[Avodah] Machnisei Rachamim

[Zev Sero]

Michael Mirsky wrote:
> On Areivim, with regard to a video performance of Machnisei Rachamim at 
> Slichot Micha Berger said:
> 
>> "(Not that I personally say "Machnisei Rachamim". For that matter, I
>> don't even say "borkhuni leshalom". My current solution is to replace
>> it with the verse Sepharad says that Ashk skips, "Beshivtikhem
>> leshalom".)
 
> Actually, this bring to mind a halacha that I heard that one davening
> in private shouldn't say any parts of the davening that are in
> Aramaic because when you daven b'yichidut you are relying on angels
> to take up your tefilla.  And angels don't understand Aramaic!  But
> when davening in a minyan, the shechina is there directly.  If this
> is an authentic halacha, it seems to contradict the view that we
> shouldn't be (and can't be) davening to angels in the first
> place!  So I ask, is this an actual halacha?

Yes, it's an explicit gemara (Sotah 33a).  RMF writes that since
Aramaic is basically just badly accented Hebrew, the same applies to
Hebrew that is not pronounced as MRAH pronounced it; at most one of
the mesoros on that can be correct, and all the others can't be
understood by mal'achim.   BTW, this does not apply during Aseret
Yemei Teshuvah, when Hashem listens directly even to an individual.


>  And if so, how do we reconcile with the angel issue?

I don't see the problem.  In ordinary tefilah we are not asking the
angels to do anything at all.  We assume that they will do their job
and convey our words to the correct address.  Asking them to do so
seems like asking the telephone to please work; it implies that they
have the choice of not doing so.  And that's essentially what shituf
is: treating Hashem's tools and agents in the world (e.g. the forces
of nature) as though they had the option of not passing on to us His
blessings, and therefore had to be persuaded to do so.   Why it is
in fact OK to ask things from the angels (and the 13 midot) is a
complicated subject -- I do it because it's in the machzor that was
written by people who knew what they were doing, and because my
father and zeide and elter-zeide and all my teachers did it and
were satisfied with that explanation; but it's far from poshut.


Micha Berger wrote:
> WRT the neshamos of niftarim, it is common during the close of a hesped
> for someone to ask the niftar to be a meilitz yosher for us. The Gra
> would assur that as well.

I very much doubt it, since the Zohar explicitly permits it.  Why
would it be a problem, if it wasn't one before the person died?
Why would death change anything in this regard?  Do meisim lose
their bechirah?  Do they no longer have their own zechuyos, so that
their prayers may achieve something that ours can't, just as they
did when they were alive?

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher