[Avodah] Geshem or Gashem?!

Mandel, Seth via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Fri Nov 4 06:12:07 PDT 2016


From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 3, 2016 7:57 PM
> IIUC, and I am not sure I do, Said grammarians "fixed" the diqduq of
> the siddur by making it conform to their opinions about Leshon Tanakh
> (LT). Before then, most tefillos were in Leshon Chazal (LC). As in
> "modim anachnu Lakh". In LT, "lakh" is only used for femine, and the word
> would be "Lekha". Which is how we end up with Sepharadim saying "vesein
> chelqeinu beToratakh", but Ashkenazim are now saying "beSorasekha". The
> word "beSorasekha" was "corrected" in Ashkenaz in the early 18th cent.
...
> So there wouldn't have been a discussion about whether the word should
> be "gashem" until after the RZH et al.

Generally correct, but oversimplified.

Anshei K'nesset haG'dolah, when they composed the original nusach, did
much of it in L'shon Chazal, the Hebrew that they spoke. However, they
all knew T'NaKh by heart those days, and so the lashon of the T'NaKh
echoes behind everything, and in many cases whole phrases are lifted
from the T'NaKh.

As in Modim: the words are lifted from Divrei haYamim that we say in
P'suqei d'Zimrah;

"Ve`Atah Eloqeinu modim anakhnu Lakh" [transliteration mine. -mb]

So the form lakh here is actually LT! In L'shon Chazal, it would have
been "Modim anu Lakh". [t-lit mine, again. -mb]

But yes, all the ms Ashk'naz siddurim have -akh in most places where it
is not a quotation from the T'NaKh.

I am writing an article about this, and the more I learn, the less I
realize I know. But Zalman Hanau was never afflicted by such doubts.
His books evidence someone who thought he had figured out the Truth that
no one else knew, and so he did not hesitate to change anything he found
that did not meat his theories.

In today's Jewish world, no one in the O. community. would pay attention
to such a person. The irony came about because the printers, who,
as some have noted are actually the poskei haDor, wanted to make sure
their siddur could say "NEW AND IMPROVED" so that everyone who had a
siddur would buy the new one. The only way they could do that was by
hiring "experts in dikduk" to "correct" any "mistakes" in the siddur.
ZH's theories swept the world of grammarians, and so thenceforth printed
editions mostly followed ZH's own "Beit T'fillah" published first in
Leipzig in 1725, despite the fact that many rabbonim of the time objected
to it and the fact that it turned out some of the haskamot were forged.
And his theories became so ingrained later that even signs of sh'wa nach
and na' were added to follow his theories, including, as has been noted,
in the current printings of the Chabad Siddur.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel




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