[Avodah] Mishna Berura on bentching

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 09:24:34AM -0400, Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah wrote:
> In Siman 187.1.2, Mishna Berura ...
> 1. What's the difference between "sha'atah zahn" and "sheh'atah zahn"?

I can talk about this one, if not your second question.

It's the same as in Modim. Ashkenaz has "Modim anachnui La sha'Atah" and
Sephradim say "she'Atah". And there are other cases of "sha'Atah", eg
in Emes veYatziv.

In the Torah, you will not find a "she-" prefix. HQBH uses "asher". (Nor
the "kishe-" for when / whenever.)

In early Navi, you'll find "sha-". Not too often, but one case is in
Shofetim 6:17, when Gid'on refers to Hashem as "sha'Atah". (Another is
the two occurances of "shaqqamti" in Shiras Devorah, 4:7.)

Joshu Blau of the Academy of the Hebrew Language says that this was the
Northern contraction of "asher", but the Southerner's "she-" eventually
wins out. (Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew, pg. 183) Except
that Devorah was in Bet-El, so unless she borrowed northern coinage to
make the poem work...

Tefillah used to tend toward Mishnaic Hebrew in both Ashk and Seph.
With exceptions like the masculine "lakh" in "Modim anachnu Lakh".
But when the printing press made publishing a siddur with nequdos
possible, some hypercorrections went into Nusach Ashkenaz by experts
convinced we're all saying it wrong.

These tended to be makilim, as few else in Ashkenaz were studying diqduq.
One prominant name is R' Shelomo-Zalman Hanau (Razah). Research seems
to indicate his diqduq rules were employed by Lubavitch's Alter Rebbe
in making Nusach Ari. But that has been debated here in the past. In
any case, somehow, people managed to buy into the idea of changing
large chunks of the vowelization of their davening in a comparatively
short time.

Although, the medieval manuscripts indicate that we were using Mishnaic
Hebrew all along.

These corrections made the Ashk siddur a lot more biblical. It began
the debates between "morid hagasham" vs "morid hageshem", since in
Mishnaic Hebrew there is no "hagashem", even if it's the last word of the
sentence. And in earlier Ashkenaz, they said "vesein chelqeinu besorasakh,
sab'einu mituvakh" -- just as Seph still say.

The presence of "sha'Atah" in Shoferim meant that that became the form
in Ashkenazi in the past 2-3 centuries.


In addition, it is possible that the "sha-" is the usual contraction for
when one word is taking both the "she-" and "ha-" prefixes. That Gid'on
was calling G-d "The You", and this is what we're imitating in davening.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter