[Mesorah] Fwd: [Avodah] Shva na

[Mandel, Seth via Mesorah]

As usual, I will add my ha'penny's worth to R. David,
Anyone who has read ZHanau's books sees that he thought of himself as the only one and the first one who fully understood Hebrew grammar.  He basically says this black on white in one of his first books, Binyan Shelomo, published when he was only 21.  I have read that because of his dismissal of all earlier people who dealt with grammar, including Rishonim, the leaders of the Frankfurt community in 1709 demanded that he retract what he said.  He, of course, knowing that he knew more than anyone else, refused, and moved away to Hamburg.
(Full disclosure: I was brought up in a Novrardok family, and was taught to view anyone who thinks that they know everything as a fraud who cannot be trusted with anything).
In any event, he was a very intelligent person, and his many books persuaded other Jews that he was the unquestionable master of grammar, and most Jews after him, frum or not, followed his ideas (even though most Rabbonim of the time did not approve of him).  I have read that Ben Yehuda said that reading RZH was cause that led him to think about reviving Hebrew.
R Yaakov Emden, who was spectacularly brilliant, viewed RZH as a fraud.  As R. David wrote, he wrote a whole book debunking Zalman Hanau, which he called לוח ארש.  Most every sentence R. Yaakov Emden wrote was a double (sometimes triple) entendre, which R. Yaakov noted by putting an asterisk next to the word (he had his own press, which is why he was able to publish all the things that he did, some of which were very controversial, such as his attacks on R. Yonoson Eibeschitz). In this case, he intended the word ארש to be read as both eresh, meaning speech (as in Areshet S'fatayim, a phrase used in the RhS davening), and Eres, meaning poison, since he viewed his book as an antidote to the poison spread by ZHanau.
I believe that R. Zev Spiro is correct, that the shva na' markings in the Lubavitch siddurim have nothing to do with any Lubavitch minhag, but that at some point they hired someone to proofread the siddur who followed ZHanau (they could not have copied it from any non-Lubavitch siddur, since the marks are on things that are Nusach Lubavitch.
The irony is that in davening, most Jews think we are sticking to an old nusach.  That may be, but ZHanau considered almost all old nuschaos to be written by ignoramuses, and only he knew what was correct.  IOW, theoretically, he rejected the masorah of generations, and theoretically was an anti-tradition Jew.  Which is perhaps why the Maskilim liked him so much.


Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330     Fax (212) 613-0718     e-mail mandels at ou.org

________________________________________
From: Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org> on behalf of David and Esther Bannett via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2016 3:33 AM
To: Micha Berger; mesorah at aishdas.org
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] Fwd: [Avodah] Shva na

On 10/23/2016 04:38 AM, Micha Berger via Mesorah wrote:
> <<Anyone want to chime in on this>>

Okay, I'll add a bit.

R' Zalman Heneh (Hanou)  made "repairs" to the rabbinic Hebrew of the
siddur, invented new kinds of sh'va,and other chiddushim.

The Gr"a opposed them.

R'Ya'akov me-Emden wrote and published a book, Luach Eresh, against his
work and called him,. Instead of Heneh, he'ani ha-mit-dakdek among other
names.

As many Ashkenazim were completely ignorant of dikduk rules, they
accepted the chiddushim of R' Zalman Heneh as fact and  they appear in
many siddurim, grammatical works, e.g. Keset Sofer of R' Shlomo
Ganzfried, etc.  Most modern grammarians, too, dismiss his chiddushim.

R' Zalman Hakohen's new type sh'va had nothing to do with the changing
of sh'va' nachim to na'im that resulted from R' Yosef Kimchi's invention
of the ten- vowel (five pairs) system.


David

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