[Avodah] Season's Greetings

[Poppers, Michael]

In Avodah V27n179#6, R'Micha wrote:
> Earlier I wrote on list that "Gemar chasimah tovah" apparently assumes
> like the author of Unesaneh Toqef, who for some reason doesn't make
> these distinctions -- beRH yeikaseivu uveYom Tzom Kippur yeichaseimun
> for everybody. Look at the next line, what's being discussed isn't myself
> or beinonim in particular, it's "kamah yaavrun vekamah yibarei'un", etc...

[snip of provenance, and agreed that the piyut is "old," e.g. First
Crusades-era. Abe Katz of Beurei Hatefila recently FWDed an article
(IIRC, the author's surname was Eidelberg) on the subject.]

> RMPoppers asked me off-list how the author could contradict a maamar
> chazal. Thinking out loud...
> If you look at the Rambam's (eg) definition of beinoni, no one would
> qualify. Who is EXACTLY balanced between mitzvos and aveiros?
> So clearly the category is broader than exact balance.

> It's possible the paytan took the far extreme -- that unless someone
> is MRAH or one of the poeple individually named in the mishnah in
> pereq Cheileq as lacking olam haba, they are beinonim WRT the time of
> chasimah.

As I wrote offlist, we should consider ourselves beinonim but (and this
is the crux of the greeting issue IMHO) others tzaddiqim. Moreoever,
our greetings are subject to halachic considerations (the example I gave
was a qabbalah [w/ transmission errors solely mine] of, during a timespan
when tosefes Shabbos would be permissible, REMT's advice re saying
"a gut'n Shabbes" rather than "Gut Shabbes" unless one intended to be
m'qabeil Shabbos upon oneself), and a paytan's piyut is generally not (I
didn't "ask...off-list how the author could contradict a maamar chazal"
-- rather, I didn't think this particular paytan was contradicting the
particular ma'amar; that said, I 'hear' your thinking-aloud suggestion
:)). Thanks.

Chag Sameach/Gut Yuntef and all the best from 
-- Michael Poppers via BB pager