[Avodah] zeicher/zecher

[D&E-H Bannett]

I've been following the latest repeat of the zeikher/zekher 
story and finally decided I had to join. Here is a copy of 
my posting from four years ago (which was not the first) and 
a few comments added at the end



From:    D & E-H Bannett <dbnet at zahav.net.il>

To:         avodah <avodah at aishdas.org>

Date:     Sun, 16 Mar 2003 09:52:54 +0200

Subject:                 Re: Zecher and zeicher



Re: <<Was the Gra suggesting this change as his own chidush 
based on

his understanding of the language, or was he citing variants 
which

existed prior to his time?>>



I think some posters are beginning to forget that R' Hayyim 
Volozhiner

also wrote, in his letter printed as an introduction/haskama 
to Ma'aseh

Rav, that M"R was wrong because R' Hayyim clearly heard the 
Gra say

zeikher.  R' Hayyimn adds that perhaps the Gra changed his 
mind in his old age.



If the Tanakh had both forms, the ba'a;ei ha-mesorah would 
have commented. That

they didn't, indicates that  all are the same. The most 
authoritative

source, ben Asher himself, in Dikdukei Hat'amim 36, says 
tzeireh.  Ohr Torah and Minchat Shai have tzeireh.



AFAIK, and as posted in the past (perhaps in the Mesorah 
sub-list), the

first source for six dots (two segols) is the printed 
editions of the

Radak which says for parashat zakhor only: six dots and some 
say five.

According to RV"H, the manuscript copy he had has it 
reversed and some say

five always.



As to someone's question re zekher as s'mikhut: The smoky 
s'mikhut of

'ashan is 'eshen as in 'eshen hakivshan at Har Sinai in 
Yitro. Minchat

Shai, who backs the tzeireh, then mentions the story of Yoav 
who killed

all the males because the Torah commands "Wipe out the males 
of

Amalek." Perhaps Yoav didn't say zakhar Amalek but thought, 
as with

smoke, the s'mikhut of zakhar was zekher.



But, I vow that although a neder has six dots, in s'mikhut 
it drops to

five as in neider almana So even if the word is zekher, in 
the smikhut

of zeikher Amalek and zeikher rav tuvkha it might still be a 
tzeireh. Words with five dots, like seifer and eisev do not 
change to six dots in s'mikhut



After the Radak, the next time we seem to hear comments 
about zekher is

R' Shabtai Sofer (1618? IIRC) who justifies and puts six 
dots in his

siddur followed by R' 'Azriel and R' Eliyahu who copied from 
him in

their siddur (about 1704?).



But all the above discussion is unimportant. What is 
important to me is

that ALL of the ancient and accurate manuscripts considered 
to be

T'veryani'im, including the Keter (eidut of R' Ya'akov Sapir 
in M'orot

Natan) and Leningrad, Sassons etc., have zeikher with five 
dots

exclusively.



In later manuscripts, according to R' Prof. Yitzhak Penkower 
who checked

century by century, the majority of the Sefaradic 
manuscripts are also

five dotters. The Ashkenazi manuscripts are mixed and most 
Italian

manuscripts have zekher.



Most of the later manuscripts that do not have zeikher 
exclusively

are those that also have many other un-Tveryani variants or

inaccuracies in nikkud, etc. and are not considered to be 
reliable.



Remember too, that the linguistic experts (R' Seth?) tell us 
that in

many pronunciations of that time there was little or no 
difference

between the pronunciations of tzeireh and segol.



So, if R' Hayyim was wrong, which I doubt, the Gra was not 
originating

anything but might have been influenced, in old age (?), by 
the

generally accurate siddurim of R's Shabtai, 'Azriel & 
Eliyahu and/or

inaccurate manuscripts. I repeat, IF R' Hayyim was wrong.



It appears to me, however, that those who stand on five legs 
from

ancient times to this day are very much more stable than 
those that try

to experiment by standing on six.





k"t,



David



Just for the record, the word appears nine times, twice in 
chumash, five times in tehillim, once in Yeshayahu and once 
in Mishlei. All are mileil with tzeireh. Check any Tanakh. 
Three, IIRC, are not s'mikhut.



Only Ashkenazim have the double reading.  No other edah ever 
heard of it.



All ba'alei mesorah, rishonim and aharonim and all academic 
researchers agree on tzeireh. The Rama, Meiri, YHB"Y, Ohr 
Torah, Minhat Shai, R' Shlomo Dubno, RV"H, R Shlomo Netter, 
R' Mordekhai Breuer, R' Menahem Cohen, R' Y. Penkower



As to the postings on Chabad,  The Ba'al Hatanya did not 
read twice. He read zekher in b'shalach and zekher in 
ki-teitzei.  The Tzemach Tzedek said to read in sh'vi'i six 
dots in bshalch and five in ki-tetze and for maftir to read 
5 in b'shalach and 6 in ki tetze. The last rebbe, MM"Sh, had 
double reading of the one word and in the order of the 
previous rebbes.



And then came the CC and made it official for the non-Chabad 
as well.

But all that is the past. I expect that the final posek for 
those in the USA is Art Scroll.



I'll close with the words of Harav Mordekhai Breuer about 
one who repeats zeikher-zekher: "He expresses by this that 
it is impossible to rely on minhag avotenu b'yadenu, nor on 
the decisions of Ohr Torah and Minhat Shai, even if all the 
proofs in the world prove them correct.  Such (double) 
reading is an insufferable contradiction .



It sounds better in the original for those whose computer 
can display it.



  כל המכפיל זכר-זכר "הרי הוא מבטא על ידי כך שאי אפשר לסמוך 
לא על מנהג אבותינו שבידינו ולא על הכרעת בעל א"ת ומ"ש ואפילו 
כשכל הראיות שבעולם מוכיחות את צדקת דבריהם...  קריאה כזאת היא 
סתירה שהדעת אינה סובלת אותה





David