Chad Mi Yad'ei? Who knows Ein?

I was thinking the other day about Echod Mi Yodea. Now, not all the verses rhyme. However, some do, and do so by switching Aramaic. The numerals are Hebrew, not Aramaic, and the first 6 items listed are in Hebrew: Elokeinu, Luchot Habrit, Avot, Imahot, Chumshei Torah, Sidrei Mishnah.

Then you get

• 7 "yemei Shabata" Hebrew-Aramaic hybrid (Ar. would be yomei)
• 8 "yemei milah" is Hebrew again.
  
• 9 "yarchei leida" Aramaic yarchei not chodshei, which would scan just as well, but I think "leidah" is Hebrew.
• 10 "dibraya" From here on in, the nouns are all Aramaic.
  
• 11 "coch'vaya"
• 12 "shivtaya"
• 13 "midaya".

Is it known who wrote it? Why the shift from Hebrew to Aramaic? It starts Hebrew, then has a hybrid section, and finally switches to Aramaic. Might it symbolize the shift from Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew into Aramaic for rabbinic dialogue and writing? Or is that just post-facto hermeneutics?

It doesn't only seem to be for poetic reasons such as rhyme or scansion. While the last four rhyme and scan, they would scan just as well with two syllables for the Hebrew plurals. 9 doesn't seem a necessary switch, as noted.

The Jewish Imperative To Sing, Part VIII

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin

As we say before the Psalm for each day, the Levites were required to sing the Daily Psalm as well as at every sacrifice and at other various occasions in the Holy Temple. As the Rambam says, (Hilchot Klei HaMikdash), some of the Levites were appointed to be watchmen while others were appointed to sing. (Perhaps it depended on whether they had pleasant voices).Both thereby fulfilled their requirement to to participate in the Avodat HaKodesh - the Holy Duties of the Temple service. Aminmum of 12 Levites would sing the service and a group of Levites and talented Isrealites would accompany them - at all times- with instruments. The Rambam also states that each Levite, at age 25, had to study singing for 5 years before he joined the choir at age 30. Later on, when his voice failed, he then became a watchman.

In shul, each congregant is like a Levite and must join in song with the Chazzan. Since this not the Holy Temple, no one - voice or not- should take the role of the Watchman. Don't sit back and "watch". Join in with us! Good or bad, every voice counts! As we are bidden: "Shiru Lashem Shir Chadash" - sing to G-d a new song. It doesn't say "only those with good voices" We accept all voices and all prayers. G-d only wants you to pray. Let us hear you!

Daven Well and Sing Along!

(c) 2007 Sherwood Goffin

Turning in Lecha Dodi

Does an abstraction need a door?

(paraphrasing Capt. Kirk: Does God need a starship?)

On an email list, a member noted that in some shuls, people face the back for the last verse of Lecha Dodi, even when there's no door there.

What they are actually doing? Turning away from the Torah to greet an abstraction.

Is there perhaps a greater problem in turning one's back on the Torah? R' Riskin once reprimanded a founding member of his shul who, following his personal (I had been told German, but other correspondents say not) custom, turned completely away from the Kohanim during duchening, thereby also turning his back on the Aron, containing the Torahs. Said member thereafter turned away, but not completely around.

And also, what are we doing in turning for L'cha Dodi?
- turning to the door to greet the Queen?
- turning away from the Aron, if the queen approaches the Aron?
- turning to the West, since the sun sets in the west, which signals the beginning of Shabbat?

Moshe Hallamish, in his recent "Kabbalistic Practices on Shabbat", considers the question on pp. 228-230.

It seems to have started with the Tzfat group, with the terse notation "they go out to the field to greet the Shabbat, facing west." Later, that seems to have glommed onto just the last stanza of Lecha Dodi.

By 17th-century Galicia, a source notes "they turn towards the western door". Other late teshuvot note "turning towards the door" or "turning to the west, because the Shechina is in the west".

The Mishna Brura (turn to the west to greet the shechina which is in the west) and the Aruch haShulchan (turn to the door) (both c. 1900) differ. R' B. Zilber (Oz Nidberu) tries to reconcile them, in terms of synagogue construction. He brings a third opinion explaining the "turn to the west" as non-literal, rather practical, to signal the mourners who are sitting in the western doorway that they can come in. He notes that shuls in the North of Israel, which should turn from South to North, actually turn to the West. So the reason must be to greet the Queen, Extra Soul, etc. from the kabbalistic reasons.

(MB and AhS deal with this in ch. 262).

The Yad Beit HaLevi notes that Sefardim in Tzfat would go out to the courtyard and turn to the West; in Galut this doesn't happen, but they still turn to the West, so it's clear that the whole thing is symbolic.

R' Zilber notes that since the Torahs are more than 10 tefachim above the ground (I know shuls where they are not), and turning away is only prohibited to greet a friend, because it's like bowing to the friend (and away from the Torahs) it is not a problem to turn away from the Torahs for this (citing Levush 150; this Levush is also cited by R' Ezriel Hildesheimer, OH #22).

Hallamish concludes with a passage from the siddur Tikun Shabbat by R' Moshe b. Gershom of Zalshin, 1827, saying that one should say the last verse with great joy, facing west from which one gets the Extra Soul, and the Sabbath Queen, adornment of Her husband. This implies that the Shechinah/Sabbath Queen nourishes us with the Extra Soul.

(note: also posted to Mail-Jewish)

Repetition in Davening

According to R' Rich Wolpoe, repetition has been a long-time argument between cantors, who want to repeat ad nauseam, and rabbis who think it's problematic.

The Cantors Manual of Jewish Law mentions this tension, and notes a hierarchy of repeating.

1. Don't do it.


2. Repeat, but preserve word order:
   
   1. within a phrase: kah ribon, ribon olam.
   
   
   2. repeat whole verses: ein keloheinu verse 1 at end again.


3. Worst: repeat words out of order, ruining the sense of the sentence.

Personally, I'm not that fond of repeating. However, if a) it's melodically necessary, and b) it's not a verse, particularly a verse with God's name, I don't have such a problem with it. In that, I seem to be following Cantor Sherwood "the Chaz" Goffin, my model for all things cantorial.

For instance, there's a tune for Ein Keloheinu, which is AAB (it starts out [& a c', c' d'-b c']), but the B tune ends on the third up from the key, so you have to repeat the A tune to finish on the key note. The Chaz repeats the first verse.

There's also the mishna in brochos warning against "modim modim" and one other repetition; IIRC the gemara derives that since it was only two examples, rather than a blanket prohibition on repeating, it's only those two which are theologically problematic.

Dr. Meir Levin, in R' Yitz Etshalom's series on Rambam's Hilchot Kriat Shema, has some interesting observations on repetition in the view of the Rambam:

Thus in Halacha [2:]11- Reading lemafreah is Lo Yatza. Reading a verse and repeating (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4,) it or repeating a word, such as "Shma, Shma" is unseemly or we hush but is acceptable B'di'avad. (There is no Al Haseder of sequence but there is Al Haseder of Zman)
[...]
Note : [the repetition of] "Shma, Shma" and "Modim, Modim" is to Rambam an issue of Nusach Hatefila (the formulation/wording of Tefilla).

See our halacha and Tefila 9:4. Rambam does not quote the law of "Modim, Modim" in 9:7 or 10:5 where heretical leanings during Amida are discussed but in the context of Nusach of Shmonei Esreh. (But see Commentary to Megila 25)

Be careful, though, when davening with the "hippy dippy" heterodox. They may repeat phrases to fill up the space taken by phrases that they cut, thinking them theologically problematic.

For instance, in Mogein Avos, when it's done in C-nagogues, they may repeat "ki vam ratzah lehaniach lahem" to cover up for skipping "lefanav naavod beyirah ufachad", which contravenes their belief that the sacrificial order will not be reinstated.

So approach repeating with some forethought, and take into account your whole tzibur, rabbi and congregants.

More Davening-Chopping

Pesukei Dezimrah et seq. - what to leave in or out, and why.

Here it's much simpler for me, I have some rabbinic guidance. When my mother asked her then-rabbi Adam Mintz (formerly of Lincoln Square, now has his own breakaway minyan - how can the shul rav have a breakaway minyan? it's a long story) what could be chopped to make the Yomim Noroim services shorter at their summer C-nagogue, he said that the most important stuff was baruch she'amar, ashrei, and yishtabach, and on Shabbat or Yom Tov, Nishmat.

When I'm in a hurry, I personally leave in a few other items: Ps. 148 and 150, which most commentators agree are the most important of that sequence of psalms (145-150), Yehi Cavod as a mood-setter for Ashrei, Vayosha so I can praise God for the Exodus.

Some notes on why we say various parts:

Baruch She'amar: a meditation on the Divine Name. Each of the Baruch phrases reflects a different implication of the Divine Name; the last, Baruch Shmo, blesses the Name itself without regard to meaning. It's good to say in that vein before praising God with His Name.

Hodu - see Ta-Shma's Hatefillah He'ashkenazit Hakedumah for a fascinating article suggesting that Hodu may be the oldest continuously-recited human-authored prayer in our liturgy. David Hamelech ordered it written for the Mishkan at Shiloh; it was said in the First Temple before the morning offerings; when Zerubavel was trying to get things started in the Second Temple, he asked the priests what they thought they should say, and they said "we used to thank God" - in other words, say Hodu; it shows up in the Geniza documents as part of the nusach of the Land of Israel (it was not in the Babylonian nussach until much later, when it was absorbed from Ashkenaz along with the Kabbalistic portions), and it's still part of our davening.

OTOH, it's long and a bit confusing towards the end, so I do often skip it.

Yehi Cavod: intro to Ashrei, speaking of God's might and connectedness to us.

Ashrei: the Gemara says that one who says it (with kavvanah) three times daily is assured of the World to Come. Mumbling it doesn't help. It's a tremendous paean to God. The beginning is David's personal praise of God, then it switches over to everyone's praise, then switching at "vechasidecha yevarchucha" to those who are particularly ehrlich - they speak of the glory of His Kingdom, etc. Then at the end it switches back to David.

Ashrei through Ps. 150: there's a Gemara that speaks of the value of "completing the book of Psalms every day", which we short-circuit by just saying these last six. So after Ashrei, one ought to at least say 150 and another one to get whatever merit there is in "finishing" Psalms.

Long historical runup to Az Yashir and Az Yashir: Az Yashir is the archetypal spontaneous praise of God upon salvation, it's the basis for our saying Hallel, so we say it in the morning. But to place it in context, we have the long historical runup. As I said, I often skip this.

Yishtabach: the closing match to Baruch She'amar. It is a bracha on its own, but it does nicely delineate before the Shma brachot.

I do tend to say everything from the Shma brachot through Shmoneh Esreh, then skip around the tachanun and kedusha d'sedra stuff if I'm davening by myself. The Shma brachot are fundamental to the whole experience of Shma, submission to God, confidence in His help, etc. that are the central themes of Shma and Shmoneh Esreh.

To sum up, then, what I do as a minimal davening:
torah brachot, the short brachot, baruch sheamar, yehi cavod, ashrei, ps. 148, ps. 150, vayosha, yishtabach. Everything through Shmoneh Esreh. Aleinu. Shir shel yom.

Some extra tehillim and Nishmat on Shabbat.

That's it.

As always, YMMV.

Davening: What and Why to Chop (or not)

The problem with too much [uninformed] prayer-chopping is that a lot of the siddur was consciously designed to invoke certain emotional responses, and mental committments.

Extreme Godol Hador blogged on the The Problem with Davening, about the inability to express kavvanah while rattling off the prayers enroute to work.

I taught a shiur on the siddur one summer. We didn't get beyond the last Hallelukah, but we did cover a lot of the intentions. On the basis of that (largely based on R' Schwab's book On Prayer), as well as some tefillah columns I wrote for AishDas (based on the shiur, and other materials such as Otzar Hatefillos, "My People's Prayer Book" and even Art Green), I disagree with some of your proposed cuts, and might offer others.

First off, korbanot, as well as Rabbi Ishmael, are only there to provide a "minimal Torah study", and by rights should come right after the Birchot haTorah. The siddur has a lot of such things, as different people added what they thought ought to be "minimal torah study", so we have three sections trying to do the same thing. You should be fine with the brief bits from Torah (birchat kohanim), Mishnah (things with no measure) and Gemara (things whose reward continues in the next world).

Korbanot through Rabbi Ishmael is one addition (although you ought to say Rabbi Ishmael in a minyan to trigger Rabbunenkaddesh for the mourners; aggadita, not halacha, triggers a Rabbi’s Kaddish [according to my rav, R’ Moshe Sokol]). Pitum haketoret through H’ mevarech et amo bashalom is a third attempt to shove Torah study into davening; again, it should be said by a minyan to trigger Kaddish deRabbanan for mourners, although without mourners, I’d say it could be left out.

Second – morning brachot. I’d do the opposite of what you do: leave in the Shelo asanis (if they really bother you, there are Gemara-based positive formulations for one or two of them), since they’re based on our obligation in mitzvoth, while leaving out all the other ones. According to the Gemara (a Braisa on 60b?), they should be said as one wakes up in the morning: hanatan lasechvi binah for hearing the alarm clock, pokeiach ivrim for opening the eyes, matir assurim for disentangling from the sheets, zokeif kefufim for stretching, etc. Without the context of the actions in waking up, they become empty and meaningless.

Leolam yehei – yes, leave that in, it’s pivotal to regaining consciousness of being in the world. Although, when I’m in a hurry, I do often leave it out. It’s not strictly speaking a prayer, rather, a meditation one should make on a daily basis; by adding the introduction “One should always say upon arising”, it becomes yet another attempt to sneak in some torah study.

The balance aspect of the meditation is key – as one Mussar great has said, one should keep two pieces of paper in his pocket and check them now and again. One says “the world was created for me”, while the other says “I am dust and ashes”. This section makes us conscious of the balance – we are all nothing before God, but still God chose us and loves us. Therefore, from that balanced position, we testify to God’s existence and unity twice a day, and thus sanctify His Name.

Note that the brachot section is left out in many shuls, they begin at Rabbi Ishmael or even Baruch Sheamar (not every shul says the early kaddeishim). It’s expected that one has said them at home.

The brachot have a progression:

• Body: asher yatzar, al netilat yadayim.
• Soul: elokai neshama
• Mind: Torah brachot, mitzvah brachot
• [Interjection of what should have been done earlier: other morning brachot]
• Relationship to people: hamachazir sheinah.
• Relationship to God and self-balance: leolam yehei
• [Torah study: scripture – korbanot, mishna- eizehu meqoman, gemara – Rabbi Ishmael]

I’ll discuss pesukei dezimra next.

But these simple kavanot, intentions, might help in one's davening. Kavvanah need not be highly complex kabbalistic structures - that's a late (16th-century) invention.

Had He Given Us a Paper Plate: Dayeinu!

It just came to me in the shower. Must be a post-Pesach thing. But the jingle for Zoo Pals paper plates from Hefty?

Dayeinu.

Sing it for yourself:

Ilu natan k'arat niyar
Velo he'echilanu et haman
Dayeinu

Oink Oink Zoo-Pals
Hoot Hoot Zoo-Pals
Ribbit Ribbit Zoo-Pals
Zoo Pals make eating...fun!

Must be somebody Jewish at the advertising agency, and moderately traditional. A quick Google search doesn't turn up anybody else noting this fact.

Yated Appears to Falsify Torah to Attack YCT

Now we have time to post the critique of the Yated’s attack on R’ Dov Linzer.

The Yated writer:

Another of Rabbi Linzer’s written statements warrant mention here. In the Jerusalem Report Magazine November 2004 edition, Rabbi Linzer in a signed article wrote, “As an Orthodox Jew, I have to struggle not just with G-d ’s presence in the world, but with His commandments as well. Some of these do not seem to square with a good, just G-d. The command to destroy Amalek and the Canaanite nations, the death penalty for one who… [engages in toeiva], the inability of a woman to terminate a failed marriage—to pretend that these are not profound problems or that they are consistent with G-d’s goodness is, for me, not an option. I choose to take the path of Yisrael, to face these problems and to struggle with them…”

Did Rabbi Linzer, forget that which every simple [sic] knows? Did he forget the words in the Torah on which Rashi (Bamidbar 19:2) cites the Chazal that we have no right to “second-guess” or question those mitzvos whose reasons are not immediately apparent?

What does that Rashi say? From chabad.org:

This is the statute of the Torah. Because Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel, saying, “ What is this commandment, and what purpose does it have?” Therefore, the Torah uses the term “statute.” I have decreed it; You have no right to challenge it. — [Yoma 67b]

Clearly, the writer takes issue on the basis of the underlined section. But what is its source? (from the Soncino translation):

Yoma 67b: And My statutes shall ye keep,14 i.e., such commandments to which Satan objects, they are [those relating to] the putting on of sha'atnez,15 the halizah16 [performed] by a sister-in-law, the purification of the leper, and the he-goat-to-be-sent-away. And perhaps you might think these are vain things, therefore Scripture says: I am the Lord,14 i.e., I, the Lord have made it a statute and you have no right to criticize it.

(14) Lev. XVIII, 4.

(15) A web of wool and linen, v. Deut. XXII, 11. All the laws mentioned in this group cannot be explained rationally; they are to be taken on faith, as the decree of God.

(16) The ceremony of taking off the brother-in-law's shoe, v. Deut. XXV, 5ff.

What does this mean?

Let’s ask Rashi on the Gemara:

“Therefore it says ‘I am God’”: this refers to statutes (chukim), that came from Him, He constructed them, thus it is called “Chok” – I God have decreed it.

It is as clear as day. One has no right to second-guess chukim, arbitrary Divine decrees such as the Red Heifer or mixed kinds of cloth. But that tells us nothing about our approach to mishpatim – civil laws. We have every right to try to come to terms with the civil and criminal laws, that we find morally difficult.

To take R’ Linzer’s examples:

• The command to destroy Amalek is not a chok, it comes with a reason – because of what Amalek did to us when we were leaving Egypt. Part of the command to destroy Amalek is to kill Amalekite babies. Would the Yated writer really feel no compunction in killing an Amalekite baby, who by definition could not have sinned? Does the baby possess some kind of , lehavil, “original sin” that allows us to kill it?
• The death penalty for one who engages in toeivah, and the inability of a woman to terminate a failed marriage, these are mishpatim. And in the latter case, Chazal and the Rishonim went to great lengths to try to even out the balance between the man’s power to terminate the marriage, and the woman’s passive role – allowing hafka’at kiddushin in certain cases, allowing a woman to sue in beis din to initiate a divorce, the Cherem of Rabbenu Gershom – all of these are Chazal and Rishonim struggling with the apparent immorality of one-sided divorce mandated by the Torah text.

In neither case does the stricture in the Gemara and Rashi apply.

From where does our morality spring, other than from the Holy One Blessed be He? He gave us a moral sense, and He gave us law, and we have to make the two of them square.

The Yated, on the other hand, has apparently falsified the Torah (ziyuf haTorah) in its attempt to vilify R’ Dov Linzer.

[Irrelevant pointers to the necessity of tziduk hadin and the incomprehensibility of Divine thought snipped]

It is clear that he made this statement despite his knowledge of the above. This is why the “Open Orthodoxy” of YCT is not Orthodox but resembles something akin to a new “Conservative light” movement.

No. What is clear is that nothing, not even the words of Chazal and the Torah, stand in the way of the Yated writers’ desire to vilify R’ Linzer and his Yeshiva, Chovevei Torah. This claim had also been made against R’ Linzer in an earlier attack on YCT, that time without an attempt to justify the claim from Chazal. Evidently the writers felt that the point was important, and that supporting it from Chazal was important as well. It might have been better had they found a more appropriate source.

Retzei et les prieres du Comtat Venaissin

The antepenultimate blessing of the Shemoneh Esreh, the Blessing of Divine Service.

What are we asking for in this bracha? Whom does it address? Whence cometh its text?

Ashkenazic and Sephardic versions exist, but are almost identical, as Babylonian nusach has become standard since the Eretz Yisrael community disappeared after the conquest of Salah-al-Din in 1191 (enslaved or disappeared). However, the Cairo Genizah has revealed parts of the lost nusach of Eretz Yisrael. Yechezkel Luger published a book with Genizah manuscript evidence for the various nuschaot of the Shemoneh Esreh, the central thrice-daily prayer.

Here is the Ashkenazi nusach:

רצה ידוד אלהינו בעמךָ ישראל ובתפלתם והשב את העבודה לדביר ביתך ואשי ישראל ותפלתם באהבה תקבל ברצון. ותהי לרצון תמיד עבודת ישראל עמך:

ותחזינה עינינו בשובךָ לציון ברחמים ברוך אתה ידוד. המחזיר שכינתו לציון:

The usual question, which has sparked some recent discussion on the Avodah mailing list, is how do we parse the paragraph? Does the phrase “v’ishei ysrael” belong with what precedes it, or what follows it? If attached to the preceding, we would say “Return the service to Devir Your House and the fire-offerings of Israel, and receive their prayers with love”. If attached to the following, we have “Return the service to Devir Your House, and receive the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayers with love.” Are the fire offerings to be returned, or to be received?

As it happens, the classical commentaries, mostly based on the last Tosafos in Menachos, which in turn cites midrashim, are divided. The Mishna Brura summarizes the variety of opinions:

First, he notes that the Mechaber is referring to a minhag which skips the beginning of Retzei, starting from V'ishei Yisrael; said minhag is denigrated, although perhaps not so far as the Pri Megadim would, who said it denied the text of Hazal; still one shouldn't do it. That custom supports grouping "V'ishei Ysrael" with Utfilatam.

He then lists three explanations:

• Tur: V'ishei Ysrael Utfilatam: tefillot are in place of korbanot.
• Yalkut Shimoni: Angel Michael sacrifices tzadikim on a Supernal Altar, so Ishei Ysrael == Anshei Ysrael, and links with Utfilatam.
• Some comment: Return the fire offerings along with the Temple service. And accept our prayers...

Taz prefers the second, Gra prefers the third explanation. M"B doesn't say which he prefers. So three sources (the old custom, YS and Tur) support one grouping, while the Gra supports the other grouping.

If I look at it, I prefer "V'ishei ysrael utfilatam", following the Tur's explanation, coupled with grammar:

Return the service to Dvir Your House, and the fire-offerings of Israel. And receive the prayers... - doesn't make sense grammatically.

1) it looks like an afterthought;

2) the service IS or at least INCLUDES the fire-offerings, esp. since we can't ever do bamot again, so it's a redundant afterthought.

3) Lack of an "et" to indicate a direct object to "Hasheiv" also argues against it. In fact, that also makes it group better with "utfillatam":

a) v'...u' to distinguish two types of "and"; the first indicating "here's a similar sentiment to the last" and the second indicating "this is grouped with the previous"

b) neither of the objects of Tekabel gets an "et", while the object of "hasheiv" has an "et". (this turns out to be debatable, some siddurim have “et”, some don’t, in trying to reach a 34-word count set by old Ashkenazic tradition)

If they wanted to group it together with "Divine service", perhaps it should have said "Hasheiv et ha-avodah v'et ishei yisrael lidvir beitecha".

For reference (from Bar-Ilan database):

Tosfos Menachos 110a:

ומיכאל שר הגדול עומד ומקריב עליו קרבן - מדרשות חלוקין יש מי שאומר נשמותיהן של צדיקים ויש מי שאומר כבשים של אש והיינו דאמרינן בשמונה עשרה בעבודה ואשי ישראל ותפלתם מהרה באהבה תקבל ברצון ויש אומרים דקאי אדלעיל והשב את העבודה לדביר ביתך ואשי ישראל, לא מצאתי יותר.

Mishna Brura 120:1:

(א) במנחה - דהיינו שהם מתחילין מואשי ישראל ועיין בפמ"ג שכתב דלפי מה שנהגו עכשיו בכל מקום לאמר רצה מקרי המדלג משנה ממטבע שטבעו חז"ל ודינו כמש"כ המחבר סימן קי"ט ס"ג בטעה בברכה ולענ"ד צ"ע אם זה מקרי בדיעבד בשם טעה ואפילו בשחרית עיין לעיל סוף סימן ס"ד במ"א בשם הכ"מ ובסימן נ"ט ובסימן קי"ד מ"א סק"ט ובריש סימן קפ"ז. כתב הטור על מה שאנו אומרים ואשי ישראל ותפלתם וכו' ואע"פ שאין עתה עבודה מתפללים על התפילה שהיא במקום הקרבן שתתקבל ברצון לפני הש"י ובמדרש יש מיכאל שר הגדול מקריב נשמתן של צדיקים על המזבח של מעלה [ר"ל שמגיש אותם לרצון לפני ד' לריח ניחוח] וע"ז תקנו ואשי ישראל ר"ל אנשי ישראל וי"מ על מה שלמעלה ממנו וה"פ והשב העבודה ואשי ישראל ואח"כ ותפילתם באהבה תקבל ברצון ועיין בט"ז שכתב דהפירוש האמצעי הוא המובחר מכולם אבל הגר"א כתב שהעיקר כפי' האחרון:

* * *

While looking into antique siddurim for punctuation evidence, I came across a strange nusach, that of Avignon. Avignon was one of four ancient communities, along with Carpentras, L’Isle sur Sorgue, and Cavaillon. Cut off from the mainstream of French Jewish culture until the French Revolution, their nusach disappeared as the community assimilated into the rest of France. Their prayers were the old Provençal rite. [based on Kestenbaum’s catalogue #36].

Goldschmidt in the Encyclopedia Judaica characterizes it as mostly Sephardi, specifically close to that of neighboring Catalonia. However, their version of Retzei is peculiar, to say the least.

Let’s look at it: (typed from the 1766 Avignon siddur available on the Jewish National & University Library (JNUL) website)

רצה ידוד אלהינו בעמךָ ישראל ושכון בציון מהרה ויעבדוך בניך בירושלים ואתה ברחמיך הרבים תחפוץ בנו ותרצנו:

ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון ולירושלים ברחמים כמאז ברוך אתה ידוד. המחזיר שכינתו לציון:

Almost all the main paragraph has changed, and the word k’meaz (as before) was inserted. That last is evident in many older Ashkenazic siddurim, as noted by the Eizor Eliyahu (which assesses old Ashkenazic prayerbooks and manuscripts to find the “original” version) commentary, and in old siddurim online at JNUL. Also note that the following bracha, that of Divine Peace, in the Avignon siddur is the short version we use today only at mincha and maariv, when the priests would not have said the priestly blessing: Shalom Rav instead of our Sim Shalom. However, where does that main paragraph come from?

Let’s look farther back, to the Geniza. Luger has isolated two main versions, which he calls A and B. A is associated with Sephardic traditions, thus is almost identical to our usual Retzei. B is associated with the version of ancient Israel, and contains the text of the main paragraph, plus, as a closing, the bracha that we say only at duchaning - “that only You with fear do we serve”, which was in fact the closing of the bracha in the Temple, when the Kohanim used it to bless the daily offerings.

We find this in other places as well, that Temple prayer texts continue down into Eretz Yisrael post-Destruction rites, and only later are re-absorbed into, or overwritten by, Babylonian prayers. The recitation of Hodu, after Baruch She’amar in the mornings, is similarly a survival of Temple morning rituals, which was in EY and Ashkenazic prayer, and only later migrated into Sephardic practice – see Y. M. Ta-Shma, “Early Ashkenazic Prayer”.

At any rate, Luger’s recensions of the prayers:

Version A: רצה ידוד אלהינו בעמך ישראל ובתפלתם והשב עבודה לדביר ביתך אשי יש ותפלתם מהרה באהבה תקבל ברצון ותהא לרצון תמיד עבודת יש עמך ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון ברחמים כמאז בא"י המחזיר מהרה שכינתו לציון

Version B רצה ידוד אל ושכן לציון יעבדוך עבדיך בירושלים נשתחוה לך ברחמיך הרבים תחפוץ בנו ותרצינו בא"י שאותך ב[יר]אה נעבוד

You can clearly see our version as a slight variant on Version A. And you can also see the Avignon text as a hybrid of Versions A and B. That could be understood in terms of an old French community with some remnants of Eretz Yisrael prayer-texts (under the widely-held theory that Jews migrated from Eretz Yisrael through Italy north into France, bringing an oral culture of Minhag Eretz Yisrael with them that became Minhag Ashkenaz, as attested by some Tosafot which try to reconcile Minhag Ashkenaz with clearly different laws in the Babylonian Talmud, and in some ancient piyutim), merging its nusach with neighboring Spain during some period of increased contact.

Note also that the speaker is different in the two version. In our Version A, we specifically ask for return of the Temple Service. It is a thoroughly Galut prayer, fitting for Babylonia, and after the Destruction, universally applicable. Version B, however, associated with the rite of the Land of Israel, is personal, it asks for us the servants to return to service. Version A is objective, referring to the Service, version B is subjective, referring to the Servants, the priests and their followers who returned to, and remained in, Eretz Yisrael.

However, here’s where it gets really weird.

Luger has a source text, from the Geniza, which is almost identical to our Comtat Venaissin prayer text. His Source 46, which is identified as manuscript fragment H5.135, covers two leaves of a prayerbook, with the second blessing and last three blessings of the Shmoneh Esreh. He doesn’t estimate a date or a point of origin, but since it is mostly the Eretz Yisrael text, I have to wonder if it really is an Eretz Yisrael survival, perhaps from some period when the two versions were merging. Also, Luger’s text, clearly from a morning service (as there is the beginning of a piyut attached to the blessing of Gevurah (Might), has Shalom Rav as its concluding blessing.

Luger’s text, reconstructed from his notes in the book, is as follows:

רצה ידוד אלהינו בעמך ישראל
ושכון בציון מהרה
יעבדוך בניך בירושלים
אתה ברחמיך הרבים תחפוץ בנו ותרצינו
בא"י שאותך ב[יר]אה נעבוד
ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון ולירושלים ברחמים כמאז
בא"י המחזיר שכינתו לציון

So how did a prayer text, a hybrid between Nusach Bavel and Nusach Eretz Yisrael, found in the Genizah in Cairo, find its way also to the isolated communities of the Comtat Venaissin? Is the Avignon text a survival of Nusach Eretz Yisrael from some intermediate period when it was being infiltrated by Nusach Bavel? Or is it parallel evolution leading to the same solution?

If someone could forward contact information for Dr. Luger, I’d love to hear his opinion.

Huh. If I get some interesting answers, and expand it a little with midrashic and scriptural sources for the prayer, and some exegesis, I could turn this into an article. As a blog post, it’s a bit telegraphic.

The Banner Mentality

The BAR Four - the latest sensation to roil the JBlog world - reveals the Banner (those who would ban) Mentality.

What is the Banner Mentality? It's a desire to hunt heretics, combined with an intellectual dishonesty and a lack of reading comprehension. Implicit in this, is the requirement to be dan lechaf gnai, to presume the other party guilty.

How does this manifest in this issue? The rush to label Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, the only observant Jew in the group, and the only Jew to maintain his faith in the face of secular scholarship.

The passages in question:

Dever: Living in the Holy Land, I became extremely cynical about religion. I began to think, more or less, maybe like all of you, that I had no talent for religion, that faith might be a matter of temperament as well as training. I never had a pious bone in my body. And I realized I was never really a believer, but it just took me 40 years to figure out that it was no longer meaningful. That’s when I converted to Judaism. [Laughs] I did it precisely because you don’t have to be religious to be a Jew. And I’m perfectly comfortable where I am.

Shanks: How do you respond to that, Larry? “You don’t have to be religious to be a Jew”?

Dever: That’s true of most Israelis.

Schiffman: Yes, that’s a fact. A Jew remains part of the Jewish people whatever he or she believes or practices. But in order to be a Jew, you have to have some concept that you believe in Judaism. You have a received tradition from other people—at least they believed they received the revelation.

Dever: Absolutely.

Schiffman: You’ve got to decide: Do I believe there is a God? Do I believe that God communicated some kind of way of life to someone that became Judaism?

Dever: I think Judaism is about practices rather than a correct theology.

...Schiffman: In one of Bill’s books, he discusses the historicity of the Exodus, and he throws up his hands. From the Jewish viewpoint everyone says it happened; it’s part of our past, part of our history. Somehow or other, it happened. I happen to believe there was some kind of Exodus. But the point I’m making is that the framing of the question, from the Jewish point of view, is very different.

Dever: Which is why I feel comfortable in Judaism. That’s where I’ve arrived—by a long and tortuous path.

The banner-types take Schiffman's statements about "some kind of exodus", and "you have to have some concept to believe in Judaism", and take them to mean that Schiffman doesn't believe in a literal Exodus, that he doesn't believe in the Revelation at Sinai, that he doesn't believe in the authenticity of Torah, and on that basis scream that he's Conservative, that he has lost his faith, etc.

But look at the context. Who is he speaking to? In part, he's speaking to Dever. Dever was a Protestant minister, who lost his belief in a literalist faith, converted Reform to marry his wife, and doesn't claim to be much of that either. This is in the category of da ma shetashiv, how to speak to a Reform Jew to try to encourage him to take on a little more. He's countering Dever's "you don't need any belief to be Jewish" with something Dever might be able to accept. Countering it with full-on Orthodox belief would just not be accepted.

Also, as one commenter noted, he has to keep some things under wraps if he wants to continue to be taken seriously in academia, which frowns on being actively religious. It can easily affect one's academic detachment.

The banner mentality ignores all this, and takes the statements as claims of personal belief, rather than statements which will be accepted in their proper context, in the conversation as recorded. On that basis, the banner writes off the writer. But just as bloggers may maintain a persona which is not identical to their real selves, academics may maintain such a persona.

This is exactly how R' Slifkin got into trouble: people took his words out of context, ignoring that they came from books aimed at those who were having trouble remaining in the fold, took them as statements of personal belief, and used their influence with big-name rabbis to prounounce a ban on his writings. As a result, he the person has become non grata in his own yeshivish world.

As prose in the mind of the banner
Who misquotes or distorts it at will
Don't let them slander the good guys
Heed thy common sense, heed not the banner.

The Jewish Imperative to Sing, III

MUSICAL NOTE (from LSS Shabbat Echod)
by Cantor Sherwood Goffin

Did you know that there is a custom - not only to sing, but to dance at Kiddush Levana, the ceremony of sanctifying the moon performed after every Rosh Chodesh! The Ramah, Rabbi Moshe Isserles, in the Shulchan Aruch(426), says that there is a custom to dance at Kiddush Levana. In the Darkei Moshe of the Ramah, he even more explicitly says that this dancing is required according to Kabbalah. He then states that if dancing is required then it certainly requires singing! (To what do you dance if there is no inging). This another example of the requirement to sing in public.

Daven Well and Sing Along!

Purim Sicha of the Shluffener Rebbe

A Sicha of the Shluffener Rebbe,
Meir Moshe ben Yankev Yitschak Shnoozer,
also known as “the Shnoozer, Meir Moshe, hakodosh”,
or the ShMMuH”K

transcribed by thanbo b. simcha
for a refua shelema for simcha b. rivka

Purim, 5767

The megillah tells us to make “ymei simcha umishteh” Yemei, two days, implies a night between. Mishteh, drinking, must be an integral part of the “days”. As the Passaicker Maggid, R’ Micha Berger often says, 7, the days of the week, the lower sefiros, the nonzero digits of the Lubavitch headquarters, the speeds of an internally geared Shimano Nexus hub, the number seven, sheva, zibn, siete, sept, sju, pito implies the natural world, that which is normally accessible to Man and his technology. Eight, however, the lights of Chanukah, the day after Shabbos, the days before a Bris – this, this is the Supernatural, the Holy. Since the ideal amount of sleep is eight hours, therefore one’s sleep is itself an act of kedusha. To sleep properly is to revel in kedusha, immerse in kedusha, imbibe kedusha with every snore.

But where is the kedusha in the Megillah? There isn’t even a name of God, the Holy, blessed be He, the Eibershter, the Ein Sof, the King whose Name shall be praised forever, yeah, OK Dovidhamelech, we get the idea – none of His names appear in the Megillah. Yet, some consider the Megillah’s command of Purim to be almost on a D’oraisa level. It is a semi-Yom Tov, with some of the additional prayers, piyutim, and meals of Yom Tov, but there is no Name of God associated with it. There is no Kiddush on the Day. But Chazal did feel empowered to ordain a festive meal – why?

The Megillah may not contain a Name of God, but it does contain many many references to HaMelech, The King. Many take these to refer to Hashem obliquely, kaveyachol, kil’achar yad, as it were, backhand.*

*HG”H: With the frequency of the Hamelech references, we might almost say that they are volleying for serve. But we won’t.

Underlying this assumption of HaMelech being HaMelech HaElyon, is that God is the True King. Kingship is reserved to the HolyBlessedBeHe alone. How do we know this? Even though the Torah mandates that we elect a king, Shmuel Hanavi, who was the Eibishter’s Right-Sefira Man at the time, waxed wroth at the idea that the Jews wanted to elect a king, to be just like the goyim (yech, pfui, eww). If Shmuel said it, and he had a direct line to The Holy Office Upstairs, surely Hashem was not pleased with the idea of Jews having a king. The Heilige Siddur bears this out – so much of our tefilos on Rosh Hashanah, not to mention Birchos Krishme, (hare hare, krishme krishme, rama krishme – behold, the highest Krias Shma), emphasize the Malchus Hashem.

So how can that malchus extend to Our Rabbonim, and Our Neviim, not to mention Queen Esther*,who ordained the mitzvos and zichronos of the day.

HG”H: Queen Esther, in her modesty, always sat at the back of the mehadrin chariot, fulfilling Shlomo Hamelech’s dictum: kol kevudas bas melech acharonah.

I feel free to speculate, not having seen any reference to this in the Words of the Living God, the Chassidic literature, that we humans are “demigods”. The Torah tells us, we were created with Tzelem Elokim. What is tzelem elokim? The Image of God, kavyachol, not that there can be a visible Image of God, h”v. But a Tzelem can also be a Demus, a Face, a Character, a Form. It is the Form without the Substance of God, we have the Form of God, but the Substance of Gashmiyus. So we are half-divine, half-human – we are DemiGods.

The words themselves bear this out. The Gaon I___ M____, Linguist Extraordinare of Today, the Gimle”t, proposes the unity of all languages, based on the Original Antediluvian Language, which is Hebrew. All languages must be linked. Demus – which is half of the self, the Form without Substance, compares to the Greek “Demi-“ meaning half. So Tzelem Elokim, our Heilige Halb, makes us DemiGods.

To bring the ‘Snags into the fold, we take their understanding of the Beinoni, according to the Rambam who is the one who is balance, half good and half evil. The beinoni, the normal man, is half a tzadik. The tzadik is a memutza hamechaber, the intermediary who attaches, who allows us to see the Divine in the Tzadik which is also immanent in the twigs and stones. The Heilige Sokolovsky says that the Rebbe is God, a Tzadik is God, therefore we, as half-tzaddik-half-rasha, are half God, or DemiGods.

If Malchus is of Hashem, then, we humans partake of Malchus simply by existing, through our Divine Half.

Chazal had malchus through this, as they often said (as said in Shaarei Gan HaEiden I:2:1, of R’ Yaakov Kopel Lipschitz, zt”l) “We [Rabbis] are kings, ruling the body of Torah”. Therefore, they could mandate a Yom Tov, but not kiddush, as they were not the Kiddusha Brich Hu. They could, however, mandate human requirements, such as sleep. Sleep, as we have seen, is in the aspect of kodesh, if done for 8 hrs (if they are to be shaos zmanios is discussed elsewhere). And sleep is central to avodas hanofesh, as the admo”r c”k theAlter Shluffer ztvkll”h nbg”m zy”a tells us in Mitah Mikva uMimaalah, “az der rebe shlof, shloffen alle chasidim”

Why, if we are demigods, do we need so much sleep? We are half human as well. And that human half, the half tzadik, is half a mercavah for the Eibishter. The Lubavitcher says that the goal is to make a Dirah beTachtonim for the Kudsha Brich Hu. We hold that it suffices to make a Mechonit beTachtonim, as we do with the Holy Half-Measure. A car is a lot heavier than a chariot. Carrying around the Eibeshter all day is pretty tiring. As they say, s’iz shver tzu zein a Yid. As a consequence of our human half, which has to be at least half good, to be a Mechonit beTachtonim, we need to keep our energy up. This effort is the Avodas Hanofesh.

So too we celebrate Purim with food & wine, which lead to sleep, when we can’t recite Arur Haman uBaruch Mordechai.. May our avoda begashmius lead to avoda beruchnius, and all of us work towards perfecting the world, preparing for Bias haGoel, bimheiro vyomeinu, mamesh mamesh with all that that implies.

Bivrachah, Meir Moshe Shnoozer

Purim Pashkeville: Reprise

In the wake of all the warnings about alcohol and minors on Purim, a Local Yeshiva Bochur (name suppressed to protect the protagonist) composed the following Purim Pashkeville last year.

Musical Note Teruma 5767

The Jewish Imperative to Sing
Part II (Second in a series)

The Tashbetz, a Rishon (d.1444), tells how a Chazzan/Talmid Chacham was insulted by some of his congregants as he officiated on Yom Tov in Majorca. In anger he vowed to never daven again at the Bimah. The congregation asked the Tashbetz to nullify the Chazzan's vow so that he could resume his position. The Tashbetz declared that the Chazzan's davening is a Torah Law ("mid'oraita") because "he is fulfilling the obligation of the congregation to say Kedushah...." His vow is therefore invalid because you can't vow to cancel a Mitzvah! After some discussion, the Tashbetz concludes his decision by adding that G-d Himself would want the Chazzan to reverse his vow, since "G-d wants to be sanctified by a person who has a good voice!" (As we wrote in last week's Note).

Daven well and sing along!

(© 2007 Cantor Sherwood Goffin. Reprinted by permission from LSS Echod)

Yated's YCT Critique Critiqued

I had been troubled by R' Harry Maryles' seemingly uncritical acceptance of critiques of the Left by the Right; instead of subjecting the critiques to investigation, he accepted them, with some disclaimers, as a basis for criticizing the Left (or the non-Right, at any rate). I am glad to see that he has modified his post about the YCT article.

However, the original Yated critique of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah deserves its own direct critique, because many of its points are either distortions or fabrications. Now, since no silver pot comes without a tarnished lining, there are one or two items where I agree with the article, and would like to see a response from Chovevei. But overall, as a basis to dismiss YCT as "non-Orthodox", the article is not well-grounded.

* * *

Ordinees of JTS and HUC (Conservative and Reform rabbis) working at YCT.

a) one is an administrator (Director of Wexner Fellows)

b) one teaches pastoral counseling (you need a musmach [Orthodox rabbi] for this?)

How does this break with the Rav's [Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt"l] klapei-pnim [internal]/ klapei-chutz [external] dichotomy [we may cooperate with the heterodox on antisemitism and other issues affecting Jews, but no theological dialogue - we are too far apart], how does it? These people are not teaching Conservative theology, they're teaching how to deal with congregants. I see nothing in hiring non-musmachim to teach psychology, that contradicts the extract from "Confrontation" [the Rav's article explaining his policy] they brought in the article.

* * *

The Hillel rabbi who caters to homosexual students. He's a HILLEL RABBI. He's not the rabbi of an Orthodox congregation. He HAS to deal fairly with non-Orthodox students, counsel them, help them maximize their religious experience. And plenty of Orthodox rabbis are Hillel rabbis. Not to mention that the president of YU was hired on the strength of having revitalized Hillel.

The Reform rabbi administrator - she's not "teaching young, aspiring rabbis." Actually, she doesn't appear on YCT's website at all. And YCT is not mentioned in her bio at the Wexner Foundation website. So where they got this one is a mystery.

The JTS-affiliated rabbi who teaches Talmud criticism, R' Jonathan Milgram: Look him up, and surprise surprise, he's a YU musmach. [Update: as a commenter notes, lots of Orthodox people are employed at JTS]. Revel has had people teaching this for decades, such as the late R' M.S. Feldblum. "We will not consider what criticism of the Talmud means for fear that finding out might require rending our garments." Obscurantism! Not even a "da ma shetashiv", but simply spitting on it unexamined. If there's one thing the Rav, as portrayed by R' Rakeffet, despised, it was the obscurantism of the Right.

* * *

R’ Maryles had characterized the quoted parsha piece by R’ Zev Farber as “disgusting”. I don't see anything "disgusting" in it, I don't see any of this psychologizing you criticize, I just see reading the text as given. I certainly don't see any of the "kefirah" [heresy, denial of basic principles] the article attributes to him. They're remarkably unspecific as to what Chazal say that R' Farber allegedly transgresses. And exactly how do they define "kefirah"? I thought it was defined as going against Rambam's 13 Principles. Not going against some anonymous article-writer's biases.

* * *

Kleinberg seems to be some kind of weirdo. There's dialogue, and there's giving in, which seems to be his path: teaching in a Reform-led interdenominational kollel, etc. I suppose. Their continuing enthusiastic endorsement of R' Kleinberg does seem a bit strange. They had a piece praising him and his new synagogue in the Fall 2006 newsletter. He seems politically blind/naive at the least, since he walked right into the wrong side of an argument between the Orthodox and Heterodox rabbis. The Phoenix rabbinic board had split, about 8 or 10 years ago, between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox rabbis, and he joined the non-Orthodox side. His sample parsha piece quoted in the article, about God's imperfection, that does seem a problem. While yes, the apparent lack of knowledge has to be there to teach us something (naaseh adam betzalmeinu, lo tov heyot adam levado, etz oseh pri), they can't actually be imperfections in God. To me, this does seem a valid critique.

* * *

Dancing with the leaders of the heterdox seminaries at your Chag haSmicha is not giving them a platform from which to preach.

* * *

R' Berman disagreeing with R' Kotler etc., so what else is new? So did his rav, RYBS. Disagreeing with RYBS? I don't actually see that in the comments they quoted, which seemed pointedly to address klapei chutz, brit goral involvement, and explicitly citing irreconcilable theological differences.

* * *

Participating in the interseminary seminar: this I find problematic as well. However, the EDAH rabbis used to make one point very clear: the Rav taught his talmidim to think for themselves, to pasken for themselves. He did not generally insist that his opinion be universally followed, except for certain instances such as R' Rackman's agunah proposal. R' Yosef Adler, rosh yeshiva at Torah Academy of Bergen County and rav in Teaneck, described how someone had asked him about using the hot water tap on Shabbos. There was something special about it, I forget what, but he brought it to the Rav. The Rav told him to think for himself, and to see the second Reb Chaim on the Rambam, who does provide a justification for using the hot-water tap on Shabbos. I'm sure the Rav wouldn't have done so himself, but he ratified R' Adler paskening that way for someone else. Similarly on women's tefillah groups: lechatchilah [ab initio] don't do it, but bedieved [ex post facto], R' Riskin, here's how it should be done.

* * *

The attack on R' Linzer seems entirely unwarranted. There are mitzvos that are hard to deal with. Facing the fact that they are hard to understand, hard to deal with in terms of our understanding of God's goodness, is not "second-guessing" them. It is the only honest approach to many things. Sweeping problems under the rug with "you are not allowed to ask questions" is so often cited as "the reason I went off the derech - I asked questions in yeshiva, and was dismissed and told not to ask such questions." I've heard it time and time again.

Note that R' Linzer is not saying these mitzvos should be ignored, or erased, but that they are hard to live with. There is a famous story of the Rav, when someone came to him about a wedding, and it turned out that he was a kohen and she a gerushah, he thought about it all night, paced up & down, cried a long time, and eventually had to tell them "no". That is surrender to the halacha. But that is also confronting the very real human problems we face in following the halacha.

In fact, I went to their supposed “source” in Rashi for this “principle”, and found something completely different. But that deserves its own post.

Musical Note I

The Jewish Imperative to Sing,

Part I (First in a series)

By Cantor Sherwood Goffin

In Mishlei (Proverbs 3;9), we read "Honor G-d with your wealth", using the word "may-hone-cho". The Sages tell us to read it "may-chon'cho" - with what He has endowed you, and the P'sikta interprets that to mean, "may-gron'cho" -that if one has a good voice, honor G-d with your voice. The Bais Yosef, quoting the Shibbolei Haleket, comments that this teaches us that if one has a good voice he should use it to serve Hashem as the Shaliach Tsibbur in shul. The Bais Yosef quotes the story of Navot, who was punished because he once refused to use his G-d given gift of song in the Holy Temple, to show that using your talents for serving G-d is required, and not merely a good suggestion.

Daven well and sing along!

(Reprinted with permission from the Lincoln Square Synagogue Shabbat Echod)

Antisemitic Book Title

"Daily Life in Palestine at the Time of Christ"

Just got the latest Scholars BookShelf catalogue - lots of great surplus stuff. They introduced a series on Daily Life in Antiquity: Periclean Greece, Aztecs, India, and of course...Israel, with the title above.

Grr. This title strikes me as antisemitic on two counts:

1) The Land of Israel was not called "Palestine" at the time of Jesus, it was the Roman province of Judaea, so-called after the Jewish kingdom of Judah which had still existed there, albeit under subjugation, when the Romans took over from the Greeks (Remember King Herod? What was he king of? The Sturgeon King? No, that's Barney Greengrass).

It was called Palestine only after the Bar-Kochba Revolt was defeated in 135 CE, more than a century after Jesus' death, as a direct slap at the few remaining Jews - it was named after another ancient tribe that had once been in the area, the Philistines.

2) If you're going to pick an anachronistic name, pick Israel - that's the name of the current country/political entity that has sovereignty over the area. To call it Palestine is to delegitimize the State of Israel - calling after either the
Roman-Byzantine-Arab-Crusader-Arab-Turkish-British name for the area, or the name used by the Arab enemies of Israel.

If one is writing a book on life in antiquity, one cannot but be aware of the history of the area. Using "Palestine" is a direct slap at the Jews and their State, the State of Israel.

Echoes of an Early Tu-Bishvat

I finally read Yaari's article on Tu Bishvat. I still think Tu Bishvat seders are silly, if you don't speak the Kabbalistic idiom for them to be meaningful. However, more information has come to light:

1) Tu Bishvat was a minor holiday in Eretz Israel in the Geonic period. Piyutim have come to light from the Cairo Genizah for the morning services on Tu Bishvat. In Bavel, however, it was nothing special.

The old Eretz Yisrael community was wiped out during the conquest of the First Crusade - most Jews shmadded out, the rest fled to the East. Records of their minhagim have only turned up recently, in the Geniza manuscripts; there is an old book of "the differences between the Eastern (Bavli) and Western (EY) Jews"; and some texts, such as the Minor Tractates and the Talmud Yerushalmi, bring down Palestinian customs.

Some of those customs have survived in Minhag Ashkenaz, as the Ashkenazim mostly came from Jews who had come from Eretz Yisrael in the Roman and Geonic periods, settled in Italy, and then moved north across the Alps into the Rhineland, France and Germany. Some of these customs' distinctiveness, and some of their existence, have been muted by increased interaction between the Jews of Christendom and the Jews of Dar al-Islam during the period of the Rishonim.

2) A teshuvah from Rabbenu Gershom Me-or HaGolah, early 11th century, says that we do not fast on Tu Bishvat, because the mishnah calls it a Rosh Hashanah, and we don't fast on Rosh Hashanah. But really the halacha is that we can fast on Rosh Hashanah, so what's going on? Odds are, he had a tradition that Tu Bishvat was a minor holiday, and he used the Rosh Hashanah connection as an asmachata (contrived support for something we know is true anyway).

3) Maharil records that we don't say techinot; the Minhagim of R' Isaac Tyrnau says that we don't say Tachanun; and a student of R' Israel Isserlein records that in Austria they don't say tachanun on Tu Bishvat. These are 16th-century sources, I think.

4) A book of Ashkenazic minhagim first printed in Venice in 1590 records that Ashkenazim eat extra fruit on Tu Bishvat.

The suppression of Tachanun and of fasting are brought down in the Shulchan Aruch.

The Hemdat Yamim then, about 1675 or so (not printed until 1721) creates the Tu Bishvat seder from Divine inspiration, and encourages his friends from his mystical society to do it as well. He incorporates the old custom of eating fruit, with the newer kabbalistic infusion of sanctity into acts. Tu Bishvat was a nothing day in the Eastern lands, no suppression of fasting or tachanun, no special fruit-eating, until their adoption of kabbalah brought the Tu Bishvat seder into their habits.

So the Old Ashkenazic customs, which trace back to Old Eretz Yisrael customs, of eating fruit and of not fasting or saying tachanun, long predate the Hemdat Yamim. It makes sense that EY/Ashkenaz preserved this day as a minor holiday, while Bavel/Edot haMizrach ignored it, since only in EY is the fiscal year for maaser and trumah operative.

Tu BiSh-what? Seder?

The more I look into it, the more I think: Tu Bish'vat seders are silly.

Josh Waxman on Parshablog has a post about his problems with the Tu Bishvat seder as currently practiced, particularly among the Moderns. He held that it was Lurianic, and practiced among Sephardim, but the connection of its source with Sabbateanism made a black mark against it.

The problems run deeper than he initially says, though. The fundamental text for the Tu BiShevat Seder is from the Hemdat Yamim, which, as Waxman brings from MyJewishLearning.com, is widely considered to be of Sabbatean origin. Given that much of Jewish culture since 1667 has worked to stamp out Sabbateanism, this doesn't sound good for us.

The Tu BiShevat Haggadah has been separately published as "Peri Etz Hadar." It begins with a long harangue on the benefits of making blessings before eating, because not doing so, is like stealing from God, rather than asking His permission to use His food. Then we have some explanation of a list of thirty (30) fruits, organised as sets of ten sefirot (channels of Divine emanation, loosely) with the three (of four) lower spiritual worlds. We then get a series of scriptural, Midrashic and kabbalistic readings, then a series of Kabbalistic readings associated with some of the 30 fruits, and 4 cups of wine of different colors are drunk during the proceedings. All told, the whole ritual should take several hours to complete.

Even according to Peri Etz Hadar, which I have (it's a nice little book you can pick up in Judaica shops; it's also a few pages of squinchy Rashi print in the Hemdat Yamim which can be found on www.seforimonline.org), it's not Lurianic. The author states right out that the Rav ZLH"H (by which I assume he means the AriZal) never did this ritual, but that he does it and encourages his friends to do so as well. So while the text may be "Lurianic", it's not found in The Writings of the Arizal. Pseudepigraphy is hardly unknown in Kabbalah (viz. the Zohar itself, which is at least in part from the 13th century).

As far as I can tell, then, it originates with (Sabbatean) Hemdat Yamim; it's a made-up service unconnected to the AriZal; and really, folks, Tu Bishvat is the April 15th of the trees.

If it's all about created ritual, and we Ashkenazim don't speak in Kabbalistic idiom since the early 19th century, the Zoharic readings from the Peri Etz Hadar will mean nothing to us. The symbolism remains empty. So why bother? If you're Sephardic, or Chassidic, and still think in Kabbalistic idiom, say the whole service, let it mean something. As for us, if we do bother, why not just use the made-up Reform Gates of Fruit service (or whatever it's called) - it has just as much "legitimacy" as Pri Etz Hadar.