine" or "regular") and its noun form שִׁגְרָתִיּוּת ("routineness"). With help from military slang, we also got the phrase חזרה לשגרה ("return to routine")—commonly abbreviated as חזל"ש. From there, Israeli Hebrew has formed playful verb variations like חִזְלֵשׁ, חֻזְלַשׁ, and הִתְחַזְלֵשׁ—all referring to getting back to routine, often used when something exciting gets canceled or toned down.

Let’s just hope we can לחזלש all the wars in this country… and finally bring the hostages home.