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RMB wrote:<BR>
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<<Chumash: Keil na, refah na lah.<BR> <BR>There is a difference between davening, and trying to invoke G-d theurgically, using formula in an attempt to "force" Him into healing<BR>someone. The Rambam was vehemently against magical thinking, but he didn't take "Refa'einu" out of Shemoneh Esrei.>><BR>
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No-one claimed that refa'einu or refah na lah is assur. The question is whether pesukim may be recited. This was dealt with in an article in Techumin some years ago. IIRC, the author cited R.SZA to the effect that when reciting Tehillim for an ill person, one should davka have in mind that the recovery should come about through the z'chus of the learning involved in the recital. Far be it for me to argue with R.SZA's halachic reasoning, but his maskana seems counter-intuitive to me - I would have thought that to recite pesukim that speak to the anguished heart of the petitioner and express his longing for the choleh's recovery would be alright; reciting them to create a z'chus of talmud torah seems more theurgic and problematic to me.<BR>
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Also IIRC, the Tzitz Eliezer held that when we recite pesukim for an ill person, we should simultaneously intend that G-d should prevent future illness, as even the Rambam permits this, and the mixture of intentions makes it muttar, based on a Meiri.<BR>
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All of this goes to show that the question is not pashut, and gedolei haposkim have troubled themselves over the implications of the Rambam's words.<BR>
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Something which seems obvious to me, but obviously not to the authorities cited in the Techumin article, is that the Rambam uses the Gemara's expression *lochesh al hamakah*, literally to whisper on the wound. This implies to me the sort of theurgic use of pesukim which R. Micha referred to. The recital of Tehillim b'derech techina seems very different to me. Of course, there are people for whom all of davening, and perhaps mitzva observance, are theurgic acts, v'ein kahn makom l'haarich.<BR>
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I have reservations about the addition of kapitelach Tehillim for cholim (or any other reason) for another reason. It seems that the siddur keeps getting longer as each few generations finds that the existing text has become keva rather than tachanunim lifnei haMakom. So they add something, which starts off fresh and grabs everyone's attention. Aleinu must have been quite something when Provencal kehillos first introduced into everyday davening in the early Middle Ages. <BR>
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Then, time passes and the addition too becomes just another part of the fixed text. What we end up with is a really long siddur, choc-full of techinos, extra perakim, chunks of Zohar (for Sephardim), but no more kavannah than when we started. And because davening is so long, it must be rushed to let everyone get to work, so that even if someone decides to buck the trend and turn his tefillos from keva into real tachanunim, there simply isn't the time to say all the words at a speed that would permit it. <BR>
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It always surprises me when kehillos that rush their weekday shacharis make such a big thing out of the passuk-by-passuk recital of Tehillim for a choleh at the end, the mispallelim shockeling with furrowed brows as if to say, "Aha, now we're really davening!" What have you been doing for the past 30 minutes?! The same thing applies to the marbeh b'kaddishim plague, but that's for another post...<BR>
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Kol tuv<BR>
Dov Kaiser<BR>
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