[Avodah] sidur - history and variations

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Apr 04, 2025 at 05:05:52PM -0400, mcohen--- via Avodah wrote:
> there have been multiple discussions on avodah about aspects, additions
> and differences to the sidur that i think would have been resolved by
> this insightful article on the history of development of the sidur by
> Rabbi Aharon Lopiansky
>  
> https://dialoguemagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Dialogue_No4_RLopiansky.pdf

The basic problem is that much of Ashkenazi minhag is actually based on
the grammatical theories of maskilim who were hired by printers to fix
up the siddurim.

RASL compiled a siddur and machzor of his own, Aliyas Eliyahu.
He describes it as being based on that of R Shabbetai Sofer, 1614,
which had hasqamos from his rebbe the Levush, the Maharsha, the Shela,
the Qeli Yaqar, and many others. and was requested and authorized by
the Vaad 4 Aratzos.

RSS winds things back to the beginning of this era, to the authorized
attempt to get the minhag down correctly.

But RASL accepts the more universally accepted changes since. I am
conflicted about that. It seems to me that a major point of authorizing
RSS's siddur was a distrust of changes imposed by people who believe they
know better than the mesorah. In other words, the gedolim of the V4A
apparently didn't want changes accepted as true minhag without knowing
their pedigree. Siddur RSS represents a pruning of the evolutionary tree
of Nusach Ashkenaz that Aliyas Eliyahu does not engage in nearly as much.



The Nusach haGra siddur Eizor Eliyahu tries to wind the clock back yet
further, relying on manuscript versions of Nusach Ashkenaz. Since their
goal is to lay the Gra's innovations atop the Nusach that would have been
in use in Vilna in that era, they favor East European manuscripts over
those from the West. And, Siddur RSS is really only used as a machria
when the manuscripts diverge. (And the Gra leaves no indication.) What's
nice about it is, all the textual decisions are documented in footnotes,
so you have often have documentation of the sources of other popular
variants as well.

RASL 

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
Author: Widen Your Tent      Love is not two who look at each other,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    It is two who look in the same direction.