[Mesorah] All this thinking about Masoretic issues...

[Mandel, Seth]

...outside of making my head hurt 😋, do lead me to ponder some issues.
A few days ago, I was asked about someone who read מִקְּדָ֕שׁ (Ex. 15:17) as the regular word miqdosh.
There is no issue of a mistake here.  All the massoretic mss. have מִקְּדָ֕שׁ, which can be transcribed as miqqadosh. The Masorah notes that this form appears nowhere else.  One of the excellent old mss. actually points it מִקֲּדָ֕שׁ, although all the other goods ones do not use a hataph-patah.
I know very well that most acharonim pasken that as long as it does not change the meaning, one does not have to repeat the word correctly. My problem is not only is there no source for this, but also none of them seem to know much about the Masorah.  In most cases, they could not, because they did not have available all the mss. that we have now. And only the Teimanim had mss. in the Babylonian vocalization system, but mostly not for the Torah; they, like other communities, went over to the Tiberian tradition a long time ago, and they used the Babylonian only for the Targum and for their siddurim.
And the Rambam, who certainly was aware of a lot of the mss., including the Aleppo Codex, and who certainly was aware of the Babylonian system, paskens unequivocally
קרא וטעה, אפילו בדקדוק אות אחת מחזירין אותו, עד שיקראנה בדקדוק.
The idea of not changing the meaning is also not a clear one.  According to whom does something change the meaning? If one were to read a word in L'shon Chazal, the same word might have a diffenent meaning (e.g. לקח meaning "to buy," not "to take") And if someone pronounced a word "qadosh" as "qodesh,' as RYBS did,that would change the meaning only according to non-Litvaks. Or a Galitziyaner read teishvi basikoys, instead of teshvu basukkot?
And what if someone read according to the Babylonian vocalization, which was certainly used for Q'ri'at haTorah in Bovel by the Amoraim? Suppose he read mashmarto instead of mishmarto in Deut. 11:1? bamadbor instead of bamidbor in Deut. 11:5?  Or tishim‘u instead of tishm'‘u in 11:13?
If you asked me this as a scholar, I would reply that if you are not reading according to the Masorah, meaning the Masorah of Ben Asher, then what are you doing? All those who talk about it say that we pasken like Ben Asher. So if one  would read "miqdosh" in Shirat haYam, it is not according to Ben Asher, and therefore he would have to repeat, and similarly with all the other examples, even though in the time of the Amoraim, one could read according to the tradition of Bovel and be yotze.  And I believe that this is the source of the Rambam (in addition to the fact that a plain reading of the G'moro Megilla woud also indicate this).
I do not pasken. I have deliberately avoided situations in my life that would obligate me to pasken, since often the shitta of the Vilner Gaon or R. Chaim Brisker is so obviously clear that I think those who differ are simply mistaken. I do not feel bad about this, since that was also the stratagem of R. Chaim Brisker according to RYBS: he would usually refer questions that needed a psak to R Simcha Zelig, since he realized that his own opinion might be controversial.
And so I raise this issue not in terms of what I think is right.  I am raising because it is obligatory to every Jew, especially if he is a "ba‘al qore" or a rov to think about what he does, and because the people to whom I am sending this will at least understand the issue. (I do not believe that many rabbonim, even those who are talmidei chachomim, would understand these points sufficiently, or even be interested in them.)
And for those of you who are not so interested, please take this as a preparation for being marbeh b'simcha🙂

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel


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