[Avodah] Zeh laZeh, Zeh baZeh

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 11:31:30AM EDT, Jonathan Baker wrote to Areivim in
a discussion of a letter that contained "kol yisrael areivim zeh lazeh":

:> Clearly not.  If he was an Areivimite, he would have known to write zeh
:> BAzeh, not zeh lazeh.

: Not necessarily.  According to REMT
: http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/2008q1/005962.html
: it's a girsaos issue - the gemara & midrash say "bazeh", Rashi in a couple
: of places says "lazeh", which according to Gilad Gevaryahu on mail-jewish,
: is a more natural Hebrew construct.

As for the girsaos issue... While this doesn prove the point, girsasos
in the Ein Yaakov are usually the result of greater care than those in
the Vilna Shas. And so, "bazeh" has that increase in likelihood.

Also, while our girsaos of Rashi have "lazeh", the Ohr haChaim has a
piece that only works with "bazeh". Rashi's comment doesn't depend on the
choice of preposition. Therefore, we don't really have strong evidence
that this was actually Rashi's girsa. Just that if it were changed from
"bazeh" to "lazeh" it would have to have happened in numerous places.

I have no idea if the following is true, but this is what seems to me
most likely. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh baseh was the original. And the
meaning was "all of Israel are one mixed into the other." As the Ohr
haChaim meant it. A statement about Jews as interconnected and even
intermingled parts of the corporate Kelal Yisrael.

This is how the Ohr haChaim explains Moshe Rabbeinu's loss of peh-el-peh
quality nevu'ah for 38 years of the midbar. Because BY, by sinning,
lowered their own souls and thus the areivus that is Moshe's neshamah.

However, as RJB says in the name of RGG, it doesn't scan as well. It's
more natural to assume that "areivim" means "guarantor" and therefore
"lazeh -- for one another". If someone isn't introduced to the more
mystical idea that our souls overlap, they would faster just assume the
gramatically "corrected" version of "lazeh".

That is far more likely than a shift from the straightforward "la-" to
"ba-". Again, IMHO.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
micha at aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter