[Mesorah] Hypercorrections or adaptation?

[David Cohen]

As a tangent to another discussion, R' Richard Wolpoe wrote:

> Many/Most "changes" to minhaggim / nusahc I've seen have been
hyper-corrections, often based upon mis-understandings.
> Illustration:  moving Akdamus from after the first passuk to before the
K'riah.  The original placement was probably the hakdamah to the Targum,
hence it's Aramaic format.
>
> Then
> • They got rid of Targum
> • Viewed Akdamus as a hefsek
> • Moved it forward
> And then
> • Claimed because Akdamus was Aramaic it was highly Kabbalistic.


I'd like to follow up on that tangent, so I'm starting a new thread.
R' Micha:  If you think this brings the discussion more into Avodah
territory, please feel free to move it there.

First off, once the Targum was eliminated, a case could be made for
bringing Akdamus forward regardless of whether or not one holds it is a
hefsek.  Once Akdamus is no longer serving as an introduction to the
Targum, but we have decided to continue saying it anyway because it's a
nice poetic introduction (that just happens to be in Aramaic) to the story
of Matan Torah, there is no inherent reason -- other than as a reminder of
its original function -- why it should be said after the first pasuk.

And in the other direction...

Let's say one *does* hold that it's a hefsek (a dispute that has nothing to
do with whether or not Targum is read, as it's clear that Targum itself has
a mandate from Chazal and is not a hefsek.)  Does that mean that one must
throw out the baby with the bathwater, since we can gain nothing from
Akdamus if it is not said after the first pasuk?!

Siddurim are full of pesukim and piyutim that were moved around by people
who thought it was worthwhile to say them, but that saying them in the
locations where they were originally placed would be a hefsek problem.
 Examples from various periods in history include:

   - The custom of the perushim to say kerovos after chazaras hashatz of
   shacharis, and "Tal" and "Geshem" before musaf.
   - Relatively early on, the Sefaradim adopted the Ashkenazi custom of
   saying "Hodu" each morning, but didn't want to put it "inside the brackets"
   of Baruch she'Amar / Yishtabach.
   - I think RYBS said "Shir haMaalos: miMaamakim" during 10  Yemei
   Teshuva, but said it before Yishtabach, as part of pesukei deZimra.  (We
   did this in my high school.)

I suppose the litmus test for whether doing something like this makes sense
is whether the addition still retains most (though not necessarily all) of
its value after being moved around, or if taking it out of its originally
intended context is missing the entire point.  In the case of Akdamus, at
least, I think that the former is correct, so I see no reason to think that
moving it forward was due to any sort of mistaken assumption.

-- D.C.
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