[Mesorah] mishneh-kesef

[Mandel, Seth]

It occurred to me that those who have not spent time with the Masoretic
mss. perhaps do not realize some basic things.

I have noted that most of the disagreements between Ben Asher and Ben
Naftali are regarding the ge'aya. But this is not purely a disagreement
about how to write the text. The ge'ayot are very important for the proper
pronunciation of the Masoretic text according to the ba'alei Masorah.

Most printed text can be properly called non-Masoretic, because they
do not even attempt to put ge'ayot where the Masorah has them. Most
people have been trained to ignore the "metegs" in the printed text, and
properly so, because what is printed reflect the grammatical invention
of some rabbis, not the Masorah. Completely not the Masorah.

In real Masoretic texts, the "metegs" used in printed texts are almost
all absent. Instead, there are ge'ayot in certain places that make no
sense to a reader who grew up with the printed editions.

Very briefly, the function of the ge'ayot according to ancient Masoretic
treatices, such as Mahberet haTijan and Hidayat alQari is to lengthen and
stress a vowel. As such, it is common only in places where a normal reader
would read with no stress. Such places include, but are not limited to,
sh'wa's and words connected to following words with a maqqaf. The primary
stress on any word is where the trop is (although that may be a little
deceiving with trop that only are written at the very beginning or end
of the word). But the ge'aya will represent a secondary stress. English
speakers will understand this with words like laboratory produced as in
America: LAb'raTOry. The main stress is on the first syllable, with TO
having a secondary stress. In Masoretic terms, the trop would appear on
the LA, and a ge'aya on the TO.

When words are connected with a maqqaf, the first word loses its stress
and its vowel may b changed, because it is now considered part of a
larger word. In some cases, there is a secondary stress on the first word;
in others there is not.

In the pasuq we all say thrice daily, one can see the result:

עֵינֵי-כֹל אֵלֶיךָ יְשַׂבֵּרוּ, וְאַתָּה נוֹתֵן-לָהֶם אֶת-אָכְלָם בְּעִתּוֹ.

I have attached a picture.  Those receiving it through Mesorah at aishdas.org will not receive it.  You can go to http://www.aleppocodex.org/aleppocodex.html and search for T'hillim 145 and magnify the sixth line from the bottom.
[To save you the effort of searching, I saved the attachment at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/539-r_Psalms143-145.jpg> -micha]

In the massoretic text, both the words עֵינֵי and נוֹתֵi are attached
to the following word with a maqqaf. They both have ge'ayot on their
initial syllable, indicating that they are to be pronounced 'Enei and
NOten with the secondary stress on the first syllable. The word et,
on the other hand, has no stress at all.

In the pasuk

טוֹב-יְהוָה לַכֹּל, וְרַחֲמָיו עַל-כָּל-מַעֲשָׂיו

on the other hand, the last three words are all clumped together as a
word with 5 syllables, and with the stress on the last syllable and no
secondary stresses at all.

In the pasuk in Genesis 43:15, the first phrase of וּמִשְׁנֶה-כֶּסֶף
לָקְחוּ בְיָדָם
has the trop on the penultimate syllable of kesef and no ge'aya. That
means that the first word lacks any stress at all, and is pronounced
just as part of the Masoretic word umishnekKEsef.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel

________________________________
From: Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org> on behalf of Mandel, Seth via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2017 6:48 PM
To: Michael Poppers
Cc: mesorah at aishdas.org
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] mishneh-kesef

In the example cited, mishne is not mil'eil. It is connected with
a maqqaf to the word kesef, and has no ge'aya at all, so it has no
stressed syllables.

In that sense it is similar to Ate Merahiq examples brought.

And when the Mahberet limits the vowel to a qomatz, it is clearly only
talking about the first time of D'hiq, an unstressed syllable between
two stressed ones. It is not talking about the second kind of the D'hiq
it lists, like uma-t-ta'aseh, which has no stress prior to the main one.