כדי ש־ and למען: In Order That | Hebrew Grammar

Which of the two purpose frames a sentence needs — an infinitive or a ש clause — is decided by one question, and it is worked out on purpose and result clauses — which is also where על מנת is dealt with, since its first sense is on condition that and not in order to. This page is the words: what כדי actually is, the extra ב that half of Israel writes and every editor deletes, the two ways of saying so that … not, and למען, which behaves nothing like כדי however the dictionary glosses it.

What the dictionary says כדי is

The Academy of the Hebrew Language's dictionary files כְּדֵי as a מילת יחס, a preposition, and defines it with the two frames written into the entry itself: (ש+עתיד או ל+מקור) בשביל — ש plus a future verb, or ל plus an infinitive, meaning for (raw Wayback capture 22 April 2025). So the alternation is not a rule someone imposed on the word; it is the word.

קמתי בחמש כדי להספיק לתפוס את הרכבת הראשונה.

kámti bekhamésh kdei lehaspík litpós et harakévet harishoná

I got up at five to catch the first train. (ל plus an infinitive)

השארתי לך את המפתח מתחת לשטיח כדי שתוכל להיכנס לבד.

hish'árti lekhá et hamaftéakh mitákhat lashatíakh kdei shetukhál lehikanés levád

I've left you the key under the mat so you can let yourself in. (to a man — ש plus a future verb)

The same entry gives a second sense that explains where the word comes from: כשיעור־, כמידת־, to the measure of, as in the old phrase כדי שׂובע, enough to be full. That is the די of enough, and it is still live in the family the entry lists beside it — עַד כְּדֵי כָּךְ, לִכְדֵי, תּוֹךְ כְּדֵי.

הוא נלחץ עד כדי כך ששכח איך קוראים לו.

hu nilkháts ad kdei kakh sheshakhákh eikh kor'ím lo

He panicked to the point of forgetting his own name. (עד כדי כך — the 'extent' sense, nothing to do with purpose)

בכדי: the extra ב

You will see בכדי everywhere — in newspapers, in official letters, in your Israeli friend's messages. On Hebrew Wikipedia insource:/ בכדי ל/ returns 1,682 articles against 63,442 for the identically shaped insource:/ כדי ל/ (regex form, 17 August 2026; both large figures are floors, so read the ratio, roughly one in forty, and not the digits).

And it is contested. The Academy's own dictionary attaches a starred note to the כדי entry: הצירוף בִּכְדֵי (בהוראת 'בשביל') נחשב לא תקני — the combination בִּכְדֵי, in the sense for, is considered non-standard. The entry then links to the study behind that verdict, Uri Mor's שלוש בי״תין מפוקפקות: באם, בכדי, נקט ב־ (Leshonenu 78:3, 2016, pp. 305–333), republished on the Academy's site in August 2016, which traces how normative pressure and ordinary development between them shaped all three of these bet-forms.

חתמנו על הטופס בכדי לזרז את התהליך.

khatámnu al hatófes bikhdéi lezaréz et hatahalíkh

We signed the form in order to speed things up. (extremely common — and the one word a language editor will strike out)

חתמנו על הטופס כדי לזרז את התהליך.

khatámnu al hatófes kdei lezaréz et hatahalíkh

The same sentence without the ב — the form the Academy's dictionary treats as standard.

💡

Nothing is lost by writing כדי and nothing is gained by writing בכדי, so make כדי your habit. But do not hear בכדי as a mistake when an Israeli says it — this is a normative dispute about a live form, not a slip, and the ratio above is what a real usage argument looks like.

The other בכדי, which is a different word

Here the two spellings genuinely part company, and the dictionary even points them differently. The purpose word above is בִּכְדֵי, with a tsere. The one in the idiom לֹא בִּכְדִי has a chirik, and it means not for nothing, not without reason. The Academy's entry glosses it לשָווא, לחינם and explains the origin: כְּדִי is an Aramaic word, probably shortened from כְּדִיב, the Aramaic counterpart of Hebrew כָּזָב, falsehood (raw Wayback capture 29 April 2025).

לא בכדי בחרו דווקא בה לנהל את הפרויקט.

lo bikhdí bakharú dávka ba lenahél et haproyékt

It was no accident that she was the one they picked to run the project.

💡

One spelling, two words, and the next word is the tell rather than the last one. A בכדי with an infinitive or a ש after it is the purpose word. A בכדי with לא in front of it is the frozen Aramaic idiom, and the negation is part of the idiom rather than a negation of anything.

Negative purpose: כדי שלא, the bare שלא, and the literary פן

The ordinary way to say so that … not is כדי שלא plus a future verb, and in relaxed speech the כדי falls away and the bare שלא carries it all.

דיברתי בשקט כדי שלא נעיר את הילדים.

dibárti beshéket kdei sheló na'ír et hayeladím

I kept my voice down so we wouldn't wake the kids.

קח מטרייה שלא תגיע רטוב לפגישה.

kakh mitriyá sheló tagía ratóv lapgishá

Take an umbrella so you don't turn up at the meeting soaked. (to a man; informal — the bare שלא, with no כדי in front of it)

Written Hebrew has a one-word alternative, פֶּן. The Academy's dictionary glosses it exactly as כדֵי שלא, אולי, for expressing fear of an unwanted outcome, and marks it ספרותי, literary (raw Wayback capture 25 April 2025). That label is itself the useful part: the Academy is telling you that כדי שלא is the neutral form and פן is the costume. It also keeps close company with fear — of the first twelve hits of insource:/ פן י[א-ת]/ (275 in all), eleven are the particle and most of those follow חשש or מחשש; the twelfth is William Penn.

החברה נמנעה מלפרסם את הנתונים פן ייפגע אמון המשקיעים.

hakhevrá nimne'á milfarsém et hanetuním pen yipagá emún hamashki'ím

The company held off publishing the figures for fear of damaging investor confidence. (literary — an editorial or a novel, never a conversation)

לא סיפרנו לה מראש כדי שלא תדאג כל השבוע.

lo sipárnu la merósh kdei sheló tid'ág kol hashavúa

We didn't tell her in advance so she wouldn't spend the whole week worrying. (the everyday equivalent)

למען is a preposition, and it inflects

Glossaries render למען as in order to, which puts it beside כדי and gets it wrong. The Academy files לְמַעַן as a מילת יחס with the root ען, glosses it כְּדֵי, בשביל and לטובת־, for the benefit of, and — the detail that settles it — gives its inflected forms: לְמַעֲנִי, לְמַעֲנוֹ (raw Wayback capture 20 April 2025). Only a preposition takes pronoun suffixes. A conjunction has nothing to attach them to.

Form	Reading	What follows
כדי	kdei	an infinitive
כדי ש־	kdei she-	a future-tense verb
למען	lemá'an	a noun phrase
למעני, למענו, למענה	lema'aní, lema'anó, lema'aná	nothing — the suffix is the complement
פן	pen	a future-tense verb, negative sense built in (literary)

היא התנדבה שנתיים בעמותה שפועלת למען ניצולי שואה.

hi hitnadvá shnatáyim ba'amutá shepo'élet lemá'an nitsoléi sho'á

She volunteered for two years at a charity that works for Holocaust survivors. (formal — a noun phrase)

הוא ויתר על הקידום למענה, והיא אפילו לא ידעה.

hu vitér al hakidúm lema'aná, vehí afílu lo yad'á

He gave up the promotion for her sake, and she never even knew.

למען האמת, לא ממש התכוונתי להגיע.

lemá'an ha'emét, lo mamásh hitkavánti lehagía

To be honest, I wasn't really planning to come. (informal — a frozen phrase, and the commonest place a learner actually meets למען)

The Academy lexicalises three such frozen phrases — לְמַעַן הַשֵּׁם, לְמַעַן הָאֱמֶת and the minute-taker's לְמַעַן יֵרָשֵׁם, for the record. That last one preserves the biblical pattern where למען governs a bare future with no ש at all; its history and its measured limits are on purpose and result clauses. What למען never takes in modern Hebrew is a ש clause.

Common Mistakes

1. Treating למען as a conjunction. In order that looks like one word and one job, so the ש goes in and the sentence collapses.

❌ נשארתי מאוחר במשרד למען שהמצגת תהיה מוכנה

Incorrect — למען is a preposition and governs a noun phrase. A clause takes כדי ש: נשארתי מאוחר במשרד כדי שהמצגת תהיה מוכנה.

✅ נשארתי מאוחר במשרד כדי שהמצגת תהיה מוכנה לבוקר.

nish'árti me'ukhár bamisrád kdei shehamatséget tihyé mukhaná labóker

I stayed late at the office so the presentation would be ready for the morning.

2. Reading לא בכדי as a negated purpose. The two words are spelled alike and the sentence comes out meaning the opposite of what you intended.

❌ לא בכדי הוא בחר במילה הזאת

he didn't choose that word deliberately

Incorrect as that meaning — לא בכדי is the לשווא word and says it was no accident, i.e. he chose it deliberately. For 'he didn't choose it deliberately': הוא לא בחר במילה הזאת בכוונה.

✅ לא בכדי היא הפכה למסעדה הכי מדוברת בעיר.

lo bikhdí hi hafkhá lamis'adá hakhí meduvéret ba'ír

It's no accident that it's become the most talked-about restaurant in town.

3. Backshifting after כדי ש. English so that she wouldn't forget pulls the verb into the past, and Hebrew never does this: the purpose has not happened yet, so the verb is future whatever tense the main clause is in.

❌ שלחתי לה תזכורת בבוקר כדי שהיא לא שכחה

Incorrect — כדי ש takes a future verb regardless of the main clause: שלחתי לה תזכורת בבוקר כדי שהיא לא תשכח.

✅ שלחתי לה תזכורת בבוקר כדי שהיא לא תשכח את הפגישה.

shalákhti la tizkóret babóker kdei shehí lo tishkákh et hapgishá

I sent her a reminder in the morning so she wouldn't forget the meeting.

4. Reaching for פן because it is short. Both of these are good Hebrew. They are not the same kind of good, and the first one will make the person you are talking to smile.

✅ אל תשאיר את הכלב לבד בחצר פן יברח מהשער.

al tash'ír et hakélev levád bekhatsér pen yivrákh mehashá'ar

Don't leave the dog alone in the yard lest it get out through the gate. (to a man; literary — the Academy marks פן ספרותי)

✅ עדיף לסגור את השער, שלא יברח לנו הכלב שוב.

adíf lisgór et hashá'ar, sheló yivrákh lánu hakélev shuv

Better shut the gate, so the dog doesn't get out on us again. (what an Israeli would actually say)

Key Takeaways

The Academy's dictionary defines כְּדֵי itself as taking ש+עתיד או ל+מקור — a future verb after ש, or an infinitive after ל. The alternation is built into the word.
The same entry preserves the older extent sense, which is where עד כדי כך, לכדי and תוך כדי come from.
בכדי is everywhere (about one in forty against כדי on Hebrew Wikipedia) and the Academy's dictionary marks it נחשב לא תקני. Write כדי; do not correct anyone else.
לא בכדי is a different word with a different vowel — בִּכְדִי from Aramaic, not for nothing — and it means the opposite of a negated purpose.
Negative purpose is כדי שלא plus a future, or the bare שלא in speech. פֶּן says the same thing in one word and is marked ספרותי.
לְמַעַן is a preposition: it takes a noun phrase, it inflects (למעני, למענו, למענה), and it never takes a ש clause. The frozen phrases — למען האמת, למען השם, למען ירשם — are where you will meet it.

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