[Mesorah] Is the Masoretic text the most authentic?

[rabbirichwolpoe]

My Take is That the answer dependsIf you take the Academic Approach you might get one answer if you take an "evolutionary" approach you might get anotherIf you take a Community Minhag approach still another.In general I find Teimami traditions to be the most authentic.  Rav Danziger Z"L of Riverdale even switched to their Mivta. most shuls in the USA are highly eclectic and evolving.  It's really seems to be a moving target...RRW
-------- Original message --------From: Danny Levy via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org> Date: 11/10/19  15:41  (GMT-05:00) To: mesorah at lists.aishdas.org, Mesorah List <mesorah at aishdas.org> Subject: [Mesorah] Is the Masoretic text the most authentic? I recently had a fascinating discussion with Rabbi Yitzchak Goldstein, head of Machon Ott (see ott.co.il), who is very knowledgeable about differences in minhagim of writing Sifrei Torah among the various communities over hundreds of years.I mentioned to him that every year on Shabbat Noach I feel a twinge of sadness when I hear the Ba'al Kore lein "Vayhi kol y'mei Noach" (9:29), considering the work of R. Breuer and others who have proven conclusively that the text in Yemenite Sifrei Torah, "Vayihyu kol y'mei Noach", is that of the Ba'alei Hamesorah.  His response was "Eilu v'eilu divrei Elokim chaim" and our text is no less authentic than any other.  To illustrate his point he mentioned a number of places in the Gemara where it is evident that Chaza"l and the Rishonim had texts or spellings that were different from what we have today and different from the Masoretic text (R. Akiva Eiger gives a long list of examples in Gilyon Hashass on Shabbat 55b).  He also mentioned the fact that the Aleppo community preserved the Sephardic tradition of writing Sifrei Torah and did not correct them according the Aleppo Codex despite their tradition (now confirmed) that it was the Tanach that the Rambam relied on in his Hilchot Sefer Torah as being the most accurate. I would welcome input from group members on this interesting question: is the Masoretic text the closest we can get to the text of the Torah given to Moshe Rabbeinu or is it just one tradition, not necessarily preferable to others?Danny Levy
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