[Avodah] shelo osani ...

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 02:25:27AM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: R' Minden asked:
:> Why oskha and not osakh (m.)? Is oskha even a word
:> (of the same language that uses 'hamaqom' for God)?

: Yes, it is indeed such a word. It appears in several places, such as 
: Parshas T'rumah (25:9) -- "k'chol asher Ani mar'eh os'cha..."

If I may explain the question, as I understood it...

RElphM takes for granted that we realized that "HaMaqom" is lashon
chazal, not found in Tanakh. "Lekha" is lashon Tanakh. In lashon chazal,
the word even for masculine is "lakh".

Thus the question why someone would use "lekha" in the matbei'ah we use
for nichum aveilim, since "HaMaqom yenacheim" must be in a dialect of
Hebrew in which "lakh" is the proper usage.

Well, there are two dialects of Hebrew which do use both "HaMaqom"
and "lekha" -- Abazit and modern liturgical Ashkenazis. We may open the
berakhah "Modim anakhnu Lakh", but a short while later we say "nodeh Lekha
unsapeir tehilasekha .. beyadekha", rather than "nodeh Lakh unsapeir
tehilasakh", and then the berakhah switches back to "pequdos Lakh".
But in general, "-kha" wins the Ashkenazi popularity contest. (As opposed
to Sepharad's "qadsheinu bemitzvotakh, vetein chelqeinu betoratakh,
sabe'einu mituvakh, vesamach nafsheinu biyshuasakh".)

Liturgical Ashkenazi is the product of hypercorrection of the siddur to
conform to Tanakh, and thus the result of an error, but I do not hear
a call for us to switch our siddurim back.

In which case, "osekha" would be consistent with the siddur.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht