[Mesorah] a kleinigkeit

[Jeremy Rosenbaum Simon]

With all due respect, I think it is you who are misunderstanding, or at
least misapplying, R. Breuer's shittah. It is true that R. Breuer included
extra-masoretic metagim so as not to appear "odd" to those who were used to
them. But that is the only concession he made to simple expectations, and
is not, in any case, relevant here, where the meteg is masoretic (as can be
seen from its presence in the list, as well as, in the Keter Yerushalaim,
being a long meteg.

As for his approach to chataf vowels, the only ones he modified where
chataf vowels under non-guttural letters whose purpose was simply to
indicate a shva na. He did this because he felt strongly that such a chataf
should be pronounced as a shva, and not a short patach, and felt that
continuing to print the chataf was misleading to readers. If anything, this
is a case where he deviated from what readers would expect, in
contradistinction to his approach with metagim (albeit still with the
average reader in mind).

But this practice has no relevance to the case at hand. He did not change a
chataf under a non-guttural to a shva. He "changed" one under a guttural to
a full vowel. This is entirely different, and, as far as I can tell from
what I remember of what R. Breuer wrote (and I have read much of it,
including the relevant sections of the book on the Aleppo codex), he would
not have deviated from Aleppo in this if he did not have significant
textual support from other manuscripts. The fact that Bar Ilan, which does
not share R. Breuer's methodology for meteg or for chataf (Prof. Cohen kept
all the chatafs R. Breuer changed) arrived at the same conclusion furhter
supports that this decision is well supported generally and not a feature
of a quirk of R. Breuer's methodology.

Jeremy

On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 12:48 PM, Mandel, Seth <mandels at ou.org> wrote:

> You misunderstand R. Breuer's shitta.  As he explains, he mostly goes
> according to the majority of the best kisvei yad.  However, he does not
> want it to appear too strange to regular Jews.  As a consequence, he omits
> all the many hataph vowels that Ben Asher put into the Codex, and puts in
> the "metegs" that people are used to, even if they do not exist in any of
> the best mss.  He tries to distinguish the ge‘ayot that are in the mss. as
> opposed to the others by having the printer use metegs of different
> length.  In this case, I am sure he did not want to depart from the
> hataph-patah because that is what people are used to.
>
> There are no mss. that have both a ge‘aya AND a hataph on this word to the
> best of my knowledge.
>
> You can go to R. Breuer's long book about how he decided questions without
> having the Aleppo Codex available: he uses the majority of the good mss.,
> since in almost all cases the majority agrees with the Codex.  I am sure
> that if he mentions this case there he will say that the mss. all have a
> full patah.
>
>
> Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Jeremy Rosenbaum Simon <jeremy.simon at nyu.edu>
> *Sent:* Sunday, January 28, 2018 12:05 PM
> *To:* Mandel, Seth
> *Subject:* Re: [Mesorah] a kleinigkeit
>
> I was only addressing the patach, not the meteg. As for the list at the
> back, that only represents one manuscript, in this case Leningrad, not "the
> manuscripts". This list lets you see where his final decision deviated from
> that of his primary manuscript, which, depending on the edition and the
> section of Tanach, is either Leningrad or Aleppo. However, he deviated only
> on the basis of textual evidence, at least in the vast majority of cases. I
> would be extremely surprised to find that he changed the nikkud here
> without strong manuscript evidence.
>
> On Jan 28, 2018, at 11:54 AM, Mandel, Seth <mandels at ou.org> wrote:
>
> Not true.
>
> Breuer, following his own shitta, has both a hataph-patah AND a ge‘aya.
> And in the index in the back of his editions of the T'NaKh, where he lists
> the forms actually found in the mss, he has a full patah and a ge‘aya.
>
>
> Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
> Rabbinic Coordinator
> The Orthodox Union
>
> Voice (212) 613-8330     Fax (212) 613-0718     e-mail mandels at ou.org
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Jeremy Rosenbaum Simon <jeremy.simon at nyu.edu>
> *Sent:* Sunday, January 28, 2018 11:31 AM
> *To:* Mandel, Seth
> *Cc:* mesorah at aishdas.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Mesorah] a kleinigkeit
>
> Given that both R. Breuer and Bar Ilan have a chataf parachute, I find it
> difficult to credit you claim that _all_ ben Asher manuscripts have a full
> patach. Neither of them would have deviated from Leningrad, which indeed
> has a full patach, without good support. And dikduk rules would not factor
> significantly.
>
> Jeremy
>
> On Jan 28, 2018, at 11:11 AM, Mandel, Seth via Mesorah <
> mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote:
>
> I call it that because most people only care about masorah if it changes
> the meaning or the pronunciation.
>
> But the non-defenestrated denizens of the Mesorah group understand that
> the masorah is much deeper than such things, and is important in light of
> the number of rishonim who spent time on it.
>
> So I am mentioning something that I shamefully admit that I was unaware of
> all my years:
>
> In the pasuq:
>
> *יד:יא* וַיֹּאמְרוּ, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה הֲמִבְּלִי אֵיןקְבָרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם
> לְקַחְתָּנוּ לָמוּת בַּמִּדְבָּר, מַה-זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ לְהוֹצִיאָנוּ
> מִמִּצְרָיִם.
> regarding the word "hamibb'li," all printed Chumashim have the punctuation
> as is above, with a hataph-patah under the he'.
>
> However, that is not the puncuation in the kisvei yad that represent the
> Ben-Asher masorah.  Rather, all of them, without exception have a full
> patah — WITH a ge‘aya/AKA meteg.  As the meritorious members of this group
> are aware, that means that the syllable "ha" is lengthened and has a
> secondary stress.
>
> The Minchas Shai already noticed this issue.  He notes that R. Yonah had
> it with a full patah, and it is the R'DaQ who says it should be a
> hataph-patah based on S'faradi mss.  He even goes on to say that there are
> some who claim that the ms. on which R.Yonah was basing himself was the
> Aleppo Codex.  That means to me that the Minchas Shay, without being able
> to decide the matter, attaches serious weight to the view of R. Yonah.
>
> In any event, now we can be certain based on the better mss. that we have.
>
> Prescriptive grammarians, who hold that the he' hash'elah should always
> have a hataph-patah, of course will be disturbed.  But as we know, the
> Masorah did not believe in prescriptive grammar, only in descriptive.
>
>
>
> Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
> Rabbinic Coordinator
> The Orthodox Union
>
> Voice (212) 613-8330     Fax (212) 613-0718     e-mail mandels at ou.org
>
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>
>


-- 
Jeremy R. Simon, MD, PhD, FACEP
Associate Professor of Medicine at CUMC (Emergency Medicine)
Columbia University
Editor, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine
*https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138846791
<https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138846791>*
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