[Avodah] meanings

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 09:10:30AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: For the pasuk "Poteiach et yadecha" and for the placement of a comma
: before or after "vishei Yisrael" in retzeih, there are two possibilities
: with different meanings.( By poteiach-whose ratzon?) Can you switch off
: or should you pick one?

As per my answer to you at this week's wonderful Audio Roundup
<http://www.torahmusings.com/category/audio>, I believe you *should*
switch off. Poets make a point of layering on multiple meanings when
they wish to convey a picture using al of them. I believe the point of
ambiguity in tefillah is just so that you can emphasize different shades
of meaning depending on what you want to way this particular time.

(I accept tips for plugging a member's web site via Paypal. Contact me
off-list. <grin> No, seriously, the biggest problem with RJR's Audio
Roundup over on TM is that he tempts you with too many good shiurim for
just one week of listening time.)

There is a basic grammatical problem, two nouns, both the object of the
sentence, with nothing indicating which is the primary object, which
the secondary, nor anything connecting them into a single phrase that
could be one object.

Thanks to previous Avodah discussions, I have a list of ways to read
"umasbia lekhol chai ratzon":

- Pashut peshat [check your typical siddur translation] would be as
  though the pasuq read "umasbia' ritzon kol chai" -- leaving every
  desire satisfied. (Or maybe "umasbia lekhol chai es tetzono".)

  RYGB  disliked this peshat because it's experimentally false. Many
  people die with unfulfilled desires.


- Rav Schwab says that everyone is dependent on "yennem's" liking him
  for his parnassa.... Hashem provides this needed "ratzon". (RGD)

  RMPoppers suggests [on Mesorah] that "ratzon" was the very quality
  that HQBH is bequeathing, IIRC, something akin to granting "chein".


- [T]he Malbim's pshat - Ratzon Hashem. (RYGB)

  [W]ould would work better if the pasuq read "... umasbia' lechol chei
  beratzon" .(me)


- RAYK points out that without ratzon, goals and purposes for a
  person to persue, life is empty. So he too says that Hashem bestows
  ratzon -- but means it in the sense of having desire, not being
  desired/desirable. Hashem does us a tovah by giving us retzonos
  to pursue.

Someone else noted the parallel in pereq 104:27-28 as an argument
for what I called "pashut peshat":
> Kulam alecha yesaberun   / Eynai kol alecha yesabeiru
> Lases ochlam b'ito       / V'atah nosein lahem achlam b'ito
> Titein lahem yilkotun.
> Tiftach yadcha           / Poseach es yadech
> yisbe'un tov.            / U'masbiya l'kol chay ratzon.

> The whole string of preceding psukim in 104 refer to G-d's ability to
> sustain the world in a very real and material way, not abstractions like
> bestowing "razton".

But I think that David haMelekh created the obscure phrasing because
the real answer is "(E) All of the above".


I believe, though, that what happened with ve'ishei Yisrael is simpler.
Birkhas Avodah ("Retzeih") was originally written for the kohanim to
say in bayis sheini. (Tamid 5:1)

In that original context, "Ve'ishei Yisrael usefilasam teqabel
beratzon..." works.

When birkhas Avodah was modified to become art of Shemoneh Esrai in
a world without qorbanos, how do we salvage this line? Do we move the
period so that what we are folding it into the new phrase
	vehasheiv:
	   - es a'avodah lidvir beisekha,
	   - ve'ishei Yisrael.
Or do we repurpose the old sentence to mean "And may you lovingly accept
the ishei yisrael and their tefillos" - which I know is asking you to
restore the BHMQ bfirst? Or do we pun on "ishei Yisrael" pretending it
means "anshei Yisrael" but in a unique conjugation?

But the question is how to find meaning in a pre-existing text under a new
circumstance. Not multiuple layers of original intent.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
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