[Mesorah] Fw: three consecutive shvas

[Mandel, Seth]

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice and Fax (212) 613-8330        e-mail mandels at ou.org
________________________________
From: Mandel, Seth <mandels at ou.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 10:26 AM
To: Akiva Miller <akivagmiller at gmail.com>
Cc: elazar teitz <emteitz at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] three consecutive shvas

Unfortunately, you can NOT trust ArtScroll in this regard.
ArtScroll aims to make the siddurim and chumashim used in Easter Europe before the War accessible to the modern audience, by reprinting them with new type and providing a translation.  That works fine with most things, but in places where an error crept into the siddurim or chumashim used in Europe, ArtScroll perpetuates the error.
The Targum used in Eastern Europe was corrupted beyond easy repair by hundreds of years where Jews did not understand or use the Targum in public.  That started long before printing, so there were not reliable editions even when printing started, and the printers perpetuated the mistakes.
You needn't take my word.  Many of the phrases in the Targum are also used in the Aramaic in Ezra and Daniel; you can see the difference in the forms.  Only the Teimanim kept an oral tradition of the Targum (they never stopped using it when the Torah is read).  But their tradition is based on the Babylonia tradition.
As far as ArtScroll goes, there is a proof that they perpetuate the mistakes in Eastern Europe.  Now there is absolutely no doubt that the Masoretes had a qomatz in the penultimate word in Yesha‘yahu 5:16:

וַיִּגְבַּ֛הּ יְיָ֥ צְבָ×֖וֹת בַּמִּשְׁפָּ֑ט וְהָ×ֵל֙ הַקָּד֔וֹשׁ נִקְדָּ֖שׁ בִּצְדָקָֽה

Heavens, the person they hired to proofread their T'NaKh even got it right: hie thee to the ArtScroll T'NaKh and look at that verse.
BUT when it came to the Machzor for RhS, they did not want to change the error in Ashkenaz machzorim used in Eastern Europe.  So when you look at this pasuq, which is brought before the חתימה of the brokho of קדושת השם (המלך הקדוש) on RhS, you will find a patach in that word.
One can sympathize with ArtScroll. It was never their aim to put out corrected siddurim,. but to reproduce the European siddurim.  Many of their readers would have a fit if ArtScroll changed what they view as their holy nusach.
But here you have a clear case where they corrected the T'NaKh but did not correct the machzor (or the siddur).
Rabbi Teitz has told me that he pointed out in the past some of the mistakes to ArtScroll when they first put out their siddurim.  Many of the mistakes they declined to correct, claiming that that is the was it was in the holy siddurim from Europe.
Rabbi Teitz, please correct me if I am misrememberig.
I say that now there is no doubt that the correct puncutuation is with a qomatz, because that pasuq we have in the Aleppo Codex, from Ben Asher himself.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

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

________________________________
From: Mesorah <mesorah-bounces at lists.aishdas.org> on behalf of Akiva Miller via Mesorah <mesorah at lists.aishdas.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 7:20 AM
To: mesorah at aishdas.org <mesorah at aishdas.org>
Subject: Re: [Mesorah] three consecutive shvas

Thanks to everyone who responded.  Just a few minutes before Shabbos, I did email out a response, but it accidentally went only to one person, and not to the whole group.

Here's what I had sent then:

> Thanks! In case anyone is wondering,  the edition I was using is the new Artscroll Onkelos. (Typos are very common in first editions.)
> I should have checked other editions before asking, and I'll try to do so over Shabbos.

It turns out that I could have discovered/corrected the typo not only by looking in other editions of Onkelos, but even by looking in the same volume that I was already using. "Widow" isn't all that rare a word, and it is spelled correctly in the very next two psukim after the pasuk that I had asked about! (typo in Devarim 24:19, correct in 24:20 and 24:21)

Thanks again to all.

Akiva Miller


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