Volume 54 Number 28
Produced: Fri Mar 16 5:18:07 EDT 2007
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll? (4)
[Chaim Tatel, Mark Steiner, David Roth, Alex Heppenheimer]
Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll, and R. Breuer z"l (2)
[Orrin Tilevitz, Michael Frankel]
Zeikher-Zekher- AS: corrigenda
[Michael Frankel]
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From: Chaim Tatel <chaimyt@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 11:15:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll?
Michael Frankel <michaeljfrankel@...> wrote:
>The problem is that there is not the slightest shemetz of doubt ever
>raised by anyone that T'hillim 145 should be pointed zeikher, with (5
>dots), rather than zekher (with six dots).
Really?
When I was in Yeshiva (Telshe and Ner Israel), we would say the first
Ashrei in shacharis as Zeicher and the second one as Zecher. I also
have siddurim at home that have the same vowelization (1st as zeicher
and 2nd as zecher)
Chaim Tatel
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From: Mark Steiner <marksa@...>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 15:57:58 +0200
Subject: RE: Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll?
I guess Chabad is "nobody," then. In the Tehillas Hashem siddur, the
word is zekher (six dots), and it's no accident.
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From: David Roth <davidyonah@...>
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:34:37 -0500
Subject: Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll?
Not true. Maase Rav says that the Gaon said only zecher, both in Ashrei
and in Parshas Zachor.
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From: Alex Heppenheimer <aheppenh@...>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 08:56:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll?
In MJ 54:25, Mechy Frankel discussed the question of "zekher"
vs. "zeikher" in Artscroll's rendition of Ashrei. He writes:
>The problem is that there is not the slightest shemetz of doubt ever
>raised by anyone that T'hillim 145 should be pointed zeikher, with (5
>dots), rather than zekher (with six dots).
Not so. R' Yaakov Emden in his siddur specifically states that "zekher"
here is "with six dots." He refers in this connection to his sefer Luach
Eresh, but as I don't have a copy of it, I don't know what arguments he
brings in favor of this rendition.
He also writes:
>Looking through a variety of siddurim in my house i find the majority
>(including popular editions like Shiloh and metzudoh) correctly render
>the 5 pointed zeikher, but at least one - a 1920's edition of the
>"S'fas Emes" siddur by the old Hebrew Publishing Company had a 6 dotted
>zekher.
On the other hand, I find the following that have it with six dots
(aside from R' Yaakov Emden's siddur, as above):
Siddurim:
Torah Ohr (Chabad) - generally fairly accurate as to grammatical issues
Tehillas Hashem (Chabad, photo reproduction from a Nusach Sefard
Vilna edition) Tehillim:
Ohel Yosef Yitzchak (Chabad, photo reproduction from a Hebrew
Publishing Company edition) Tanach:
Lublin edition
(Admittedly, except for Torah Ohr, none of these make any particular
claim to accuracy.)
Note: the Chabad study calendar HaYom Yom (entry for 11 Iyar), first
published in 1943, states that the correct pointing is with a segol
rather than tzeirei. Any Chabad sefarim published since then would
therefore be expected to use this version. However, the two siddurim and
the Tehillim mentioned above are independent of this, as they date from
earlier.
>There is a s'tiroh mi'AS al AS. AS itself has published a tanach and I
>find that it too (correctly) renders a 5 dotted zeikher in Psalm 145.
Could be simply that they decided to split the difference: since there
are two different opinions as to how the word should be pointed, they
used one for davening and the other for Tehillim. (I can tell you, for
example, that Chabad custom (based on HaYom Yom, entry for 17 Adar II)
has a similar differentiation regarding the word "kol" in Tehillim 87:7:
it's pointed with a kamatz when reciting this chapter before bentching,
but with a cholam when reciting Tehillim.)
Kol tuv,
Alex
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From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:23:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll, and R. Breuer z"l
Mechy Frankel reports that he is obsessing about the six-pointed
"zecher" in the Artscroll siddur's version of Ashrei. He doesn't like
it, particularly when the Artscroll Tanach has the five-pointed
"zeicher".
Yes, Rav Breuer's Tanach and the BHS (which I believe is based on the
Leningrad codex, the oldest surviving complete pointed manuscript of the
Tanach) have the five-pointed zeicher. As I'm sure Mechy knows, Rav
Breuer's Tanach is an attempt to recreate the text of the Aleppo codex,
the Keter Aram Tzova, which he believes to be the authoritative Ben
Asher codex, by convergence of five other full (Leningrad) or partial
manuscripts. I don't that everyone agrees with him on that point,
although in fact (1) the Aleppo Codex has the five-pointed "zeicher" (if
you, like me, are excited by such things, you can see for yourself
online at http://www.aleppocodex.org/, probably best accessed through
http://people.brandeis.edu/~brettler/online-texts.html - Aleppo), and
(2) apparently none of the other versions Rav Breuer consulted says any
different. I found nothing in the Minchat Shai. And the siddurim in my
house are all over the place on this; the notorious A. Hyman Charlap
version hedges its bets with "zeicher" in some places and "zecher" in
others.
But, but. Take a look at some of the old printed versions of the tanach
on line at http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il/eng/digibook.html. I didn't look
through all of them, but a 1494 version by Gershon ben Moshe and a 1495
version from Italy both have the six-pointed "zecher". Curiously, some
of the ancient chumashim on line there, along with a ca. 1550 "Lisbon
Bible" that one can purchase in facsimile (I have seen only the
chumash), have the six-pointed zecher in Ki Tetze and Beshalach as well.
Artscroll is an easy target, and my guess is that our best and brightest
don't go into editing sidurim. But if "zecher" is a mistake, it is
clearly an ancient one.
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From: Michael Frankel <michaeljfrankel@...>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:31:57 -0400
Subject: Re: Zeikher-Zekher- Art Scroll, and R. Breuer z"l
Orrin Tilevitz :
> Mechy Frankel reports that he is obsessing about the six-pointed
> "zecher" in the Artscroll siddur's version of Ashrei. He doesn't like
> it, particularly when the Artscroll Tanach has the five-pointed
> "zeicher". Yes, Rav Breuer's Tanach and the BHS (which I believe is
> based on the Leningrad codex, the oldest surviving complete pointed
> manuscript of the Tanach) have the five-pointed zeicher. As I'm sure
> Mechy knows, Rav Breuer's Tanach is an attempt to recreate the text of
> the Aleppo codex, the Keter Aram Tzova, which he believes to be the
> authoritative Ben Asher codex, by convergence of five other full
> (Leningrad) or partial manuscripts.
Obsessed? Moi? at most i'll admit to an un-natural hobby. As Reb OrrinT
is doubtless aware, R. Breuer's methodology was more complex than the
shorthand version mentioned above and to do honor to the recent niftor,
is worth describing at a little higher resolution - especially because
R. Breuer was zokheh to a literary neis, also worth describing, upon
completion of his herculean labor. (and don't push the metaphor beyond
the notion he worked enormously hard, to consideration of the object of
hercules' attention).
First a minor correction - or better, expansion - of Reb Orrin's
description of R. Breuer's use of five other manuscripts to develop his
torah text. This is true, but incomplete. There were actually nine
different sources. The five "exact"** codices mentioned by Oren. But he
also used a much later (but very exact) Yemenite torah as well as the
classical works Masoras S'yog lattoroh (Ramah), Or Toroh (Lonzano)), and
Minchas Shai. He sort of took a majority vote amongst these nine
sources- but not always and not blindly. He was at great pains to rely
on both the masoretic texts and accompanying masoretic notes unique to
each codex and went to great pains to track down discrepancies in
recorded mesorah notes.
And then there occurred his literary miracle. Ordinarily, the
inescapable methodological failing of such an approach which joins
different textual decisions from different manuscripts based on whatever
considerations, is that it is guaranteed in the end to produce a
composite text which never existed anywhere in the real world. But here
something odd occurred. having produced his text by this eclectic
melding of sources, lo and behold it did turn out, post facto, to be
completely identical in every respect to an already existing text. That
of the Yemenite torah tradition. (at least so R. breuer asserted, but
see penkower's seifer where he pointed out some very minor differences).
Finally, I wouldn't say that R. breuer (z"l) was attempting to recreate
the Aleppo codex, as its very existence following the events in post war
Aleppo was not generally known. R. Breuer could not have dreamed when
he started his great work that, in the fullness of time, he would
actually get to inspect the real thing, or at least the surviving
portions.
Mechy Frankel home: (301) 593-3949
<michael.frankel@...> office: (703) 676-6955
<michaeljfrankel@...>
**("exact" = s'forim hammiduyoqim, defined as s'forim whose text
conformed to a great degree to its accompanying masorah. There is no
extant ancient text which conforms entirely to its own mesorah. E.g. the
very m'duyoq Leningrad codex has 120 words that do not conform to its
masoretic notes. The much later Yemenite work on the other hand
conforms completely to its sofeir's mesorah),
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From: Michael Frankel <michaeljfrankel@...>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:03:06 -0500
Subject: Re: Zeikher-Zekher- AS: corrigenda
As two correspondents - most recently Dr. Stokar and i unfortunately
erased and can't remember the first- dinged me, when I wrote, en
passant, that Radak had explicitly differentiated zeikher in t'hillim as
being a five dotted word, he was not in fact citing t'hillim 145
(ashrei) but rather "l'zeikher qodsho" earlier in t'hillim (chs. 30 and
97). t'hillim 145 was addressed by Radak only implicitly in the
ambiguous conclusory phrase "v'les kavoseih" , which has been subject to
conflicting interpretations and would, depending on which reading you
preferred, imply either a 5 pointed or a six pointed zeikher in ashrei.
Of course I did include the weasle worded conditional in my original
remarks, "if memory serves".
One other correctional nuance. In my original note I suggested there never
had been a shemetz of doubt raised about the correct girsoh of
t'hillim/ashrei. That is basically still correct, as none of the "s'forim
hamm'duyoqim" the accurate tiberian based biblical codices, have any other
girsoh than a five dotted zeikher. However - rereading Penkower - it turns
out that there do exist a number of non-m'duyoq codices, mostly s'faradi but
also ashqenazi, with such a variant. And there are some earlier siddurim
which have copied this mistaken variant as well. These are however easily
dismissable as the codices themselves are not m'duyoq overall and these
mistakes are easily explained by the inability of most s'faradim to
distinguish segols and tzeirehs (or qomotz and patach). The same is true of
course of the ashkenazim, who also spoke s'fardic hebrew during this period.
(e.g. see rashi to B. B'rokhos 47a, d"h omein chatufoh). My amazement that
anyone would place textual credence in a non-masorete s'faradi who couldn't
keep his tzeirehs straight like the radak also remains.
Fortunately my daughters are all married, so non of this can still affect
their shidduch prospects.
Mechy Frankel home: (301) 593-3949
<michael.frankel@...> office: (703) 676-6955
<michaeljfrankel@...>
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End of Volume 54 Issue 28
