[Mesorah] Goy Gadol? or Gadol Atzum? Also VeAnita veAmarta

[Dov Bloom]

This post sent much earlier in the discussion was blocked. If you got this
already I apologize.

The pair of adjectives 'rav' 'atzum' appears frequently together in tenach.
Often in plural eg Goyim rabim vatzumin. It probably should be understood
as a semantic  unit like 'tov ve yafe' or  lehavdil 'big and tough' 'rough
and ready'.
Shmot 1:9 am bnei yisrael rav veatzum
Yoel 2:2 am rav veatzum
Dvarim 7:1 goyim rabim vatzumin.
Also dvarim 4:38 dvarim 9:1 11:23 Dvarim 9:14 zecharia 8:22 See also
bemidbar 32:1 mikneh rav ... atzum discussed in Perlman Dapei chug leTaamei
hamikra v 2 # 48

I am sure that this fact  affected the taamin which group rav + atzum
together and the tipecha-mafsik on gadol as pointed out by MP.

Here is A similar literal misunderstanding of a pair of words in the same
parasha and relevant to our seder. A pair that should be understood as one
semantic unit and not two:

'Veanita vamarta' - not two verbs 'answer and say' (because there is no one
to answer there). It means ' lift up your voice and say ' or in better
English with one verb  "Proclaim".
See mechilta derashbi on this pasuk, mentioned in a mind-blowing tshuva of
R David Zvi Hoffman in Shut Melamed Lehoil chelek gimmel tshuva 65.

michaelpoppers at gmail.com wrote:

Thanks, RDBloom (or, as RDBannett might say, "RDB the younger") -- good
point re "rav v'atzum"!  I await someone quibbling with it not being
exactly the same as "atzum varav."



RDBtY also brings up a good point re "v'anisa v'amarta" (hereafter "AvA"),
but there's a history of discussion in Avodah, if not Mesorah, re the
implications for *nusach hat'fila*.  IIRC, that discussion was relatively
heated (a *machloqes l'sheim Shamayim* :)) re the *pisuq* in these two
locations:

-- the stanza prior to the pre-Shma threefold-"Qadosh"; and

-- the phrase prior to "H' Yimloch" in Ma'ariv.

I don't want to place words into R'Micha's mouth, but I recall that he and
I were on opposite sides of the discussion then (and I took the "keep
AvA together"
side ;-)).



-- 
Dov A Bloom
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