[Avodah] Retzei

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, March 16, 2007 12:39 pm, Elliott Shevin wrote:
: I find the latter awkward; "return the service to... and the fire-offerings?"

: Nonetheless, I have a vague recollection that this sort of construction, with
: a subject of a prepositional phrase added after the phrase ends, is used
: elsewhere in liturgy and/or Tanach, but can't recall any examples and would
: enjoy seeing one or two.

The first one in Tanakh that caught my eye:
Es hama'aor hagadol lemembheles bayom
ve'es hama'or haqaton lememsheles balaylah,
ve'es hakochavim.

"Ve'es hakochavim" seems much like "ve'ishei yisrael".

As others beat me to it, the problems is in your elipses -- "fire offerings of
Israel" doesn't parallel "service", it parallels "service in the Devir of Your
sanctuary".

I also wonder when Retzei was written. Was it during AKG, at a time when there
was a chanukas hamizbei'ach and ishei Yisrael, but no Devir built yet? In
which case, perhaps the tefillah was originally written to be read one way
(vehasheiv as ha'avodah lidvir beisekha. Ve'ishei Yisrael usfilasam...), but
period was moved rather than changing the nusach outright.

The problem with that idea is that there would have been no reason to keep the
line "vehasheiv es ha'avodah" all the time of Bayis Sheini. The two versions
make sense in their respective epochs, but what about the time in between?

If you're interested in this kind of discussion, you might want to join Mesorah.
See <http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/mesorah-aishdas.org>.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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