[Avodah] Shmoneh esrei - 18/19

[D&E-H Bannett]

A week or two ago, a posting on the number of brakhot in shmoneh esrei
suggested, IIRC, something like that the addition of birkat ha-minim in
E"Y changed the 18 to 19.

It appears, however that in E"Y there were originally 17 b'rakhot,
gematria tov and the addition of birkat ha-minim made it 18, k'minyan
chai.

Among other places, it can be seen in TY B'rakhot. In a discussion of
reasons for different numbers of b'rakhot , it states on daf 8,. halakha
3, "if one says to you there are 17, tell him that "shel minim kvar
kav'u chakhamim b'Yavneh".

The reason is that what were two b'rakhot in Bavel were combined in
one b'rakha in E"Y. In the same column of halakha 3 in the Yerushalmi,
it also states. "v'shel David b'voneh Yerushalayim".

That the b'rakha beginning V'lirushalayim (Sefaradim: Tishkon) and the one
after it, that begins with Et tzemach were one brakha in E"Y is attested
to also by the nusach E"Y found in the geniza and old manuscripts.
The b'rakha ends, BA"H, Elohei David (u) boneh Yerushalayim.

Didn't some list members wonder at times about the unusual nusach in our
Boneh Yerushalayim brakha? We say, come back to Jerusalem and live in it
as promised and rebuild it soon ... and speedily prepare David's throne
there. Why does David appear here when the next b'rakha is specifically
about David.

Even if one accepts, for some reason,that David deserves to be in two
b'rakhot, we are told that the last phrase of a b'rakha should be on
the same subject as the b'rakha ending ,k'ein sium lifnei ha-sium. But
here a new subject interrupts. For that reason, Sefaradic and Chabad,
nusachaot reverse the last two phrases so the inappropriate, off the
subject, phrase should not be the last one before the b'rakha.

Why is this remnant of David in Boneh Yerushalyim? Was it in the original
Bavel nusach which had separate b'rakhot for Yerushalayim and David?
Or, perhaps, someone looked in the Tosefta or Yerushalmi and interpreted
the statement that one is kolel David b'voneh Yerushalayim as applying
also to a nusach other than that of E"Y.


k"t,
David