[Avodah] [Areivim] shelo osani ...

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, May 27, 2007 at 12:01:28AM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:
: If one can change the Nusach Hatefillah to suit his/her state of being,
: shouldn't there be many, many changes to be made? Every Tefillah in Lashon
: Rabim will have to be changed to Lashon Yachid, when davening alone, and the
: opposite when davening with a Tzibbur...

As others already pointed out, we use the tzibbur form because we
daven *for* the tzibbur not necessarily *in* a tzibbur. And the number
of tefillos written for the yachid that actually involve gendered
conjugation are few. (E-lokai Neshamah and E-lokai Netzor don't have
the petitioner doing anything, so the issue doesn't arise.) As others
already demonstrated, the issue is rare.

I do not know when the "shelo asani goy/nachri" version of the berachah
was coined. Aku"m wouldn't have this issue, although the full oveid
kochavim umazalos would potentially need to be converted to ovedes.

Modeh Ani, though, is of late vintage. No rishon mentions it. We're not
talking about playing with Chazal's matebei'ah.

I would say the same about "Hamaqom yenakheim eskhem/eskha/eskhen/osakh".
Although there you get into questions of whether the soul of the niftar
is among those being comforted, which would influence the conjugation.

Speaking personally, I like the idea of reconjugation because it
promotes thinking about peirush hamilim.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
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