[Avodah] The Gra on Aleinu

[Micha Berger]

I just posted:
: I don't know why the usual teirutz, that we mean Hashem acts in a manner
: from which we would emulate Rachamim, doesn't work. Like "Avinu, Av
: haRachaman, racheim aleinu..." Perhaps, as per the Moreh and the Gra,
: we could distinguish between anthropomoriphications made by neviim and
: crafting one's own. More likely in my eyes is that the Maharal feels
: the gemara is objectiving because the chazan in question phrased it as
: a motivator, not the action itself.

The Moreh 1:59 appears to consider it important that our tefillos were
constructed by Anshei Kenesses haGdolah who included nevi'im. This is
developed using the gemara of R' Chanina complaining about the talmid of
his who went to the amud and listed adjective after adjective praising
HQBH.

The Gra was a reference to his nusach for Aleinu. The more common nusach
is "umoshav yeqaro bashamayim mimaal". The Gra objects, since "moshav
yeqaro" is an anthropomorphication not found in Tanakh. He insists it
must have been a shibush, since we do not make up our own metaphors for
HQBH.

However, the Gra also takes the attribution of Aleinu to Yehoshua bin
Nun quite seriously. He removed the addition at the end of Aleinu of
"vene'emar, 'Vehayah H' leMelekh...'" from Zechariah, an addition that
dates back to at the late geonim or early rishonim. His reasoning being
that Yehoshua's words don't need support from a late navi. It's a little
odd to support a claim with a proof from a less authoritative source
than the claim itself.

In which case, why doesn't the fact that Yehoshua would have been the
one who wrote "moshav yeqaro" in Aleinu enough to accept that it could
have been authentic nusach?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Mussar is like oil put in water,
micha at aishdas.org        eventually it will rise to the top.
http://www.aishdas.org                    - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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