[Mesorah] eloke avi avraham

[Michael Hamm]

Hi, all,

In the leining this past Shabas afternoon, we had
    eloke avi avraham veloke avi yitchak
and also
    hatzileni na miyad achi miyad esav
.  Both "avi"s and the "achi" have a kamatz gadol.  In the shul I was in, 
the baal k'ria, who read with an Ashk'nazi accent (differentiating kamatz 
gadol from patach), read the first "avi" with a patach or chataf patach. 
I jumped on him, correcting it to a kamatz, as "avi avraham", with a 
chataf patach, is a way of saying "the father of Avraham", i.e. Terach. 
So he re-read it correctly, and read "avi yitzchak" correctly too.  Then, 
when he got to "miyad achi", he read _it_ with a patach or chataf patach 
also.  This time, I didn't correct him: after all, I reasoned, "achi" with 
a chataf-patach, meaning "the brother of", would be meaningless in that 
context, so the misreading doesn't change the meaning of the phrase (and 
it's not even a mistake according to the Israeli pronunciation).  What do 
you all think: was I correct to correct him the first time?  Was I correct 
not to the second?

Happy Chanuka,

Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
msh210 at math.wustl.edu                Fine print:
http://www.math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html