a kleinigkeit

Mesorah
1

I call it that because most people only care about masorah if it changes the meaning or the pronunciation.

But the non-defenestrated denizens of the Mesorah group understand that the masorah is much deeper than such things, and is important in light of the number of rishonim who spent time on it.

So I am mentioning something that I shamefully admit that I was unaware of all my years:

In the pasuq:
יד:יא וַיֹּאמְרוּ, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה הֲמִבְּלִי אֵיןקְבָרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם לְקַחְתָּנוּ לָמוּת בַּמִּדְבָּר, מַה-זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ לְהוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִּצְרָיִם.
regarding the word "hamibb'li," all printed Chumashim have the punctuation as is above, with a hataph-patah under the he'.

However, that is not the puncuation in the kisvei yad that represent the Ben-Asher masorah. Rather, all of them, without exception have a full patah — WITH a ge‘aya/AKA meteg. As the meritorious members of this group are aware, that means that the syllable "ha" is lengthened and has a secondary stress.

The Minchas Shai already noticed this issue. He notes that R. Yonah had it with a full patah, and it is the R'DaQ who says it should be a hataph-patah based on S'faradi mss. He even goes on to say that there are some who claim that the ms. on which R.Yonah was basing himself was the Aleppo Codex. That means to me that the Minchas Shay, without being able to decide the matter, attaches serious weight to the view of R. Yonah.

In any event, now we can be certain based on the better mss. that we have.

Prescriptive grammarians, who hold that the he' hash'elah should always have a hataph-patah, of course will be disturbed. But as we know, the Masorah did not believe in prescriptive grammar, only in descriptive.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330 Fax (212) 613-0718 e-mail mandels@ou.org

2

Given that both R. Breuer and Bar Ilan have a chataf parachute, I find it
difficult to credit you claim that _all_ ben Asher manuscripts have a full
patach. Neither of them would have deviated from Leningrad, which indeed
has a full patach, without good support. And dikduk rules would not factor
significantly.

Jeremy

3

I love this typo. It conjures up the image of someone falling out of the plane and hastily grabbing for a parachute as he's falling. Or possibly some hijacking a parachute mid-jump.

4

Not true.

Breuer, following his own shitta, has both a hataph-patah AND a ge‘aya. And in the index in the back of his editions of the T'NaKh, where he lists the forms actually found in the mss, he has a full patah and a ge‘aya.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330 Fax (212) 613-0718 e-mail mandels@ou.org

5

In the thread "a kleinigkeit", Rabbi Mandel posted a pasuk which is an
excellent illustration of a question I've wondered about. He posted it
as:

יד:יא וַיֹּאמְרוּ, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה הֲמִבְּלִי אֵיןקְבָרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם
לְקַחְתָּנוּ לָמוּת בַּמִּדְבָּר, מַה-זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ
לְהוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִּצְרָיִם

This pasuk (Sh'mos 14:11), as he posted it and also as it appears at
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/t/t0214.htm, has a comma after the very
first word. I often copy pesukim from Mechon Mamre, because it is
convenient and I rarely (if ever) have a problem with the actual
spelling. But I am *frequently* surprised by the punctuation, and this
is a great example.

The trop for the words "vayomru el Moshe" is zarka-segol. Why would
anyone put a comma for zarka? Does the zarka function as a mafsik
here? "Vayomru el Moshe" is a phrase, a unit in which a comma is
totally inappropriate. What am I missing?

Akiva Miller

6

You misunderstand R. Breuer's shitta. As he explains, he mostly goes according to the majority of the best kisvei yad. However, he does not want it to appear too strange to regular Jews. As a consequence, he omits all the many hataph vowels that Ben Asher put into the Codex, and puts in the "metegs" that people are used to, even if they do not exist in any of the best mss. He tries to distinguish the ge‘ayot that are in the mss. as opposed to the others by having the printer use metegs of different length. In this case, I am sure he did not want to depart from the hataph-patah because that is what people are used to.

There are no mss. that have both a ge‘aya AND a hataph on this word to the best of my knowledge.

You can go to R. Breuer's long book about how he decided questions without having the Aleppo Codex available: he uses the majority of the good mss., since in almost all cases the majority agrees with the Codex. I am sure that if he mentions this case there he will say that the mss. all have a full patah.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel

7

The trop for the words "vayomru el Moshe" is zarka-segol. Why would

anyone put a comma for zarka? Does the zarka function as a mafsik
here? "Vayomru el Moshe" is a phrase, a unit in which a comma is
totally inappropriate. What am I missing? <
RAM, I think you're not missing anything. Generally speaking, I wouldn't
place a comma after a zarqa prior to a segol any more than I would place a
comma by a tipcha prior to an esnachta or by a pashta prior to a zaqeif.

8

With all due respect, I think it is you who are misunderstanding, or at
least misapplying, R. Breuer's shittah. It is true that R. Breuer included
extra-masoretic metagim so as not to appear "odd" to those who were used to
them. But that is the only concession he made to simple expectations, and
is not, in any case, relevant here, where the meteg is masoretic (as can be
seen from its presence in the list, as well as, in the Keter Yerushalaim,
being a long meteg.

As for his approach to chataf vowels, the only ones he modified where
chataf vowels under non-guttural letters whose purpose was simply to
indicate a shva na. He did this because he felt strongly that such a chataf
should be pronounced as a shva, and not a short patach, and felt that
continuing to print the chataf was misleading to readers. If anything, this
is a case where he deviated from what readers would expect, in
contradistinction to his approach with metagim (albeit still with the
average reader in mind).

But this practice has no relevance to the case at hand. He did not change a
chataf under a non-guttural to a shva. He "changed" one under a guttural to
a full vowel. This is entirely different, and, as far as I can tell from
what I remember of what R. Breuer wrote (and I have read much of it,
including the relevant sections of the book on the Aleppo codex), he would
not have deviated from Aleppo in this if he did not have significant
textual support from other manuscripts. The fact that Bar Ilan, which does
not share R. Breuer's methodology for meteg or for chataf (Prof. Cohen kept
all the chatafs R. Breuer changed) arrived at the same conclusion furhter
supports that this decision is well supported generally and not a feature
of a quirk of R. Breuer's methodology.

Jeremy

9

I wish you would go to R. Breuer's book and see if he mentions this case.

Yes, I believe that he put in both a meteg and a hataph vowel was because he felt too many people would be confused about the absence of a hataph. I don't remember any cases at all of a hataph vowel having a meteg. Plain sh'was do all the time, as do other vowels, but I do not believe there is any other case of a hataph vowel having a meteg.

In two mss. that I have access to, one of which being the Leningrad, there is no hataph, only a meteg. What mss. do you think R Breuer would be relying on?

I think this is one example where R. Kohen's Bar Ilan reconstruction of the Aleppo Codex has gone astray. Remember, he is not trying to represent the majority of good mss. like R. Breuer was. He is trying to reconstruct the Aleppo Codex, and one can always argue about attempted reconstructions, as I am doing in this case. The same question I have asked before again applies here: what mss. is R. Kohen relying on that contradicts the Leningrad and the "B" ,ms. (British Museum Oriental 4445)?

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel

10

R. Breuer's lists of the differences between the manuscripts that he
examined in order to decide on the spelling, nikud and te'amim in his
Tanakh are printed among the introductory chapters to each sefer in the
Da'at Mikra Tanakh. In this case, he lists only Leningrad with a patach,
while both Sasoon mss. (507 and 1053) have a chataf-patach. This is why he
has a chataf-patach in the text of his Tanakh with the patach version in
the list at the back. So it seems that in this case R' Jeremy is right.

R. Breuer lists Sasoon 1053 as having both a chataf and a ge'aya, while 507
has just the chataf. Mikra'ot G'dolot (1525) agrees with 1053, which
presumably is why he added the ge'aya in his Tanakh, although it does
appear to be very unusual. It would seem that the scribe of 1053 might
have had the same mesorah as Leningrad, but wrote a chataf-patach by
mistake (thinking of the meaning).

Danny Levy

11

Please try to be accurate. The Leningrad Codex has both a full patah AND a ge‘aya, not just a patah, as you imply. R. Breuer shows it as such in his apparatus. I am adding that B also has this. Only one Sasson ms. has both a hataph-patah with a ge‘aya, something that I am alleging never occurs elsewhere in the T'NaKh.

As R. Breuer does many times, in cases where he thinks that something found in a ms. is an obvious error, even in the Aleppo Codes (such as the hataph-segol under the shin in the word she-Hashem in the pasuk before T'hilla L'David, i.e. the second pasuq in "Ashrei"). I believe he thought the same about the hataph patah with a ge‘aya in Sasson 1053, and that what he printed was a compromise between the full patah with a ge‘aya that I think would have been justified according to his system and the mss. with only a hataph.

I am stating for the record that I am not always correct. But I believe I am in this case.

I am looking for what R Breuer put in his book. I do not know if he listed everything in the Da'at Mikra.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel

12

1) and 2): I do not have them either.

13

I don't recall your comment on that pasuk from tehillim. Also, you did not
say that "some excellent manuscripts" have a patach. You said that "all" bA
mss., "without exception" have it. Had you said "some" I likely would not
have responded at all.

14

Yes, the Leningrad has both a patach and a ge'aya. I did not mean to imply
otherwise; I just separated discussion of the vowel from that of the ge'aya.

I looked in R. Breuer's book - he does not mention this case.

You are correct that he did not list everything in Da'at Mikra. B is not
listed in his Torah lists (I did not check the Nakh volumes), although he
does list B occasionally in his book but not routinely. This seems to
indicate that he did not check B routinely - why not list it if he did? In
this case, if he would have seen that B agrees with Leningrad, he may well
have adopted that text in his Tanakh.

Danny

15

R' Jeremy,

Unfortunately the companion volume to Keter Yerushalayim will not help us
here. It is indeed very comprehensive but only for spelling differences.
It does not list differences in nikud, ge'ayot and te'amim at all.

Danny

16

Without getting into the substance of the question, Lon BL Or 4445 does
have hataf-patah and g'aya. see f. 55v:
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=or_4445_fs001r

17

Before commenting on the topic itself, I would like to thank all of you for the wonderful discussion.

18

Thank you for confirming.

So we are left with a major sofeq. L and B both have a full patah and a ge‘aya. Both Sasson mss. have a hataph, as do all Sefardi mss. that I have seen referred to. The only thing is that the Sasson mss. are not the typical S'faradi ms., they are much closer to the Aleppo Codex.

And now let me publicly announce my error: I forgot to look in Yeivin's book on the AleppoCodex.. Had I looked, I would have seen that he discusses this word on p 137: he lists the Sapir notes on the Aleppo Codex, B, L, and Sh1 as having both a ge‘aya and a hataph, and Sh as having only a hataph. I do not know why he does not list any of the other mss. in Leningrad, L1 thorough L16.

So now I do not know what is going on at all. My notes could be wrong about B, but L is online, and clearly has a full patah and a ge‘aya. On another page, Yeivin seems to indicate that he thinks this is a mistake. But once we label a clear example as a mistake, we enter very muddy waters. I do not know how many other things in mss.he considers "mistakes" that he can emend to fit his view.

I do not have access to any of the microfilms of the mss. now, and I doubt that any of you do. However, the material in the Sapir notes might be accessible, since some were published in Levanon I (1963). I suspect that some of them are found in material published after Yeivin's book, published in 1969. I know that several people have written about that ms. since then, and Yosef Ofer of Bar Ilan has written extensively on many issues regarding the Shalom Shachna Levin notes on the Aleppo Codix, and I think he has printed a list of them.

I also see that there are at least some examples of a hataph vowel with a ge‘aya. It is very rare, and mostly in the word asher in various of the "good mss." (but not apparently in the Aleppo Codex). I suspect someone has written something about that, which would be very helpful

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330 Fax (212) 613-0718 e-mail mandels@ou.org

19

thank you.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel
Rabbinic Coordinator
The Orthodox Union

Voice (212) 613-8330 Fax (212) 613-0718 e-mail mandels@ou.org

20

To sum up before I leave the country:

1) I was definitely wrong in stating that all of the best mss. have the form with a full patah and a ge‘aya. L does, and how many others?

2) There are definitely two mss. one that has a hataph patah and two that has a hataph with a ge‘aya (I am relying on R. Dubitsky, because I do not have time to page through the site to see on my own).

3) Y. Sapir's notes on the Codex are in a ms. at the JTS. Perhaps R. Dubitsky knows how to see something from there?

4) a hataph vowel with a ge‘aya seems to be very rare, although it appears in some mss.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel