קטנתי

[Yitzchak Etshalom]

I asked ר' יעקב מדן (whose father, מאיר מדן, was involved in determining the נוסח for קורן back in the 60s) why קורן chose a רביע instead of the more common אזלא for the word קטנתי in פ' וישלח. Both Leningrad and Aleppo have אזלא. He responded that he thought that היידנהיים has רביע. Does anyone have a היידנהיים Tikkun and can scan the relevant page and post? Also, any idea where היידנהיים would have gotten that מסורה? 

[Aryeh Moshen]

It is also standard in the Dvar Yom bYomo (Roedelheim).

On Sunday, November 14, 2021, 09:48:09 PM EST, Yitzchak Etshalom <reb...@gmail.com> wrote:

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I asked ר' יעקב מדן (whose father, מאיר מדן, was involved in determining the נוסח for קורן back in the 60s) why קורן chose a רביע instead of the more common אזלא for the word קטנתי in פ' וישלח. Both Leningrad and Aleppo have אזלא. He responded that he thought that היידנהיים has רביע. Does anyone have a היידנהיים Tikkun and can scan the relevant page and post? Also, any idea where היידנהיים would have gotten that מסורה? 

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[MP]

Roedelheim prints (following Heidenheim) have a r'vi'a (and leining that way is Minhag FRdM and how I've leined the word in my community over the past few days & in the past); and such a ta'am is not only what one would normally expect in a section that ends with an esnachta (or silluq) and whose major mafsiq is a zaqeif -- i.e. the question really should be why the word should have some other mafsiq, like an azla -- but also allows both sections of the pasuq in question to have a similar ta'am-related layout (no one disputes that "v'maqli" is graced w/ a r'vi'a).

[Jay Braun]

It turns out I own two of these Tiqqunim, a large and a small. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 14, 2021, at 6:45 PM, Yitzchak Etshalom <reb...@gmail.com> wrote:

I asked ר' יעקב מדן (whose father, מאיר מדן, was involved in determining the נוסח for קורן back in the 60s) why קורן chose a רביע instead of the more common אזלא for the word קטנתי in פ' וישלח. Both Leningrad and Aleppo have אזלא. He responded that he thought that היידנהיים has רביע. Does anyone have a היידנהיים Tikkun and can scan the relevant page and post? Also, any idea where היידנהיים would have gotten that מסורה? 

[Shmuel Goldstein]

Both Leningrad and Aleppo have אזלא.???  I can understand that Leningrad has it so, but Aleppo?  Isn't it missing this portion?  If not, who has a copy?

[Art Roth]

According to תורת הקורא, we have two sources of information about words in the missing parts of the Aleppo Codex, as follows :

(a) In 1865, ר יעקב ספיר sent ר יעקב זאב ברלין from Jerusalem to Aleppo with around 550 questions about various words in the Aleppo Codex.  Someone named מנשה סיתהון inspected the Codex and sent back the answers, which were published in 1985.

(b) There is a record of direct testimony from ר יהושע קמחי on certain questions involving the Codex.

Specifically regarding קטנתי, it's reported to be אזלא based on (a).  There is no information in (b) about this particular word.

[Art Roth]

I don't agree with MP that the רביע is "what one would normally expect in a section that ends with an esnachta (or silluq) and whose major mafsiq is a zaqeif".  In such a situation, I agree that the רביע is by far the most common ta`am, but an אזלא (or a גרשיים, which is nothing more than a substitute for an אזלא under certain conditions) occurs often enough not to be the slightest bit surprising.  In fact, I looked through Parshat Vayishlax and found five comparable cases (besides קטנתי) with אזלא or גרשיים.  See 35:2, 11, 18 and 36:7, 40.

Having said that, I believe that the רביע makes more logical sense for קטנתי --- and despite that, my personal practice is to lein it with an אזלא because I believe that the sources for that ta`am are substantially more authoritative.  So now I have some explaining to do, and I'll start with the logic.  To that end, I'll summarize the concepts behind the two possibilities and then follow the concepts with some illustrative examples.

(a) A רביע is the same level of mafsiq as a pashta.  So when a רביע and a pashta both appear within the domain of a zaqeif, the first (rightmost) one --- the רביע --- is the main divider of the domain of the zaqeif, and the second (leftmost) one --- the pashta --- divides what remains to the left of the רביע.

(b) An אזלא or גרשיים is a lower level mafsiq than a pashta.  So in such a case, the pashta is the only mafsiq of its level in the domain of the zaqeif and hence has to be the main divider of the domain of the zaqeif.  The אזלא or גרשיים then serves to divide the part to the right of the pashta.

Example 1: Gen 34:8 --- שכם בני חשקה נפשו בבתכם.  The רביע is the main divider, creating a separation after בני.  The pashta then divides the left half, separating חשקה נפשו בבתכם after נפשו, all of which makes perfect sense.  If hypothetically there were an אזלא on בני instead of a רביע, the main divider of the entire phrase would come at נפשו, which would be pretty nonsensical.

Example 2: Gen 35:2 --- הסירו את-אלקי הנכר אשר בתככם.  Because הסירו does not have a רביע, the main divider is the pashta on הנכר, and the אזלא on הסירו divides only the domain of the pashta (namely הסירו את-אלקי הנכר) rather than the entire phrase.

A similar analysis works for the other four אזלא or גרשיים verses mentioned above.  I personally find Gen. 35:11 most interesting of all, where the main break in the first 8 words separates the first 6 from the last 2, where Hashem first identifies himself before delivering the crux of His command --- פרה ורבה.

Now that the framework has been established, let's go back to קטנתי מכל החסדים ומכל האמת.  If קטנתי has an אזלא, the main divider is the pashta on החסדים --- but if קטנתי has רביע, the main divider is on קטנתי.  To me, the latter makes much more logical sense, i.e., מכל החסדים ומכל האמת doesn't seem appropriate to break apart until it has already been separated from everything else.  But in that case, why do I lein it with an אזלא, which I consider the "less logical" choice?

Well, תורת הקורא has combed through 35 manuscripts and 8 publications to the extent that they are available today.  Out of the 35 manuscripts. they state that the most authoritative are the 8 Tiberian ones (including Leningrad and Aleppo), followed by the 17 Sefardi ones and (lastly) by the 10 Ashkenaz ones.  They give justifications for this ranking that I won't expand upon here. 

The 8 publications include R Breuer's Tana"kh (based on best effort to be faithful to Aleppo), which they argue is the most reliable publication we have today.  The publications also include Heidenheim and Koren, and the point is made that these are anything but independent of each other.  Heidenheim just about always followed עין הקורא (whose author was יקותיאל הנקדן בן יהודה) even when יהב"י הנקדן didn't agree with Radaq, Or Torah, and Minxat Shay, who tended to much more closely adhere to the opinion of Ben Asher, whom the accepted halakha follows (except that we don't always know for certain what Ben Asher's opinion was).  The Torah section of the first edition of the Koren Tana"kh was essentially a carbon copy of Heidenheim.  A few changes were made to subsequent editions --- but by and large, the Torah section of Koren is still essentially the same as Heidenheim.  The point here is that one shouldn't rely on Koren and Heidenheim without support from some of the other manuscripts and/or publications.

At the end of every parsha, תורת הקורא has a section entitled חילופי נוסחאות, in which they identify places where there's not universal agreement among the manuscripts and publications (in any of trope, vowels, and/or dageish).  For each such case, they identify the choice of each of the manuscripts and publications --- and in many cases, they have interesting footnotes explaining the sources and reasons for these differences.  (In most cases, they are unable to identify the choice of every manuscript because parts of such old manuscripts are either illegible or missing altogether --- but they list all the choices that are available from these manuscripts today.)  תורת הקורא indicates their own preference in each case --- and as far as I can tell, they always follow Breuer even when none (or very few) of the other publications agree with him.  I don't personally always follow Breuer in my leining --- but I'll never choose against him unless the opposite choice has lots of support from both the other publications and my own logic.

Regarding קטנתי, Koren and Heidsenheim are the only two of the 8 publications that have a רביע --- every single one of the other 6 has an אזלא.  As far as the 35 manuscripts, choices are identified for 29 of them --- 5 Tiberian (including Leningrad and Aleppo), 16 Sefardi, and 8 Ashkenaz.  Out of the 29, the אזלא appears in 21 --- all 5 Tiberian, 14 of 16 Sefardi, and 2 of 8 Ashkenaz.  Hence the רביע gets very little support from the manuscripts --- and whatever support it does get comes almost exclusively from the least reliable ones.  In this particular case, there are no footnotes in תורת הקורא to provide any further insight.  As stated above, I personally consider the רביע to be more logical --- but I can't justify letting my own logic prevail over all of the most reliable publications (including Breuer) and manuscripts, with support from only Koren, Heidenheim, and a few of the least reliable manuscripts.  So my minyan hears an אזלא from me every year based on a mesorah that I can't logically explain.

[MP]

Thanks, Art, for an excellent synopsis of the topic.

> I don't agree with MP that the רביע is "what one would normally expect in a section that ends with an esnachta (or silluq) and whose major mafsiq is a zaqeif".  In such a situation, I agree that the רביע is by far the most common ta`am, but an אזלא (or a גרשיים, which is nothing more than a substitute for an אזלא under certain conditions) occurs often enough not to be the slightest bit surprising.  In fact, I looked through Parshat Vayishlax and found five comparable cases (besides קטנתי) with אזלא or גרשיים.  See 35:2, 11, 18 and 36:7, 40. <

And I don't agree, Art, with your apparently translating "normal" into occurring so often as to render an exception to the rule "surprising".  B'derech k'lal, a "k'lal" is true around 80% of the time, so your noting exceptions only proves the rule.

Be well, everyone, and give thanks every day!