[Avodah] Minhagim Scams on the Rise...

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:29:48PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
> I really think it would.  Not terribly wrong, but incorrect.  And then I 
> hear people say that it's *assur* to daven with Israeli pronunciation if 
> your father davened in Ashkenazis, and I want to cry.

See R' Gidon Rothstein's post "What Are the Halachot of Switching One's Pronunciation of Hebrew?" over at the RCA's blog
<http://text.rcarabbis.org/what-are-the-halachot-of-switching-one%E2%80%99s-pronunciation-of-hebrew>
(or <http://bit.ly/iMrpLA>.

Snippets:
    ...
    Already in 1933, R. Kook published an article in [Qol haTorah],
    a Torah journal,[2] dealing with the propriety of switching one's
    pronunciation of Hebrew from one accent to another.
    ...
    For R. Kook, the force of custom argues in favor of each community
    maintaining its own pronunciation. In an interesting sidelight, he
    does not say this out of preference for any particular pronunciation.
    While R. Ben-Zion Hai Uzziel, a younger colleague of R. Kook who
    later served as Sephardic Chief Rabbi, speaks of those who assert
    confidently that Ashkenazic pronunciation is clearly the only correct
    one, R. Kook assumes that the Yemenite accent is the closest to
    authentic still extant.
    ...
    First, [RBZHU] noted..., that already in the 1500s, Maharashdam ruled
    that only customs connected to matters of prohibition fall under
    the rubric of customs that obligate future generations .... Second,
    R. Uzziel noted that the Hatam Sofer's teachers, R. Nosson Adler
    and the author of Haflaah, switched their version of prayer to
    Sefardic. If so, change is apparently permissible when warranted.

Lemaaseh, RAYKook only permitted havarah Yisraelit as a better alternative
for someone so used to it that trying to stick to his minag would not
lead to a consistent havarah.

R' Shalom Spria comments:
    ...
    See also Iggerot Mosheh, Orach Chaim III, no. 5, where R. Moshe
    Feinstein faces the same question (i.e. what Ashkenazim should
    do when the spoken Hebrew among world Jewry is influenced by the
    Israeli Hebrew, which is more Sefardi than Ashkenazi). R. Feinstein
    answers that everyone should follow his ancestor's custom, and that
    all customs are halakhically legitimate bidi'eved, as is evidenced
    from the laws of chalitzah. Since the halakhah is that if either
    the lady or gentleman participating in the chalitzah is unable to
    speak Hebrew properly, the chalitzah is disqualified, the fact that
    Ashkenazim and Sefardim accept each other's chalitzot proves that
    there is a principle in the Oral Torah which dictates that all spoken
    dialects of Hebrew are halakhically acceptable.

    But in terms of likat'chilah, R. Feinstein encourages Ashkenazim
    to maintain their Ashkenazic pronunciation, for he says that
    we the Ashkenazim have represented the majority throughout the
    generations. R. Feinstein assumes, therefore, that until the end
    of the First Commonwealth, all Jews spoke one dialect, and it was
    Ashkenazic.
    ...
    It may also be noted that R. Jacob Israel Kanievsky, in his Kreina
    Di'iggreta I, no. 138, specifically admonishes Ashekenazim in
    the contemporary world to at least pronounce the Name of HaKadosh
    Barukh Hu, Yishtabach Shemo, with the kametz differentiated from
    the patach, based on the comments of the Rabbeinu Bachye at the
    beginning of Parashat Va'yera. [R. Ovadiah Yosef takes cognisance of
    this Rabbeinu Bachye in his own responsum which favours the Sefardic
    pronunciation.]...

And in a later comment:
    I have carefully reviewed the Yabi'a Omer and have discovered -- as
    best as I can understand the responsum -- that there is no problem
    of tartei di'satrei to for a Jew to employ the Sefardic pronunciation
    with the Ashkenazic distinction between a patach and a kamatz. Indeed,
    in subsection no. 6, R. Ovadiah Yosef specifically attributes this
    compromise pracite to R. Benjamin Silber in the latter's Shu"t Az
    Nidbiru III, p. 101, who in turn orally cites this approach in the
    name of the Chazon Ish.

    For the sake of intellectual honesty, I must add that R. Yosef does
    not demand this compromise practice, either. ...

And from R' Israel Geoffrey Hyman:
    There is also a Tesuvah on this subject from Dayan Weiss Z"l in
    his Minchat Yitzkach, vol 3 chap. 9, dated 5718 (1957).He forbids
    the changeover.

    He deals with this topic as a response to the then Chief Rabbi of
    Britain, Israel Brodie who posed the question about changing the
    pronunciation from "Ashkenazis" to Israeli pronunciation. In fact,
    the background to the question was the pressure from certain circles
    within the United Synagogue who wanted to introduce the Israeli
    pronunciation in the synagogues and chedarim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
micha at aishdas.org        which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
http://www.aishdas.org   again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH