[Avodah] New Brachos

[Arie Folger]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Chana <Chana at kolsassoon.org.uk> wrote:
> I do want however to spend some more time on the Sephardi
> position,  because, as I have tried to articulate, that one seems
> to be the more difficult to understand.  And I don't know how to
> reconcile RAF's research with the Sephardi position.

OK, let me elaborate. But first, I have to prefix these words with the
following disclaimer: while I did reasearch the development of
shemonei 'essrei and other central liturgical elements more
extensively, I did not research that intensively what I am about to
write. It is based on things I picked up here and there during my
recent studies, but was not subjected to proper analysis.

We have to remember that there hasn't been any single tradition of
psak and minhag in Judaism, since the days of Shivat Tziyon of
'Haggai, Tekharya and Malakhi, and the situation definitely got more
complex since Rav came to Bavel and established yeshivot there. At
least since the latter, but possibly since the former, there have been
two major minhaggim and psaq traditions in Judaism. These strains did
not diverge too much, because they based themselves on the same
sources and were in contact with each other, but divergent they were.

Bavel seems to have been more insistent on the technical formulations
of blessings (malkhut, me'eyn ha'hatima) while EY was more flexible.
Regarding the all over composition, however, the situation was
reversed. EY insisted on having exactly 18 blessings, while Bavel did
not.

Rosh miLunel points out that the source of birkot Qeriat Shema'
(covering first nature and then Torah) is Psalm 19, and Aharon Mirsky
worked that out in an article and shows that it is not a vort, but
that Ps.19 permeates birkot QS through and through. Interestingly,
Ps.19 ends with yihyu leratzon imrei fi ... The Bavli has that for
after the shemone 'essrei, as we do, but in the Yerushalmi, there is a
view that has that verse at the beginning. According to Mirsky, this
is because then, we would maintain the unity of the model of Ps.19. So
you see, in EY, all over composition was more important.

Up until here, I described solid information; now comes the less well
researched part.

It seems that in Bavel, they ruled more rigidly about the form of
blessings. Thus, EY could combine et tzema'h David with veliYrushalaim
'irkha in order to create space for velamalshinim while maintaining
18, while the Bavlim went looking for a source to justify having 19
blessings, instead. EY allowed and even cherished piyutim, even some
that veered quite distantly from the content of the blessing at hand,
while the Bavlim were aghast (see the polemics of 9th century Pirqoi
Ben Baboi, who was a Bavli living in EY, published in Revue des Études
Juives about a century ago).

Nowadays, we live in a world in which a lot of harmonization between
EY and Bavel took place, and so there is less distance between
Ashkenaz (mostly EY, but a lot of Bavel) and Sefarad (mostly Bavel,
but a lot of EY). Sometimes, the minhaggim cross in weird ways
(Example: Bavel didn't say shir shel yom, but said the mishnah about
shir shel yom every day, instead, whiel EY said shir shel yom, as can
be seen from the Siddur of R'Amram Gaon vs. Massekhet Sofrim ch.18.
Yet, it is the Rambam who preserved the ancient EY rite here, while
Tur reported R'Amram's Babylonian tradition. Nowadays we follow EY 7
days a week and also Bavel on Shabbat.), and this may have been the
case with some aspect of what we are researching. Libi omer li that
Bavel was against using blessings for minhaggim, hence, after his
initial shock of seeing the recitation of Hallel was over, Rav noticed
they didn't say a blessing. However, once this was incorporated into
EY, they perhaps did say a blessing, because they didn't mind being
more liberal with the use of blessings, and so the current minhag came
out of a combination of Bavel and EY. This last point is the most
speculative thing I wrote about here.

Having tried to shed light of Sefarad's attitude, let me try to answer
one more question of R'n CL:
> So how do we explain the Sephardi approach?  I don't think we can say according to the Sephardi approach (as RAF has logically said according to the Ashkenazi approach) that "Hence, the reason why it may be considered levatalah has to do with the formula of blessings." - because the formula of blessing appears unquestionably to be a d'rabbanan formulation, and yet according to the Sephardi approach deviating from it makes for a d'orisa violation.

That's right, a misuse of a derabbanan may result in a deOraita
violation. The form of blessings is so holy, that we should be
exceedingly careful with them. We are not only mentioning G"d's Name,
but addressing ourselves to Him, so we have to be doubly careful. And
unless there is explicit permission from the Masters of the Messorah
to say a blessing, we should abstain, LEST it be in vain.

Another explanation: may, just like some explain the definition of
qidushin, with qidushei kessef being midivrei sofrim, there are some
things where the Torah left it up to the rabbis to legislate the
details, while stating that when something is teh case, it may result
in a deOraita violatoin. Concretely, perhaps qiddushei kessef is a
rabbinic innovation, but which falls under rabbinic prerogative, and
once 'Hazal determined kessef to establish qiddushin, the women is now
deOraita married, with all consequences applying ('heneq for adultery,
etc.). Likewise, perhaps the Torah left it up to the rabbis to
determine what is in vain, and when they legislated blessings -
according to this approach, all other blessings fell outside of the
exemption, and fell afoul of lo tissa.

Good week,
-- 
Arie Folger,
Latest blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
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