[Avodah] shma kolenu

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Sep 08, 2013 at 10:01:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: 1) why is the phase yewhi leratzon imre phi ... recited quietly

To my mind, this isn't the part that sticks out. We always say "yehi
leratzon imrei fi" quietly. Most even have the chazan opening chazaras
hasha"tz by saying it quitetly. And it's in the singular, meaning it's
something I'm saying for myself, not for the tzibur. So why would we
proclaim it together congregationally?

1- Why am I interrupting the sequence to ask Hashem to listen to my
tefillos? Why is it not in the beginning, before the tefillah, like at
Shemoneh Esrei?

2- Alternatively, why don't we shift the request into being part of the
tefillah, by turning it into the plural? Make it like birkhas Shomeia
Tefillah. After all, we turn Tehillim's "al tashlicheini le'eis ziqnah"
to "al tashlichainu" and recite the result out loud together.

: 2) why do we say the last part after  cichlot cochenu al taazvenu quietly
: (Mateh Efraim 581/18 brings the minhag but doesnt give a reason)

I don't think we can answer this until we know why of all Selichos, Shema
Qoleinu is recited line-by-line responsively. Once we know why the other
verses are responsive, we would know why the reasoning stops applying.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For those with faith there are no questions.
micha at aishdas.org        For those who lack faith there are no answers.
http://www.aishdas.org                     - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin
Fax: (270) 514-1507