[Avodah] Season's Greetings

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 04:57:16PM -0400, Poppers, Michael wrote:
: As I wrote offlist, we should consider ourselves beinonim but (and this
: is the crux of the greeting issue IMHO) others tzaddiqim...

But if only a tzadiq of biblical proportions has his fate nichtam
on RH, I'm not sure we should go that far.

To me, this isn't a greeting issue anymore, as the same issue applies
to Unesaneh Toqef, which was dated to the gaonic era, quite likely
Yannai haPaytan, early 7th cent Israel.

Contrary to RMP's assumption:
:                                                           Moreoever,
: our greetings are subject to halachic considerations ..., and a paytan's
: piyut is generally not...

I'm not sure I agree. The question you raised "Gut Shabbos" vs "A Gutten
Shabbos" subjects the greeting to halakhah -- not learn something out
of the greeting. There is no comparison between whether a greeting
must avoid a halachic problem, or whether a piyut implies a shitah
in aggadita that must be taken seriously.

OTOH, a piyut that retained currency for 13 cent met the approval of
numerous gedolim. And, as RRWrecently reminded me, piyutim make elaborate
references to midrashom and maamarei chazal -- often such that those
references are the only hints many of us have of these concepts.

My point of disagreement is that I think that things people put into
their machzorim are ideas rabbanim fell in love with and wanted the
masses to inculcate and be moved by. Why shouldn't they be open to
this kind of analysis?

(Pretty big words for someone who says "Machnisei rachamim" in third
person, "yachnisu", so as to avoid making baqashos of mal'akhim --
despite the normal form of the piyut, or of Shalom Aleikhem, clealry
implying it's okay.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
micha at aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l