[Avodah] Modim Modim

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, February 5, 2007 8:19 am, R David Riceman wrote:
: How about this: the Rambam in the beginning of Maamar Tehiyyath Hameithim
: says that trinitarians misinterpreted the pasuk shma, which mentions God
: thrice, to be evidence for the doctrine of the trinity....

j4j still uses that one.

I tried getting an LOR to assur the usual tune for "Vene'emar, 'vehayah H'
lemelekh...'" since it repeats "ushemo" three times and then says that it
equals one. Meaning: I tried getting the LOR to assur it for that reason
because I simply hate the tune. <g> IIRC, I got the idea from R' Zev Sero,
either via scj or mail-jewish (or both).

And to this very day, there are qehillos that don't say "barukh Hu uvarukh
shemo" because the Sabbatians were very gung-ho about answering "barukh hu,
varukh shemo" which has the gematria of Shabtai Tzevi.

(Granikim don't say it because the only "Hu" one can give a berakhah to is
"Shemo". Once one distinguishes between the two, "Hu" refers to the Ein Sof,
for Whom the concept of berakhah is meaningless.)

: In that case what you're missing is not a grammatical construction, it's a
: polemical context.

Does that work is the opposition didn't grab onto it first? Xians have a
motivation to read their own religion into a verse. Zoroastrians, the big
dualist religion of Bavel from around Koreish until Islam's invasion, have
their own scripture.

It would seem by implication that there were Jews who tried reading dualism
into their "Judaism". That there were dualists who used something much like
the Perushi siddur. Otherwise, why would "Modim Modim" sound like a dualist?

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter