[Mesorah] FW: Looking for Common Denominators

[Mandel, Seth]

I will point out that this summary is obviously done by a chareidi.
Although he excoriates R. Zalman Henau and R. Yitzchok Satanover, based on the fact that they themselves were not accepted by many of the O. establishment of their time, he comments on the siddur of R. Shabb'sai Sofer and the Vilner siddur "Derekh Siah haSadeh" that they "corrected many errors."  I.e. they changed the nusach to correct what were considered errors.  At that time, it was accepted that Biblical Hebrew rules should apply to later Hebrew as well, and so many of the things that were considered errors then are now known to be correct and standard forms in L'shon Hazal.
The claim that mss. were full of errors is not generally true with regard to siddurim.  It has much more validity regarding the mss. of most works, where the sofer might not understand or understand incorrectly a girsa, and so change it as a correction.  This is equally true of the mss. of the Rambam's "siddur" in Mishneh Torah or R. S‘adya Ga’on etc.  But for the most part the siddurim the sof'rim were producing reflected their own nusach, the nusach of the community where they lived, and so what mistakes that are present are mostly dittography or haplography or metasthesis, which are easy to recognize.
From the linguistic point of view, a change is a change, whether or not it was done for what we might consider good intentions, e.g. "to increase the correctness of the siddur," or for bad intentions, e.g. "to demonstrate that the author knows more than the rabbis."

Rabbi Seth Mandel

-----Original Message-----
From: Mandel, Seth 
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 8:36 AM
To: 'SBA'; mesorah at lists.aishdas.org
Subject: RE: [Mesorah] FW: Looking for Common Denominators

An excellent summary.
As I have briefly noted in previous missives, Ezor Eliyahu does not pay attention to "grammatical" changes, such as tushbahot, or qodshak.  The only one I have seen that it comments on is goshem/geshem, which became a bête noir in the recent generations.

Rabbi Seth Mandel

-----Original Message-----
From: mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org [mailto:mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of SBA
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 8:00 AM
To: mesorah at lists.aishdas.org
Subject: [Mesorah] FW: Looking for Common Denominators

An article about the history of Siddur modifiers (based on the Siddur Eizor
Eliyahu)

http://www.daat.ac.il/encyclopedia/value.asp?id1=2733



Subject: FW: [Mesorah] Looking for Common Denominators



-----Original Message-----
From: mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org
[mailto:mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org] On Behalf Of D&E-H Bannett
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 11:14 PM
To: Cc: rabbi.rich.wolpoe at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Looking for Common Denominators

Your method of determining proper nusach by comparing Baer, Birnbaum,
artscroll, Sefaradi and Hoffmeister is not going to tell you much because
they all came into existence long after the changes were made.

But there is a cheap solution. One doesn't have to go back to the works of
those who made most of the modifications, R' 
Shabetai Sofer, R' Eliyahu ben R' Azriel , R' Zalman Heneh (from the city
Hanau but usually called Heneh) and R' 
Yitzhak Satanov. A group of P'rushim (mi-talmidei haGra) in Yerushalayim
have already done it for us.

About ten years ago, they put out a siddur 'al pi nusach haGra entitled
Siddur Eizor Eliyahu. The notes on every page point out by whom every
modification was made.

For example, in my posting a few days ago, adding two-cents worth to R'
Seth's posting, I wrote:
  It seems that the first siddur to change the segol to a patach was that of
R' Shabbetai Sofer (1615).  It was copied by the siddur of R' Eliyahu ben R'
Azriel of Vilna (1704). And from there it spread and became accepted by all
nusach Ashkenaz.

Lest you think I examined all the sources or knew them by heart before I
wrote the above, let it be known that all I did was look at the Siddur Eizor
Eliyahu where, in "al harishonim... emet sha-ata hu",  it says that, before
the siddurim of RSh"S and R' EbA"z, most siddurim had she-ata.

I always find it interesting that these two siddurim are considered serious
correctors and sources to be followed while the following generation, R'
Zalman Heneh (1725) and R' Yitzhak Satanov (1780's) were attacked for their
multitude of "improvements and corrections". Even more interesting, despite
the attacks, R' Wolf Heidenheim and R'
Seligmann Baer accepted almost all of their "corrections"
and they have became standard in nusach Ashkenaz.

BTW, I have not yet seen R' Hoffmeister's Tefilat Yeshurun. 
In fact I didn't know it existed until you mentioned it.


bivrakha,

David


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