[Avodah] THE HEAD MOVEMENTS OF SHEMA

[D&E-H Bannett]

It appears that I was not folllowing this thread very well 
as I do not know or do not remember what article RMP quoted 
from in the following:
<<it also noted the mandate to spend twice as long on the 4 
"daled" movements as on the 2 "ches" movements and how one 
can do this by pronouncing the daled rafeh as "th" rather 
than "d."  I'm curious whether the chevrah thinks (and in 
the past have discussed this issue with my Rav, bcc:ed) that 
emphasizing the "cha" (ches/qamatz") without pronouncing the 
daled as if it had a sh'va na' is the way to fulfill that 
mandate.>>

I do remember that I have written before (perhaps in the 
Mesorah list rather than the Avodah) that before most people 
forgot how to differentiate between bg"d kf"t with and 
without dagesh there was no question how to "fulfill the 
mandate".

Rashi, who knew how to pronounce the consonants, explains 
the gemara in Brakhot 13b "In the dalet, and not in the 
chet, for  as long as one says echaaa without a dalet he has 
not said a word  What value is there in the prolonging. 
Rather, lengthen the dalet ...

The Bet Yosef quotes this Rashi so I would assume that he 
too knew how to pronounce the  dalet lo d'gusha.

Only our modern Jews who have long forgotten how to 
pronounce the dalet rafa could develop, or invent, the 
meaningless echaaaaaa before adding a dalet d'gusha.

This evidently happened some hundreds of years ago. Perhaps 
RSM could tell us when, why, and how. But I've commented in 
the past on the many changes in custom that have developed 
during my lifetime.

And on the subject of Sh'ma': When I was a kid and davened 
in Ashkenazi shuls, when the chazan completed the b'rakha 
before sh'ma', some said amen and some didn't but all 
started immediately to say Sh'ma'. I understood that this 
was being somekh ahava lit'filla.  Nowadays, there is 
usually a break of complete silence before starting Sh'ma'. 
Is this to avoid being somekh ahava lit'filla?


David