[Mesorah] a kleingkeit for Pesach

[Mandel, Seth]

This is a later hypercorrection.  There is no Aramaic form tishbah.ta or tishb'h.ata attested anywhere except some Sefaradi siddurim, and so is transparently an attempt to get the Aramaic to mimic the Hebrew, since the Ar'I approved of the hiriq form in Hebrew.
In the Aramaic, however, the Ar'I kept the form tushb'h.ata, as is clear form R.Hayyim Vital's comments.  The change was only in the Hebrew, to conform with the opinion of the Qimhi's that no tu- forms exist in Hebrew.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

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

________________________________
From: Henry Topas <hanktopas at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2020 4:13 PM
To: Mandel, Seth <mandels at ou.org>
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] a kleingkeit for Pesach

Mo'ed Tov Rabbi,

Thank you for your post which, along with all of your posts, IMHO, are always informative and should not carry the title Kleinikeit!

Prior to the psak on not davening in minyanim, I would occasionally say Kaddish in a Sephardic minyan.

Their Kaddish uses "Tishbichatah" where we (Ashkenazim)  normally say Tushbichata.  That one would suggest that Sephardic pronunciation is not in concert with the original Aramaic.

On the other hand, we all see to use the Tushbichatan towards the end of the Aramaic Brich Sh'may.  That would be supportive of the original as set forth in your post, I presume?

Thank you,

HT

On Mon, Apr 13, 2020 at 3:17 PM Mandel, Seth via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org<mailto:mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>> wrote:

I would like to address a kleinigkeit that is only of interest to those really interested in Masorah.  It concerns one word used in L’shon Chazal whose original form has been obliterated, because it did not meet the rules of Hebrew as certain Rishonim understood them.

Almost everyone now knows the word as “tishbah.ot,” since that is the way it is printed in most siddurim.  Yet if you go back to early printed siddurim and qal vachomer to manuscripts, the word is always “tushbah.ot.” And it is written in all the early siddurim and other works as תושבחות.

The Qimchis (the father R. Yosef, as well as the son the R’Da’Q. 12th-13th Centuries) all objected to the form, saying that in Hebrew there are no noun forms that begin with “tu-,” they all begin with “ti-,” like tif’eret, and so this word should be emended to read “tishbah.ot.” But that did not immediately change things.  In addition to all the mss. and the incunabula, this form persisted in printed siddurim for a long time, until several factors conspired in its demise in the 15th-16th Centuries.  One was the Ar’I  Although virtually everything that R. Hayyim Vital quotes in the name of the Ar’I has to do with Qabbolo, there are one or two matters that have to do with grammar (although with the Ar’I one can never know whether they were connected with Qabbolo).  One is that R. Hayyim Vital quotes him as saying the form should be tishbah.ot, even though the Sefaradi siddur from which they davenedin Tz’fat, which R. Vital identifies as the Siddur nusach S’farad published in 1524 by Bomberg in Venice.  This siddur can be found in various libraries, and the end of Barukh she’Amar reads מֶלֶךְ מהוּלַּל בַתּוּשְׁבָּחוֹת.  R. Vital notes that התי'ו בחיריק ולא בשורק כמ'ש המדקדקים.  That was about in 1571-2.

Shortly thereafter, in 1617-8, R. Shabb’tai Sofer, a talmid of the L’vush, published a siddur. He was known as a talmid chochom and as someone who knew grammar, as well as being famed for his piety.  He was asked by the Council of the Four Lands, the central body of Jewish authority in Eastern Europe.  The siddur was published with haskamot of most of the g’dolim of his timem and became the basis for most Ashkenaz siddurim printed thereafter.  It was based on earlier Ashkenaz siddurim, but in some cases he preferred the nusach of S’farad or a nusach mentioned by the MaharSha’L.  Under the grammatical influence of the R’Daq, he put in the nusach tishbachot.

Bwetween the influence of the followers of the Ar’I and the Sofer siddur, all printed siddurim afterwards in Ashkenaz used tishbachot and the older form is mostly unknown nowadays.

But regardless of grammar, tushbachot was the original nusach.  And its source is clear: the Aramaic noun tushbah.ta, plural tushb’h.ata, common in most Aramaic dialects from the time of Chazal, and well known to all Jews from its use in Qaddish.  Making a Hebrew noun out of an Aramaic one, especially one whose root is used in Hebrew, is a common occurrence in L’shon Chazal.

To the best of my knowledge, only the Yemenites preserve the form tushbah.ot in their siddurim today.

The relevance to Pesach is that in the Haggadah itself we say Nishmat kol h.ay, which towards the end says .דברי שירות ותושבחות דוד בן ישי


Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice and Fax (212) 613-8330        e-mail mandels at ou.org<mailto:mandels at ou.org>


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