The Haftarah of Parashat Shemot[1]

By Eli Duker

The Babylonian haftarah for Parashat Shemot was from Ezekiel 16: “Hoda’ et yerushalayim.”

The haftarah appears in at least six fragments from the Cairo Geniza,[2] is the haftarah used in the “Emet” piyyut of R’ Shemuel Hashelishi[3] and in the “Zulat” piyyut of R’ Yehuda Beirabbi Binyamin,[4] and is listed in the Seder Hatefillot in Rambam’s Yad Hahazakah as well as in the Siddur of R Shlomo Beirabbi Natan.[5]

This haftarah, an extremely graphic and difficult prophecy, was chosen because it begins by describing the Egypian enslavement and the Exodus. In all of the fragments that describe where the haftarah ends, the last verse is verse 16:15, likely so as not to continue with the difficult words of rebuke that follow that do not have anything to do with the parasha. The Baylonian custom allowed for haftarot that were less than twenty one verses even if the subject is left uncompleted because they still had the practice to read Jonathan’s Targum along with the haftarah, and thus were exempted from the twenty-one verse minimal requirement, as per the ruling of R’ Tahlifa bar Shemuel (Megilla 23b).[6]

This choice of haftarah seems to be problematic in light of the Mishna (Megilla 4:10):

מעשה ראובן נקרא ולא מתרגם מעשה תמר נקרא ומתרגם מעשה עגל הראשון נקרא ומתרגם והשני נקרא ולא מתרגם ברכת כהנים מעשה דוד ואמנון נקראין ולא מתרגמין אין מפטירין במרכבה ורבי יהודה מתיר ר’ אליעזר אומר אין מפטירין (יחזקאל טז, ב) בהודע את ירושלם.

The Mishna brings, without dissent, the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, which forbids this haftarah. However, the Tosefta as it appears in MS Vienna National Library Heb. 20 seems to allow this haftarah, while Rabbi Eliezer’s view is brought as a dissent:[7]

הודע את ירושלם נקרא ומתרגם ומעשה באחד שהיה קורא לפני ר’ ליעזר הודע את ירושלם אמ’ לו צא והודע תועבותיה של אמך.

However, according to that same Tosefta as it appears in MS Berlin Staatsbiliothek Or. Fol. 1220, the Tanna Kamma merely permits haftarot with general rebuke directed at Jerusalem (תוכחת ירושלים), while Rabbi Eliezer objected to the particular choice of Ezekiel 16:

תוכחת ירושלים נקרא ומתרגם ומעשה באחד שהיה קורא לפני ר’ ליעזר הודע את ירושלים ואמ’ לו צא והודע תועבותיה של אמך.[8]

Like the Mishna above, the Talmud Yerushalmi brings Rabbi Eliezer’s prohibitive opinion regarding this haftarah, and presents no other view:

ר’ אליעזר אומר אין מפטירין בהודע את ירושלם את תועבותיה מעשה באחד שהפטיר בהודע את ירושלם את תועבותיה אמר לו ר”א ילך אותו האיש וידע בתועבותיה של אמו ובדקו אחריו ונמצאו ממזר.[9]

The following appears in both printed versions of the Talmud Bavli [10] as well as in three manuscripts of the Bavli:

הודע את ירושלם את תועבותיה נקרא ומתרגם פשיטא לאפוקי מדרבי אליעזר דתניא מעשה באדם אחד שהיה קורא למעלה מרבי אליעזר הודע את ירושלם את תועבותיה אמר לו עד שאתה בודק בתועבות ירושלים צא ובדוק בתועבות אמך בדקו אחריו ומצאו בו שמץ פסול .

This is very difficult to understand. How can the Gemara assume (פשיטא) that this haftarah can be read if the Mishnah already brought Rabbi Eliezer’s unchallenged opinion forbidding it?

Accordingly, two other manuscripts do not have the word פשיטא.

For example, MS. Columbia 294-295 has the following:

הודע את ירושלם את (..)[ת]ועבותיה נקרא ומיתרגם ומעשה באחד שקרא לפני ר’ אליעזר הודע את ירוש’ את תועב’ אמ’ לו צא והודע תועיבות שלאימך עד שאתה בודק בתועבות ירושלם צא ובדוק בתועבות אמו בדקו אחריו ומצאו בו שמץ פיסול.

Here, the story with Rabbi Eliezer is brought within the context of the view of the Tanna Kamma that it is permissible to read this haftarah. Rabbi Eliezer clearly does not reject this view outright, but still deemed this haftarah a poor choice and an inappropriate one at least under the circumstances.[11]

All of the other manuscripts besides this one feature an explicit disagreement between the Tanna Kamma, who permits this haftarah, and Rabbi Eliezer, who forbids it. The Gemara rejects Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion.

Communities that followed the triennial cycle of the Torah reading never read the beginning of Ezekiel 16 as a haftarah. However for the sidra of V’atta Tetzaveh, they did begin the haftarah from Ezekiel 16:10.[12] It could very well be that this haftarah was deemed permissible despite the Yerushalmi’s ban on the preceding prophecy due to the fact that they held a view later cited by the Levush[13] that the problem with Ezekiel 16 is not the severity of the rebuke but but merely verse 16:3, “Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittitess,” which was referenced in Rabbi Eliezer’s retort, seemingly because it casts aspersions of the kind with which no one would be comfortable.

In Europe there were two alternative haftarot for Parashat Shemot: Jeremiah 1:1 and Isaiah 27:6. It seems that many communities either did not want to read Ezekiel 16 even though it was allowed by Halacha because of the weight of Rabbi Eliezer’s rejection, or because they had versions of the Talmudic sources which unanimously presented the haftarah as permissible but undesirable.

In the Iberian peninsula, there were communities that retained the haftarah of Ezekiel 16. It is brought as the haftarah for Parashat Shemot by the Sefer Hashulhan, which was authored by Rabbeinu Hiya ben Shlomo ibn Habib, a student of the Rashba. However, R’ Shemuel Hanagid’s list of haftarot in Sefer HaEshkol lists Jeremiah 1 as the haftarah of Parashat Shemot. The same can be found in Sephardic haftarah books in manuscript[14] and in Sephardic lists of haftarot found in the Cairo Geniza.[15] The reason for this choice of haftarah is the parallel between Jeremiah’s first prophecy and that of Moses. Abudarham lists both of these practices, although it is unclear whether he meant that they were both read in Sepharad or whether he had other locales in mind.

In an early printed humash that is assumed to be Spanish and from around the year 1480, the haftarah for Parashat Shemot is Jeremiah 1:1, while the Hijar Humash from 1487-90 (the only dated humash with haftarot printed before the Expulsion) has Ezekiel 16 as the haftarah.[16] It would be at least over two hundred years later before any other humash was again printed with this as the haftarah.

The Italians adopted Jeremiah 1 as the haftarah for Parashat Shemot as well[17] which is quite surprising, as they preserved more Babylonian haftarot than any other community.[18]

In Ashkenaz, France-England, and Provence the practice was to read Isaiah 27:6 as the haftarah for Parashat Shemot. The same was used as the haftarah for the sidra of V’Eila Shemot in the triennial cycle of Eretz Yisrael.[19] This haftarah was chosen due to its literary rather than thematic associations with the Torah reading, as was generally the case with the rest of the haftarot read according to the triennial cycle. (The haftarot favored in the annual cycle were chosen for their thematic content.)

The first verse of the haftarah,הבאים ישרש יעקב יציץ ופרח ישראל parallels the first verse in the sidra: ואלה שמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה את יעקב איש וביתו באו. Three of the haftarah’s first six words are in the first verse of the sidra.[20] We also find that the Romaniote community, which often adopted haftarot from the triennial cycle, adopted Isaiah 27:6 as the haftarah for Parashat Shemot.[21]

This haftarah is also attested to in the Ginzburg manuscript of Mahzor Vitry, in Sefer Etz Haim, in the Sefer HaEshkol’s glosses on the Nagid’s list (where it begins at 27:5, one verse earlier), and in all Ashkenazic humashim and sifrei haftarot in manuscript (although three of them also begin the haftarah one verse earlier).[22]

This haftarah was read in some Morrocan communities.[23]

There were different practices regarding the end of this haftarah. In some manuscripts the final verse is 28:13 making it a “classic” haftarah of exactly twenty one verses, especially appropriate as it was never read with its translation by any community using the annual cycle. Some, in order to end on a clearly positive note, would skip from 28:13 to 29:22 and read two more verses. This is how it appears in all printed humashim with Ashkenazic haftarot. In other manuscripts, we find an alternate practice of extending the reading to verse 28:16, instead of skipping to a later point.

The ensuing printed humashim with Sephardic haftarot post-Expulsion all listed Jeremiah 1 as the Sephardic haftarah for Parashat Shemot

In spite of its absence from the printed humashim, Ezekiel 16 was still retained by many communities as the haftarah for Parashat Shemot. This created a bit of difficulty for those communities. In the recently published Kaf Naki, R. Khalifa Malka, who was active in Agadir, Morocco, between c. 1720-1760,[24] wrote:[25]

The early Magreb practice, as well as our practice, is to read for Parashat Shemot the haftarah of “Hoda’,” based on the Rambam at the end of Sefer Ahava. It is proper to act this way, as he is the rabbi of the Sephardim and the Magrebim. Also concerning this haftarah,[26] I requested of the printer, R’ Shlomo Proofs, to print it together with the haftarah of Hoda’…and he did this to please me in the humashim that he published later on, which had not been done in the days of the publishers who preceded me.[27]

I have not been able to locate any such humashim.[29] The first printed post-expulsion humash I was able to find with this haftarah was printed in Jerusalem by Zuckerman in 1866.

Besides Agadir, this haftarah was (dare I say, miraculously,) retained in many places in various Medditerian and Middle Eastern communities including Algiers,[29] Tafilalt,[30] Fez,[31] Libya,[32] Djerba,[33] Persia/Bukhara,[34] Yemen, and Baghdad.[35] In order to deal with the fact that it did not appear in printed humashim, the practice in Baghdad was to print this haftarah along with the haftarah from Isaiah they would read for Parashat Bo (that was not commonly featured in many printed humashim[36]) in special “Nokh” booklets which had lists of verses and selections from the Mishna that would be recited at home on Shabbatot.[37]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nokh booklet with the haftarot for Shemot and Bo according to the Bavli custom. (Baghdad, 1930)

 Rabbi Steinman and the Messiah, part 3

Marc B. Shapiro

Continued from here

1. In the last post I wrote: “R. Hayyim Soloveitchik is reported to have said that if the messianic era will bring even one Jewish death, then he doesn’t want it, and if we had a choice in the matter the halakhah would require us to reject the Messiah in such a circumstance.” A perspective quite different than that of R. Hayyim was offered by R. Menahem Mendel of Rimanov. He thought that it would be good if Jews, even many Jews, were killed during Napoleon’s war against Russia, as he believed that this loss of life would bring the redemption.[1]

ואמר כי לדעתו טוב שישפכו דם ישראל ומפריסטיק עד רימנוב ילכו עד ארכבותיהם בדם ישראל כדי שיהי’ הקץ לגאולתנו

R. Moshe Sternbuch has an interesting passage, the upshot of which is that we shouldn’t be so anxious for the Messiah to come, as from at least one perspective, namely, the reward given those who observe the Torah in the pre-messianic era, it is better for us without the Messiah.[2]

וקבלה שמעתי שכמה צדיקים וקדושי עליון לפני פטירתם אמרו כשיעלו למרום לא ינוחו אלא יתחננו ויפצירו שמשיח יבוא ונזכה כבר לגאולה, ובאו אח”כ לתלמידיהם בחלום וגילו שבעולם האמת רואים את הכל אחרת, כשרואים את השכר הגדול הגנוז לעולמים למי ששומר אמונים כראוי לתורה ומצוות בסוף הגלות בזמן הסתר תוך הסתר, אינו [!] מפציר כ”כ לביאת המשיח שאז לא יהא כבר נסיונות ושכר רב, וכ”ש בני תורה בזמנינו שהם כצבא ה’, שכר כפול ומכופל

There are a few more things about the Messiah that I could not include in the last post. I mentioned reasons why rabbinic leaders offered dates for the Messiah’s arrival even though the Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b, states: “Blasted be the bones of those who calculate the end (i.e., the Messiah’s arrival).” I neglected to quote the even stronger passage in Derekh Eretz Rabbah, ch. 11:

רבי יוסי אומר הנותן את הקץ אין לו חלק לעולם הבא

An interesting perspective is suggested by R. Isaac Abarbanel who claims that the opposition to calculating the date of the Messiah was only directed against those who do it by astrological means. However, the talmudic sages did not oppose those who calculate the end by using biblical texts. He also adds that this lack of opposition is only when those who offer predictions are clear that their predictions are not absolute.[3]

I mentioned the concept of Messiah ben Joseph. It is worth noting that Samuel Feigenzohn argues that any passage in rabbinic literature that mentions Messiah ben Joseph, such as Sukkah 52a-b, is a heretical insertion by the early Christians and refers to Jesus (son of Joseph)![4]

Regarding R. Akiva and Bar Kokhba, it is significant that R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz writes that R. Akiva declared Bar Kokhba the Messiah, not because he really believed this – although presumably he had hope that it might be the case – but in order to give strength to the Jewish people, so that they not despair in the face of all their difficulties. In doing so, R. Akiva was following in the path of earlier sages and even prophets who also proclaimed that the Redemption was near even though they did not believe this, or at least were not certain of this. R. Eybeschuetz even sees the rabbinic obligation to observe certain agricultural laws in parts of the Diaspora as part of this plan to keep Jews believing in the soon-to-come Redemption.[5]

ואמר במדרש [איכה פ”א נד] קראתי למאהבי המה רמוני, הם נביאים שתקנו תרומה וחלה בבבל, וכי חייב חוץ לארץ בתרומה, אלא שרמוני. והקשה היפה ענף, ודאי שאמרו להם כי מהתורה פטור רק הם תקנוהו, כי ח”ו לומר להם דין שקר על דבר שמהתורה . . פטור, ולהורות שלא כהלכה, ועל כן תפוג תורה, וכמה מכשולים יבואו על ידי כך, ולאין ספק שאמרו להם שהוא רק חומרא וגזירה שלהם, וא”כ מה רמוני, ומה ערמה יש בזה . . .

אבל הענין, כי אילו ידעו ישראל ההולכים בגולה שיהיה קץ כל כך ארוך, וישבו זמן רב כזה בעוונותינו הרבים בגולה, היו מאבדים עצמם לדעת לרוב השבר, והיה נאבד שארית יעקב, ובפרט בזמן השמדות, בעו”ה לא היו אוזרים חיל כל כך לעמוד בנסיון. ולכך התחכמו תמיד לקרב הקץ, לומר חזו דאתא, חזו דאתא, ובזה חזקו ידים רפות וברכים כושלות אמצו. ותמיד בבוא עקא וגזירא לישראל, תלו אותו בחבלי משיח לומר, הנה מלכנו יבא ויושיענו. ולכך רבי עקיבא תיכף אחר חורבן התחיל לומר משיח על בן כוזיבא וכדומה, כולם כדי לחזק ומבלי להכניע לבבות בני ישראל. ולכך נסתם ונסתר הקץ, שלא ידעו אריכות הגלות.

ועל זה צווח ירמיה (ירמיה יג, יז) במסתרים תבכה נפשי, וכוונתו על קץ שהוא נסתר כל כך עד שלבא לפומא לא גליא, על זה תבכה נפשי, כי זהו לאות שיהיה לזמן ארוך למאוד מאד. והנה לכך הנביאים וחכמי קדם התחכמו לתקוע בלבב ישראל כי קרובה ישועת ה’ לבוא, ובל יתייאשו מן רחמים, ולכך תקנו תרומות ומעשרות בחוץ לארץ באומרם הטעם, מחר ישובו לארץ ישראל ויאמרו כמו שאכלנו בחוץ לארץ בלי תרומה כן בארץ ישראל נאכל בלי תרומה, ושם חיוב גמור, ולכך תקנו אף בחוץ לארץ, והרגל נעשה טבע, וזהו אם הגאולה מהר מהר, אבל אם היא לזמנים ארוכים, ויעברו קרוב לב’ אלפים שנה, מה צורך לתיקון הזה, הלא דורי דורות לא יצטרכו לזה, והנח לחכמים שיהיו בדור אחרון, ואם כן ברואים ישראל שתיקנו כך, ישפטו לאות אמת כי תהיה מהר הגאולה, וזו היתה עורמת נביאים וחכמים.

וזהו אמרו, קראתי למאהבי המה רמוני, כי תקנו תרומות ומעשרות בחוץ לארץ, שאחשוב שישועה תהיה מהר, ובעו”ה עברו דורי דורות, ואין קול ישועה.

In terms of hoping for the Messiah’s arrival, R. Moses Sofer makes a fascinating point. He claims that to pray for the Messiah to come shows a lack of faith, because God has already promised that we will be redeemed. Therefore, he says that one should pray that the Messiah come speedily as this is something extra that has not been promised.[6]

אע”פ שבטוחים אנחנו בביאת המשיח והמתפלל עליו הוא מחסרון אמונה אבל מ”מ יתפלל שימהר ויחיש במהרה בימינו

Once the Messiah arrives, he stills needs to be accepted by the people. Thus, R. Yaakov Kamenetsky stated that the Messiah will have to be a real Torah scholar so that the Litvaks accept him, he will have to pray with enthusiasm so the hasidim accept him, he will have to fight against the evildoers so the zealots accept him, and he will have to rebuild the Land of Israel and work on its behalf so the Religious Zionists accept him.[7]

Let me make another point about the Messiah. The Jerusalem Talmud, Kilayim 9:3 states:

רבי מאיר הוה אידמך ליה באסייא אמר אימורין לבני ארעא דישראל הא משיחכון דידכון

ArtScroll translates:

R’ Meir was dying in Asia. He said [to those surrounding him], “Tell the residents of Eretz Yisrael, ‘This your great one [who has passed away here. Please assist in bringing him to Eretz Yisrael for burial].’”

The first thing I should mention is that there should have been a note on the word “Asia,” as most people who see this word this think about territory such as Russia or China. However, as Jastrow points out, when the word appears in rabbinic literature it usually refers to what we call Asia Minor, which is today part of Turkey.[8] Interestingly, Jastrow himself, following Adolphe Neubauer, assumes that in this case what the Talmud refers to is a town called Essa, east of the Sea of Galilee.[9] However, the commentators, both traditional and academic, generally agree that the Talmud here refers to Asia Minor.

The last part of the sentence has R. Meir saying הא משיחכון דידכון. What does this mean? The literal translation is “This is your Messiah.” Is it possible that R. Meir would refer to himself this way? ArtScroll thinks not and in its note justifies its translation as follows:

The term משיחה is used sometimes in the sense of authority and greatness [and not anointment] (Rashi to Exodus 29:29, from Sifri, Korach §2). That seems to be its sense here.

ArtScroll’s approach is found in the standard commentaries to the Yerushalmi, including that of R. Hayyim Kanievsky, but other approaches have also been suggested.[10]

2. Returning to the passage from R. Hayyim quoted at the beginning of this post, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik had a different perspective than his grandfather.[11] Here is what he writes in Kol Dodi Dofek, available here

Second, the knock of the Beloved was heard on the battlefield. The tiny defense forces of ‎‎[the ‎State of] Israel defeated the mighty Arab armies. The miracle of “the many delivered into ‎the ‎hands of the few” materialized before our eyes, and an even greater miracle happened! ‎God ‎hardened the heart of Ishmael and commanded him to go into battle against the State of ‎Israel. ‎Had the Arabs not declared war on Israel and instead supported the Partition Plan, the State ‎of ‎Israel would have remained without Jerusalem, without a major portion of the Galilee, ‎and ‎without some areas of the Negev.

R. Soloveitchik sees it as a positive thing that God hardened the hearts of the Arabs so that they went to war against Israel, allowing Israel to conquer more territory than it was given in the Partition Plan. Yet this war brought about many deaths, so wouldn’t R. Hayyim say, “How can we see this as a good thing, and a miracle no less, that God ‘hardened the heart of Ishmael’?”

In a talk after the Six Day War, R. Soloveitchik offers what appears to be a different perspective than what I just quoted, as he stresses the importance of human life over territory, including the Western Wall. The following appears on the Mesora.org website here and was originally posted here.[12] I have underlined the crucial words for the purposes of this post.

Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik on Territorial Compromise

[Translation of a five-minute segment of the Rav’s 1967 Teshuva drasha (although the drasha was summarized in “Al Hateshuva”, this portion never appeared. From Arnold Lustiger)

I don’t intend here to engage in politics, but this is a matter that has weighed heavily upon me since last June. I am very unqualified to assess the extent of the deliverance that the Ribono Shel Olam accomplished on behalf of Klal Yisrael and the Jewish victory over those who hate Israel. But in my opinion, the greatest deliverance, and the greatest miracle, is simply that He saved the population of Israel from total annihilation. Don’t forget that the Arabs were Hitler’s students, Amalek, and in regard to the Arabs there is a Mitzvah of utterly blotting out Amalek’s memory. Today, they are Hitler, they want to uproot the Jewish people, and it is possible that Russia is together with them in this regard, so the status of Amalek falls upon Russia as well. The blood congeals when one considers what would have happened to the Yishuv, to the hundreds of thousands of religious Jews, of gedolei Yisrael, or to all the Jews in Israel for that matter — “there is no difference” — all Jews are Jews. This is the greatest salvation — but also that the State itself was saved. Because even if the population would remain alive, but if God forbid the State of Israel would fall, there would be a wave of assimilation and apostasy in America as well as in all Western countries. In England I heard that Rothschild said that Israel’s victory saved Judaism in France. He is 100% correct — this was better articulated by him than many Rabbis in Israel regarding the ultimate significance of the victory.

But one thing I want to say. These reasons constitute the primary salvation behind the Six Day War. Indeed, we rejoice in the [capture of] the Western Wall, in the Cave of the Patriarchs, in Rachel’s tomb. I understand the holiness of the Kotel Hamaarovi. I studied Kodshim since I was a child: Kidsha le’asid lavo, kedushas makom, kedushas mechitzos, lifnei Hashem — these are concepts with which I grew up in the cradle. The Kotel Hamaarovi is very dear, and the Har Habayis is very dear to me: I understand the kedusha perhaps much more than many religious journalists who have written so much about the Kotel Hamaarovi. But we exaggerate its importance. Our Judaism is not a religion of shrines, and it seems from this that it lies in the interests of the Ministry of Religions to institute a [foreign] concept of holy sites in Judaism — a concept we never had.

We indeed have the concept of kedushas mokom, this is the Bais Hamikdash, [but] graves are not mekomos hakedoshim. As important as kivrei tzaddikim are, they are not holy. Perhaps there is a different halacha. To visit kivrei tzaddikim is important, like mekomos hakedoshim. I will tell you a secret — it doesn’t matter under whose jurisdiction the Kotel Hamaarovi lies — whether it is under the Ministry of Parks or under the Ministry of Religions, either way no Jew will disturb the site of the Kotel Hamaarovi. One is indeed on a great spiritual level if he desires to pray at the Kotel Hamaarovi. But many mistakenly believe that the significance of the victory lies more in regaining the Kotel Hamaarovi than the fact that 2 million Jews were saved, and that the Malkhut Yisrael was saved. Because really, a Jew does not need the Kotel Hamaarovi to be lifnei (in front of) Hashem. Naturally, mikdash has a separate kedusha which is lifnei Hashem. But there is a lifnei Hashem which spreads out over the entire world, wherever a Jew does not sin, wherever a Jew learns Torah, wherever a Jew does mitzvos, “minayen sheshnayim yoshvim ve’oskim beTorah hashechinah imahem” — through the entire world.

I want you to understand, I give praise and thanks to the Ribono Shel Olam for liberating the Kotel Hamaarovi and for liberating and for removing all Eretz Yisrael from the Arabs, so that it now belongs to us. But I don’t need to rule whether we should give the West Bank back to the Arabs or not to give the West Bank to the Arabs. We Rabbis should not be involved in decisions regarding the safety and security of the population. These are not merely Halakhic rulings. These decisions are a matter of pikuach nefesh for the entire population. And if the government were to rule that the safety of the population requires that specific territories must be returned, whether I issue a halakhic ruling or not, their decision is the deciding factor.

If pikuach nefesh supersedes all other mitzvos, it supersedes all prohibitions of the Torah, especially pikuach nefesh of the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael. And all the silly statements I read in the newspapers — one journalist says that we must give all the territory back, another says that we must give only some territory back, another releases edicts, strictures and warnings not to give anything back. These Jews are playing with 2 million lives. I will say that as dear as the Kotel Hamaarovi is, the 2 million lives of Jews are more important.[13] We have to negotiate with common sense, as the security of the yishuv requires. What specifically these security requirements are, I don’t know, I don’t understand these things. These decisions require a military perspective, which one must research assiduously. The borders that must be established should be based upon that which will provide more security. It is not a topic appropriate for which rabbis should release statements or for rabbinical conferences.

3. In the last post I mentioned a couple of great rabbis from earlier eras, and how the praise they were offered for mastering the Talmud is nowhere near what is said about great rabbis in more recent years. A few people emailed me with examples of how different rabbis in modern times are praised for having completed Shas twenty or thirty times. R. Kook’s father stated that when his son, R. Abraham Isaac Kook, was in Volozhin he completed 60blatta day be-iyun.[14] Chaim Meiselman, whose videos about seforim can be seen here, called my attention to R. Samuel Darmstadt of Mannheim (died 1782),[15] who is reported to have completed Shas 112 times.[16] But this is nothing compared to what R. Shlomo Lorincz writes about R. Moshe Feinstein. He reports in the name of R. Reuven Feinstein that R. Moshe completed Shas over two hundred times. (R. Reuven denies having said this.) If that is not enough to impress you, he also states that R. Moshe finished Tractate Shabbat every week, and he quotes an unnamed member of R. Moshe’s family who claims to have been at a siyum where R. Moshe completed Shabbat for the thousandth time.[17] One would think that a member of the Kenesset for over thirty years would know enough not to repeat such an obviously ridiculous and impossible story.

4. In June 2018 Yaacov Sasson published a letter, found in the Israel State Archives, from R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik to President Chaim Herzog dealing with R. Meir Kahane. See here. In two later posts it was claimed that this letter is a forgery. See here and here. After careful analysis, I, too, agree that the letter is a forgery. (I also know that had I discovered the letter, I would have been very excited to publish it and would have never considered the possibility of forgery.)

Sasson does not mention that the Chaim Herzog archive also contains Herzog’s reply to the Rav upon receipt of the letter. One can only wonder what the Rav’s reaction was when he received this correspondence responding to the forged letter.

I found an interesting letter from Kahane in the Israel State Archives.[18] R. Dov Katz’s reply to Kahane is from December 22, 1954, which means that Kahane’s letter was written when he was 22 years old. Kahane’s letter was not addressed to an individual chief rabbi, but the Chief Rabbinate as a whole. It deals with something he was concerned with his entire life, namely, the place of non-Jews in the State of Israel. In his later years, Kahane was adamant that it was against halakhah for non-Jews to have any political role in Israel, including serving in the Knesset. Here we see that he was not sure about the matter, and wonders if the Meiri’s more liberal view on these sorts of issues should be our guide. It is not surprising that in his response R. Katz dodges the issue.

Regarding Kahane, a few days before his November 5, 1990 assassination, he delivered a public lecture at Brandeis University. I uploaded the video to YouTube.

In 1985 Kahane debated Brandeis Hillel Director Rabbi Albert Axelrad. Only a portion of this debate survives, and I have uploaded it to YouTube.

For R. Shear Yashuv Cohen’s response to Kahane, referring to him as an am ha-aretz, see here. Among other things he writes:

כל מי שחושב, שאפשר לקחת את הסעיפים מ”משנה-תורה” לרמב”ם ולהפוך אותם לחוק המדינה כמות שהם, בלי להתחשב בנסיבות, הוא לא רק עם-הארץ, הוא יותר מזה, הוא טועה ומטעה את הרבים. משום שהרמב”ם לעצמו היה כותב את הלכותיו בפני המדינה, עם בעיותיה העכשוויות, אחרת מאשר הוא כתב אותן בזמנו. לא שהתורה משתנית, חלילה, אלא המושגים החברתיים הם אחרים ולכן הניסוח של ההלכה מוכרח להיות מחודש. ניסוח של הלכה נצחית צריך להתמודד עם בעיות חדשות שעולות לפני הפוסק. אי אפשר לפסוק היום על סמך ניסוח קדום ומבלי להביא בחשבון את השינויים שחלו מאז ועד היום

4. During the Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur prayers there are times when we prostrate ourselves. Many people use a cloth for this even though technically, if the floor is not stone, there is no need. Where are people supposed to put the cloth, under their head or under their knees? I have looked around and also asked people from a variety of synagogues, including Modern Orthodox, yeshivish, and Hasidic. What I have learned is that while many put the cloth under their head, many also, in all sorts of Orthodox shuls, put it under their knees. In some shuls, almost everyone puts it under their knees.

The ArtScroll Machzors for Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur state the following in Musaf before Alenu (and I have underlined the relevant sentence):

The Torah forbids one to prostrate himself (i.e., with outstretched arms and legs) on a floor of hewn stone (Leviticus 26:1). The Sages forbade complete prostration even on a floor not of hewn stone, and they forbade even kneeling (without outstretched limbs) on a stone floor. Therefore, if the synagogue has a stone floor, one must cover the surface upon which he will kneel (Rama, Orach Chaim 131:8; Mishnah Berurah §40). There are some views, however, that it is preferable to cover the floor no matter what it is made of. This is the source of the general practice to put something on the floor when kneeling, even if the floor is surfaced with linoleum or carpeting.[19]

ArtScroll states that if there is a stone floor then you must cover the surface upon which you kneel. It doesn’t say to cover the surface upon which you place your head. This means that according to ArtScroll the cloth should be under your knees.

Yet this is mistaken, and the sources ArtScroll cites do not support this claim. Rama, Orah Hayyim 131:8 states:

וכן אסור לכל אדם ליפול על פניו בפישוט ידים ורגלים אפילו אם אין שם אבן משכית אבל אם נוטה קצת על צדו מותר אם אין שם אבן משכית וכן יעשו ביו”כ כשנופלין על פניהם אם יציעו שם עשבים כדי להפסיק בין הקרקע וכן נוהגין

The Rama says nothing about covering the surface where you kneel, and neither does the Mishnah Berurah. The point of the Rama is that on Yom Kippur, when you bring your head entirely to the ground – he does not mention doing this on Rosh ha-Shanah – that you need to have something separating between your head and the ground. The Mishnah Berurah, in the section directly after the one referred to by ArtScroll, 131:41, is explicit that the issue is one’s head touching the floor not one’s knees.

ודוקא כשפניו דבוקים בקרקע אבל אם שוחה בתפלה אפי’ יש שם רצפה שרי

A complete discussion of this issue, with the point of correcting the widespread error, is found in R. Elhanan Printz, Avnei Derekh, vol. 4, no. 99.[20]

5. Since theMishnah Berurah just quoted mentions the word רצפה, let me say something about this as well. There is a common mistake that many readers of Megillat Esther make. From speaking to people, and watching online videos, it seems that at least 75 percent of Ashkenazim who read the Megillah make this mistake. Among Sephardim it is significantly less.

Esther 1:6 reads:

ח֣וּר ׀ כַּרְפַּ֣ס וּתְכֵ֗לֶת אָחוּז֙ בְּחַבְלֵי־ב֣וּץ וְאַרְגָּמָ֔ן עַל־גְּלִ֥ילֵי כֶ֖סֶף וְעַמּ֣וּדֵי שֵׁ֑שׁ מִטּ֣וֹת ׀ זָהָ֣ב וָכֶ֗סֶף עַ֛ל רִֽצְפַ֥ת בַּהַט־וָשֵׁ֖שׁ וְדַ֥ר וְסֹחָֽרֶת

The fifth word from the end of the sentence reads רִֽצְפַת. However, when the Megillah is read this word is usually pronounced as ritzpat. This is a real mistake, the sort that should be corrected. Since it is not pleasant to correct the Megillah reader during the reading, the best thing is to speak to him (or her) beforehand.

The reason this mistake should be corrected is that if you read the word as ritzpat, it is actually a different word, with a different meaning, than the word that appears in the Megillah: רִֽצְפַת. In the Bible, the word for floor or pavement is רִֽצְפָה. There is no dagesh in the פ. For example, II Chron. 7:3 reads:

וַיִּכְרְעוּ֩ אַפַּ֨יִם אַ֤רְצָה עַל־הָרִֽצְפָה֙ וַיִּֽשְׁתַּֽחֲו֔וּ

Ritzpah, with a dagesh in the פ, means glowing stone or hot coal. See Isaiah 6:6:

וַיָּ֣עָף אֵלַ֗י אֶחָד֙ מִן־הַשְּׂרָפִ֔ים וּבְיָד֖וֹ רִצְפָּ֑ה בְּמֶ֨לְקַחַ֔יִם לָקַ֖ח מֵעַ֥ל הַמִּזְבֵּֽחַ

People make the mistake in reading the Megillah since in modern Hebrew, unlike biblical Hebrew, “floor” is ritzpah, with a dagesh in the פ. Eliezer Ben Yehudah in his dictionary, s.v. רצפה, already noted the mistake of Hebrew speakers (כטעות המדברים) who put a dagesh in the פ of רצפה when saying “floor”. Languages change so today we would not say that this is a mistake, but when reading from the Megillah on Purim it certainly is an error, and one that should be corrected.

Some people who are careful readers see that there is no dagesh in the פ and therefore read the word in the Megillah as ritzfat. However, this is also incorrect. If you look in the Bible you will find that all the times the words רצפה and רצפת appear there is a gaya after the ר. You can also see this in the two examples given above. This indicates that the shewa under the צ is a vocal shewa. There are different traditions as to how exactly to pronounce the vocal shewa, but all are in agreement that pronouncing this word as ritzfat is a mistake (though it is not a mistake that needs to be corrected). You can hear the outstanding ba’al keriah R. Jeremy Wieder read the verse here.

6. Since the publication of Changing the Immutable, I have discovered many more instances of censorship, almost enough for a volume 2. Readers have also alerted me to a number of examples, and let me now share one that I was recently sent.

In the Ralbag’s commentary on the Torah, for each parashah he includes all sorts of lessons under the heading תועלת. Here is a page from parashat miketz (in the Birkat Moshe edition).

In no. 13 Ralbag states that the Torah teaches us to avoid inappropriate sexual relations, which only people lacking in intelligence fall into. He adds that Reuben, who slept with Bilhah, is portrayed in the Torah as a חסר דעת, which I guess could be translated as “imbecile.” He gives another example of Reuben’s foolishness in that when attempting to reassure Jacob that he would bring Benjamin back to him after taking him down to Egypt, Reuben states: “Thou shalt slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee.” Ralbag sees this as unbelievable stupidity, since if Jacob were to lose Benjamin, how would he be comforted by killing two of his own grandchildren?

Here is the corresponding page from the work Toaliyot ha-Ralbag (Jerusalem, 2006). This volume is a collection of all the Ralbag’s “lessons” from the parashiyot of the Torah.

As you can see, lesson no. 13 has been deleted. I am actually surprised that the publisher did not simply renumber the lessons, so people would not realize that no. 13 is missing. The “problem” with what Ralbag wrote is not simply his judgment about Reuben’s intelligence, but that he also understands Reuben to have slept with Bilhah, following the simple meaning of Genesis 35:22 as opposed to the talmudic explanation (Shabbat 55b) that the verse is not to be understood literally.[21]

Once again, we can only wonder where a 21^st century editor gets the idea that it is OK for him to censor the writings of one of the great rishonim.

7. In the past, I have shown how material I have posted on the Seforim Blog has appeared in other places, sometimes with acknowledgment and other times without. I also have shown how pictures posted here have become public domain and understandably no one even remembers where they first appeared, and this is indeed the case with all images posted online. Here is another example which I recently came across. In an earlier post I included this picture of myself with the late Rabbi Aharon Felder.

Both The Yeshiva World here and the Keystone-K Kashrus organization here have the following picture of R. Felder on their websites.

I am happy that in looking for a picture of R. Felder they thought that the one he took with me was nice enough to use. In a circumstance like this, there is nothing wrong with cropping the picture (unlike, for instance, in pictures of historical significance, like when R. Soloveitchik was removed from a picture with R. Aaron Kotler or the Hafetz Hayyim’s wife was removed from the famous picture of her standing behind her husband).

I had thought that in this post I would discuss R. Mordechai Elefant’s memoir and offer my take on it, but I see that the post is already long enough so I will return to this in the future.

***************

[1] R. Zvi Ezekiel Michaelson, Ateret Menahem, pp. 35b-36a (no. 182).
[2] Teshuvot ve-Hanhagot, vol. 4, p. 206.
[3] Ma’aynei Yeshuah, printed in Abarbanel’s commentary to the Prophets, p. 283.
[4] Elbonah shel Torah (Berlin, 1929), pp. 24a-b. See similarly Joseph Judah Leib Sossnitz, Ha-Maor (Warsaw, 1889), p. 103.
[5] Ye’arot Devash, vol. 2, Derush 6 (p. 95 in the Jerusalem 1988 edition). See R. Chaim Rapoport, “Shitat ha-‘Ye’arot Devash’ be-Inyan Rabbi Akiva u-Ven Koziva,” Kovetz Divrei Torah 27 (5770), pp. 101-105. The words I have underlined were previously emphasized by R. Rapoport. Elsewhere, R. Eybeschuetz presents a different perspective and states that R. Akiva erred in declaring Bar Kokhba the Messiah. By saying that R. Akiva erred it means that R. Akiva really believed what he said. See Elyasaf Frisch in Ha-Ma’yan 57 (Nisan 5777), pp. 84-85. Because he views R. Eybeschuetz’s opinion as shocking, R. Yaakov Koppel Schwartz suggests that the passage, or at least the section dealing with Bar Kokhba, is not authentic but is either a “mistake” (whatever that is supposed to mean) or was inserted by an unknown heretic. See Yekev Efraim: Mikhtevei Torah, vol. 5, p. 215.

In discussing R. Akiva’s belief that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah, Maimonides writes (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11:3):

והוא היה אומר עליו שהוא המלך המשיח ודמה הוא וכל חכמי דורו שהוא המלך המשיח עד שנהרג בעוונות

R. Zvi Yehudah Kook claimed that out of respect Maimonides did not use the wordטעהwith reference to R. Akiva and the other sages. Instead, he used the word דמה. See Yosef Badihi, Yosef Lekah (Jerusalem, 2012), p. 224. See, however, R. Chaim Rapoport, “Be-Inyan Ben Koziva ha-Melekh ve-ha-Lekah Mimenu le-Dorot,” Kovetz Hearot u-Veurim 920 (5766), pp. 11ff., who cites passages from the Mishneh Torah that show that when Maimonides uses the word דמה it means טעה.

One other point about the word דמה is worth noting. In the Bible you find this word, but you also find a similar word whose root is דמם. (There is a another word which also has the root דמה, and means “to cease”, see e.g., Lamentations 3:49. But I will not deal with it at present). The difference between דמה and דמם is seen clearly in a verse that we all know, as it is a part of the daily prayers (Exodus 15:16):

                          בִּגְדֹל זְרוֹעֲךָ יִדְּמוּ כָּאָבֶן

In this verse, the word ידמו comes from the root דמם. As noted by R. Seraya Deblitsky, in his haskamah to R. Yehudah Aryeh Gutman, Kelalei Ta’amei ha-Mikra (Brooklyn, 2001), it is vital that the ba’al keriah reads the word ידמו with a vocal shewa on the ד (indicated by the dagesh). The words then mean: “By the greatness of thine arm, they are as still as a stone.” If, however,  ידמו is read with a silent shewa, it means that the word comes from the root דמה. In that case, the verse means that the Egyptians “appear like a stone”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears clear to me that if ידמו is read this way that the ba’al keriah should be corrected, as the word has a different meaning than what it should have.
[6] Torat Moshe ha-Shalem, vol. 2, p. 66 (parashat Be-Shalah, s.v. מה תצעק אלי). See R. Yaakov Koppel Schwartz, Likutei Diburim, vol. 3, p. 179.
[7] Emet le-Yaakov al Nevi’im u-Ketuvim (Jerusalem, 2015), p. 424 n. 4.
[8] Regarding this place, see Michael Guttmann, Mafteah ha-Talmud, vol. 3, s.v. אסיא.
[9] Neubauer, La géographie du Talmud (Paris, 1868), p. 38.
[10] See e.g., R. Zechariah Frankel, Darkhei ha-Mishnah (Leipzig, 1859), p. 155 n. 7, who suggests a textual emendation. For other suggestions, see R. Jacob Brill, Mavo ha-Mishnah (Frankfurt, 1876), pp. 162-163; R. Judah Leib Landesberg, Hikrei Lev (Satmar, 1909) vol. 4, p. 44; R. Hayyim Fishel Epstein, Teshuvah Shelemah, vol. 2, Yoreh Deah,no. 15.

R. Elijah ben Solomon ha-Kohen,Mizbah Eliyahu(Izmir, 1867), p. 229b, writes:

שרבי מאיר הכיר בעצמו שאם הדור היה זכאי היה ראוי הוא להיות משיח. וכשמת וראה שלא זכה הדור גילה להם הדבר ומה שגרמו עוונותיהם

Interestingly, in the days of R. Saadiah Gaon there was a Karaite scholar named Hasan ben Mashiah, who generally is referred to as simply בן משיח. Ibn Ezra mentions him in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah. In this case משיח must have been an actual name. The nineteenth-century rabbinic scholar R. Israel Moses Hazan, author of Kerakh shel Romi, would occasionally sign his name משי”ח (the letters of his name), but more often he would use המשי”ח (the ה standing for הרב). You also find him writing about himself: אמר המשי”ח

[11] Although he idealized his grandfather, R. Soloveitchik was not a blind follower. See Zorah Warhaftig, Hamishim Shanah ve-Shanah: Pirkei Zikhronot (Jerusalem, 1998) pp. 100-101, who reports that he was told by R. Soloveitchik that his grandfather made three mistakes: 1. He opposed the new aliyah to Eretz Yisrael, as he was worried that it would lead to a religious decline among the settlers. 2. He did not grasp the significance of Jewish immigration to America. 3. He thought that the religious life of Brisk would not be affected by the societal changes sweeping Europe.
[12] See also the recently published letter of the Rav to Prof. Ernst Simon in Yair Kahn and Kalman Neuman, “A Rabbinic Exchange on the Disengagement: A Case Study in R. Aharon Lichtenstein’s Approach to Hilkhot Tsibbur,” Tradition 47 (Winter 2014), pp. 161-162, 185-186, available here.
[13] The Rav has often been quoted as saying that it if it cost even one life to recapture the Kotel, it was not worth it.
[14] See R. Yehoshua Kaniel’s eulogy for R. Kook in Me-Avnei ha-Makom 11 (2000), p. 57. I wonder how many pages a day this amazing kid is doing? At age 11 he already knew the entire Mishnah by heart.

[15] See Isak Unna, Die Lemle Moses Klaus-Stiftung in Mannheim (Frankfurt, 1908), pp. 13-14.
[16] Unna, Die Lemle Moses Klaus-Stiftung in Mannheim, p. 63.
[17] Shlomo Lorincz, Bi-Mehitzatam shel Gedolei ha-Torah, vol. 2, p. 610. He also reports that R. Moshe reviewed fifty pages of Talmud a day, and that he had a siyum upon completing the Shulhan Arukh for the seven hundredth time.
[18] File 8564/4, new call no.: 000i8nt. The file can be seen here.
[19] Is this indeed the general practice? In my experience it seems that many people do not put something on the floor if there is a carpet. See also R. Aharon Leib Steinman’s Ke-Ayal Ta’arog be-Inyanei ha-Moadim, p. 423:

הרה”ג רבי דוד הילמן שלח לשאול את רבנו האם בבתי כנסת שהרצפה מעץ צריך לכרוע בהפסק על פניהם או לא, דהרי כל החסרון הוא באבן דמחזי כאבן משכית ולא בעץ. וענה רבנו שבעיר בריסק הרצפה היתה מאבן וע”כ כולם עשו כורעים עם הפסק, אבל במשך השנים יצא לו להתפלל גם בבתי כנסת מעץ ושם רוב האנשים עשו כורעים בלי הפסק מלבד כמה יחידים (מפי נכדו הרה”ג ר’ אשר שטינמן. ועי’ הליכות שלמה תפילה יט, ו [צ”ל ח] שבשטיח מחובר שהוא קבוע המנהג להחמיר, אם כי מעיקר הדין מותר

[20] Regarding ArtScroll, someone I know mentioned that he thinks it is surprising that ArtScroll does not have יתגדל ויתקדש with a tzere under the ד in accord with the Mishnah Berurah’s opinion (56:2), or at least mention that this is the opinion of the Mishnah Berurah. As he put it, in yeshivish circles, the Mishnah Berurah is king and ArtScroll comes from that world.

I don’t think it is surprising that they did not change the text (although I would have expected them to note the different vocalization in a note). ArtScroll is producing a siddur for the Jewish community as a whole, and the overwhelming majority of people pronounce the words with a patah under the ד. In fact, I am sure that there are a number of other examples where ArtScroll does not follow the Mishnah Berurah’s opinion. I found one such case: In 8:10 the Mishnah Berurah states that when putting on one’s Tallit, in the blessing להתעטף בציצית, there should be shewa under the ב in the word בציצית. Yet ArtScroll places a patah under the ב which is the standard Ashkenazic practice. In fact, other than Tehillat Hashem (Chabad), are there any other current Ashkenazic siddurim that have a shewa under the ב?
[21] For other rishonim who reject the talmudic reinterpretation of the verse, see Changing the Immutable, p. 5.

Recent Notes On Hebrew Pronunciation

By Rabbi Avi Grossman

Edited by Mr. Jonathan Grossman 

Many of the ideas discussed in this article were in my notebook for some time, and just as I was getting around to preparing them for publication, my prolific colleague Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein sent a copy of Professor Geoffrey Khan’s The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew to me. After reading it and briefly corresponding with the author, I concluded that it was time to release this article. Professor Khan invites the yeshiva world to read his book, available for free at this link, and to check out his website. Full disclosure: although Prof. Khan’s research is enlightening, not only do I not agree with or endorse everything he claims, I do not believe that certain points are admissible as halachic sources in the Bet Midrash. 

With regards to the details of halachic pronunciation, I have already released my own book wherein I try to show how the rishonim would pronounce Tiberian Hebrew, and I direct readers to Rabbi Bar Hayim’s videos on the subject. Rabbi Bar Hayim follows the views of Rabbi Benzion Cohen. All of us are attempting to recreate something that we cannot really know, and for now, we still have to debate the fine details. I seriously doubt that the Masoretes spoke a ritual Hebrew that sounded exactly the way any of us describes it. 

Before getting into the nitty gritty of Prof. Khan’s arguments, I would like to introduce some basic ideas that can be gleaned from an elementary, comparative study of Arabic.

A few years ago I took some classes in modern spoken Arabic, which I hoped would help me begin to read Maimonides’s original writings. Aside from helping me realize how there is so much I have to learn about that language, it helped me learn more about Biblical Hebrew. Fifteen years ago, when I started working on what would become my aforementioned book about Masoretic Hebrew, I wondered about certain missing consonants. Thankfully, those and many other questions I had have been somewhat answered, and I now wish to present some of my own findings. I realize that for some, these may not be so novel, but my intention is to bring them to the attention of those in the yeshiva world who, for whatever reason, would enjoy learning about this but will not come across these issues in their regular courses of study.

Concerning the Consonants:

Arabic has only a cursive form, unlike our Hebrew which has had over the course of time many forms, including the common, Assyrian block form and the various cursive forms, which thanks to the advent of modern-Hebrew education has become much more standardized. Also, many letters have up to four forms: the isolated (stand-alone) form, the initial form, which the letter takes at the beginning of the word or in the middle of the word when the previous letter is cursively non-connective, the medial form, and the final form. For some letters, there is significant overlap. See a chart here, for instance. 

The Arabic letter alif is basically the Hebrew alef, but it is used much more often as a mater lectionis, the Latin translation of the Hebrew אם קריאה. (See below.) 

The Arabic equivalent of bet, ba, is always strong, meaning that in most forms of Arabic there is no letter that represents the weak bet sound, that of V, while the Arabic equivalent of pei, fa, is always weak, and never strong.This means that in most forms of Arabic there is no letter that represents the strong pei sound, that of P. Thus, many native Arabic speakers have a hard time pronouncing foreign words that have the P or V sounds. Today, in Israel at least, the solution is to use the stop, B, to also represent the P, thus giving us words like بيانو, biano, for piano, while the V sound is a variant of the fa, ف, and sometimes it is marked with three dots on top instead of one to indicate the V. Consequently, Israelis who pronounce their surnames that begin with vav in the standard, European-influenced accent, e.g. Vaynshtain instead of Weinstein, have the Arabs spell their names with a variant of fa. 

Unlike in Hebrew, the diacritical dots you find above and below certain Arabic letters are not vocalizations but rather critical components of the letters. It seems that early on the diacritics were used to distinguish between alternate sounds created by single letters, like the dagesh qal is and was used to distinguish between sounds made by single letters, while other letters originally had unique forms, but evolved into identical forms, and the diacritics were introduced in order to preserve the distinctions. The initial and medial forms of the Arabic letters ba, nun, ya (the equivalent of the Hebrew yod), and ta (the equivalent of the Hebrew tau) are orthographically identical and distinguished by the diacritics, the ba with one dot below, the ya with two; the nun with one above, and the ta with two, even though in all of the earlier Semitic alphabets, the equivalent consonants had distinct forms. This has made Arabic very receptive to new letters: it is very easy to modify an already existing letter form by adding anywhere from one to three dots as a superscript or subscript. In Hebrew, we still have not completely assimilated new consonantal symbols into new letters (the ג׳, ץ׳, ז׳, etc.), and the typical method of representing them looks out of place in context. 

Gimmel: In many languages, the hard G sound has been assimilated to a soft one, and this is as true in Arabic as it is with certain English words. However, the Arabic jim is not always pronounced like a J, which, as I pointed out in my book, is a combination of the D sound followed by a voiced shin (SH) sound, or the voiced equivalent of the CH sound achieved by clustering the T and SH sounds. Rather, jim makes the voiced shin sound (the G in massage) on its own. Also, the jim is still pronounced like a hard G in some countries, such as Egypt. 

Dal is the Arabic equivalent of our dalet, and it, like our dalet, has a weak, fricative counterpart, the dhal, (as in “the”), although unlike Hebrew, in which the weakness or strongness of the bet, gimmel, dalet, kaf, pei, or tau (the “beged kefet” letters) depends on the form of the word, and one set of rules governs all of these letters, in Arabic it seems that dal and dhal no longer have such a relationship, and as above, are now considered separate letters. 

The Arabic waw serves the same purposes as our vav. More on that soon. 

Het has its equivalent in the Arabic ha, while the sound of our kaf’s weak counterpart, khaf, appears in Arabic as a variation of the ha, pronounced kha, and the latter is represented by writing the former with an additional upper dot: ح and خ, respectively, while the one with a lower dot, ج, is the aforementioned jim. This seems to indicate that the weak sound of the khaf that distinguishes our Hebrew so much from English is a historical latecomer, and that while we first made it a variation of kaf, the Arabs made it a variation of het, and indeed, since in most Jewish circles the het is pronounced (incorrectly) as a khaf, perhaps the Arabs were just anticipating us. Many academics claim that the sound migrated; even in Hebrew the sound of the khaf was made by the het in certain words, but later, when all hets were pronounced alike, the sound was given to the weak kaf. This would explain why, for instance, certain proper nouns have been historically transliterated unusually. E.g., Jericho, Rachel, etc.

The Arabic counterpart of tet is the ta, but unlike our Hebrew tet which has no voiced counterpart, like tau has dalet and samech has zayin, the Arabic ta does have a voiced counterpart, the dad, ض, which is the D in words like Ramadan. Just like English transliterations of Hebrew commonly lose the distinction between tau and tet, they also lose the distinction between dal and dad, and in many systems used to teach Arabic to Hebrew speakers, they simplify the dad and tell them that just like they always pronounce the tet like a tau, they can pronounce the dad like a dal.

The Arabic counterpart of the yod is ya, and it pretty much behaves like the yod, but has traditionally been used as a mater lectionis even more than yod has. For example, many transliterations of Hebrew into Arabic not only use the ya to represent the Hebrew tzeirei, they even use the ya to represent the segol in open, accented syllables.

I was asked concerning the yod in second-person-possessive male suffixes, as in, for example בנֶיךָ ba-NE-cha: if the yod is not meant to be pronounced as part of the segol vowel, why is it even there? My proposed answer is that it is there to distinguish the singular from the plural, along the lines of the silent yod in the third person counterparts of those nouns, for example in בנָיו ba-NAW, which most never even get around to wondering why we do not pronounce as ba-NAYW. I believe that the yod in words such as בניו may have once been pronounced, and this explains the suffix’s relationship to its Aramaic counterpart, וֹהִיx or וֹיx. In essence, the two languages present the combined sound of the low vowel with the two semivowels, just that in Hebrew the Y sound preceded that of the W, whereas in Aramaic the W sound preceded the Y. Similarly, up until the common era, decisors would represent the western sound of “OW” (as in “brown” and Ashkenazi surnames with “baum” in them) in Yiddish and Yiddish-influenced written Hebrew as וֹי, “oy,” despite the inaccuracy. In any event, the silent yod in the plural possessive suffix is a critical indicator of the plural state, even more so than the potential vav of the holam in words like אבֹתֶיך  and עֹלֹתֵיכם. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of these words are written in the Torah with the yod and not the vav, and even when there is no need for a possessive or constructive suffix, the vav of the (generally) feminine plural suffix is usually omitted. Rather, the holam is usually written plene when the vav (or the yod that it replaces) is part of the root of the word. Thus, there is always a vav after the first tau in the word Torah (of the root yod-reish-silent hei) and its derivatives, but more often than not there is no vav after the reish indicating the plural of Torah.)

Sometimes, at the end of words, the alif is in the form of a ya minus the two lower dots that  distinguish the ya from the ta, ba and nun. Such an alif is called an alif maqsura (a “shortened alif”), and is often used in place of the ya that was part of the root word. See below for how this may relate to the phenomenon of the equivalency of yod and silent hei as the third letter of many Hebrew roots.

The Arabic counterpart of kaf, ka, is always strong. This would remind us of the instances in which the suffix khaf in Hebrew is strong, as in ארוממךָּ, although in spoken Arabic, what was once the sound of qamatz/patah after the suffix ka has now been placed before the kaf, such as in possessives that end with the sound “ak” instead of “ka.”  Similarly, the possessive suffix is pronounced “kha” in Hebrew, while in Aramaic it is pronounced as “akh.” 

The Arabic counterpart to lamed, lam, is often orthographically combined with the alif that precedes it or comes after it. Certain Hebrew printers would use a combined letter for alef and lamed; I do not know who learned from whom (no pun intended), or if it is just a coincidence. 

Samech has no true Arabic counterpart because the Arabic sin corresponds to both the Hebrew sin and samech. Considering how the samech–sin redundancy in other Semitic languages predates the Arabic’s language’s evolution, this is understandable. Yiddish also has this phenomenon: in native Yiddish words, only samech is used to represent the S sound, and the sin is only used for words that have their source in semitic languages. Rav Mazuz recently pointed out that in Rashi-era French, not only did the samech and sin sound like an S, but the shin also did, and this is why when Rashi invokes French, the shin is usually used for the S sound. 

Ayin exists also in Arabic, although orthographic variants thereof, specifically the addition of a diacritic dot above, changes the ayin to a ghayn. (I would have expected the aforementioned jim to therefore to be an orthographic variant of this letter instead of the ha.) Many have pointed out that early Greek translations of personal nouns such as ra’am, ‘amora and ‘aza have used the progenitor of the latin G, and this would indicate that Hebrew once had a similar dual use for the ayn symbol, and as Professor Khan has shown me, the jim was once actually the equivalent of a hard G, and still is in some places, so it would be a natural and eventual variant of the ghayn. 

Pei’s equivalent is the fa. It has this weak form, and never a strong form. As I wrote above, modern Israeli Arabic uses a new variant of the ba, but with three lower dots, to represent the P sound. 

The tzadi has the Arabic sad. Further, the sad has a voiced counterpart, ظـ, ẓāʾ, the most recently developed letter in the Arabic language, and the sad and tet are already variants of each other, with the ta being a sad with a vertical line. Strangely, the voiced counterpart of the ta is a sad with an extra dot, ضـ, while the voiced counterpart of the sad, the ẓāʾ, is a ta with a dot. I would have done the opposite. Years ago I wondered why Hebrew did not have these letters. I now realize that they are just too inconvenient, or else we could also expect to see the fricative forms of both the tet and the dad in Arabic. Thus, Arabic developed and maintained letters to represent many of the consonantal sounds that were either lost by spoken dialects of Hebrew, or were never present in Hebrew. Considering that the twenty-two-letter Hebrew alphabet is considered sacrosanct by the Hebrews, and that even the weak sounds from the six beged kefet letters did not earn their own letters, I do not believe we will see new Hebrew letters to represent these sounds any time soon, although the sound of the jim (represented in Modern Hebrew by ג׳) and the modern English CH (represented by צ׳), for instance, are today ubiquitous. I was prompted to think about this by my daughter, who, in second grade, was mindful enough to point out that her version of the Alphabet had both bet and vet, but Ashrei, as printed in her siddur, only had a verse for bet.

Modern Hebrew tutorials for spoken Arabic use the samech to represent the Arabic sad, because the samech is much closer to the way sad should be pronounced than the way the Modern Hebrew tzadi is, although on some street signs, proper nouns with sad’s are rendered with tzadi in Hebrew, e.g. the town of Musmus in the Galilee is מוצמוץ, which delighted my daughter. Also, the ubiquitous condiment hummus, although spelled חומוס in modern Hebrew, should be spelled חֻמֻץ to accurately reflect its Arabic spelling. There are even some families here in Israel that do not eat chickpeas on Passover not because they are legumes but because back in the old country, the word was too similar to חמץ, “leaven.”

Quf: Many people know that the Hebrew quf should be pronounced like the true Arabic quf, what the speech professionals call the voiceless uvular stop, or, to the rest of us, the sound made by pressing the tongue farther back in the mouth, but like the quf in Modern Hebrew, the Arabic quf has also suffered from neglect. In some places it is pronounced like a hard G, while in others it is pronounced like a K, as we do, and sometimes, especially in local dialects, it is not pronounced at all, and is basically treated like an alif. For example, local speakers refer to Jerusalem as al-uds instead of al-quds, and even al-uds often comes out as il-uts, all of the previous with a short vowel sound. Or the imperative of stand up is um instead of qum, and daqiqeh, minutes, becomes da’i’eh. 

Reish: The Arabic sign for reish is the zayn with an additional dot on top, which may indicate the closeness of the two sounds. According to Sefer Yetzira, the reish is produced by the teeth, just like the zayin and samech.  

Shin and sin are one symbol, with the shin having three dots on top. They both even resemble the Assyrian shin: س ش. The extra tails do not appear mid word.

Tau: Both the strong and weak tau have Arabic counterparts, the ta and tha, respectively, with the former with two dots, the latter with three. As we mentioned, the strength of the Hebrew beged kefet letters depends on a letter’s position in a given word, while in Arabic that is not the case. 

More interestingly, the ta has a common silent form, called “ta marbuta,” literally, a “sad ta,” that appears as the feminine suffix roughly equivalent to the qamatz-silent-hei suffix in Hebrew. Interestingly enough, this ta marbuta is silent, like our hei, and is even written as a ha but distinguished by the characteristic two dots on top, just like a ta. That is, orthographically it is a combination of ha and ta. Just like the Hebrew hei suffix becomes an actual tau in various construct states, the ta marbuta becomes an actual ta in construct states. For example, the Arabic word for automobile is sayara, while “his car” is sayarato. When we consider Hebrew, we often think of the silent hei as converting to tau in construct forms, whereas from this point of view, the tau can be considered the default letter, and the hei that exists in isolated forms is the simplified form. This explains, for instance, why we encounter words like zimrath as in עזי וזמרת י-ה and aqereth in מושיבי עקרת הבית are spelled with the tau although they are not in the construct state. (Hat tip: Rabbi Yedidya Naveh of Koren Publishers.)

This is reminiscent of the phenomenon in Hebrew that in certain roots, the final silent hei become a tau in certain conjugations, e.g. ראה is ראתה in the feminine, while in other conjugations it becomes a yod, e.g., as in ראיתי and ראינו. Had an alef been in those roots, it would have stayed in both types of conjugations: the feminine of ברא is ברָאת, and the first persons are בראתי and בראנו.

Concerning the possessive suffixes, in spoken Arabic the male form is as in Hebrew, an O sound, but it is written with a silent ha, reminiscent of uncommon instances where the mater lectionis is also hei for the holam, as in שלמֹה, שילֹה, אהלֹה, and סֻכֹּה. Whereas in Hebrew, the female possessive suffix is usually qamatz-nonsilent (mappiq) hei, and this is mostly overlooked in spoken Hebrew. I know of no one, (not even the usual professionals who otherwise pronounce things properly) who actually tries to pronounce the mappiq hei in conversation. The equivalent suffix in spoken Arabic is much easier to say, as it is written as ha-alif, and is pronounced as “ha.”

The lack of a local Arabic equivalent to the hard G sound made by gimmel has led to some interesting inconsistencies regarding how to spell Ben Gurion, which comes up often considering all the places named after him. Some spell his name with a jim, others with a ghayn, and others with the new, hard-G gim, the aforementioned jim but with three dots instead of one. The first version enjoys the precedent that the Hebrew gimmel has been represented by the Arabic jim, and it is up to the reader to know that historically both were pronounced as G, while the second version enjoys the precedent that foreign words with a hard G have been represented with a ghayn because vocally it is is closest to the hard-G sound. For example, in Arabic a gorilla is called a ghorilla. Indeed, in this case they would be pronouncing “Gurion” with a form of gimmel, just the weak form. I have noticed that, especially around the eponymous airport, all three Arabic spellings of Gurion are commonplace.

Otherwise, many Israeli street signs can be seen as the work of vigilant trolls, who mock the way most Jews pronounce the tzadi, vav, tet, and quf incorrectly. For example, the signs pointing to my town, Kochav Yaakov-Tel Zion, appear as they should in Hebrew, כוכב יעקב – תל ציון, but in Arabic they are rendered as كوخاڤ ياكوڤ تل تسيون, which, represented in Hebrew characters, is כּוכאבֿ יאכּובֿ תל תשיון. That is, although the Biblical name of Jacob has a well-known classical rendering in Arabic, because the Jews pronounce the ayin and quf as alef and kaf respectively, they are rendered as such, and the same with the tzadi of Zion, rendered ts because that is how it is pronounced. Similarly, place names with tet are transliterated with the counterpart of tau, ta, because that is how it is incorrectly pronounced. An example: טירת צבי, Tirat Zvi, is rendered by the Arabic equivalent of תיראת תשבֿי. Lastly, פתח תקוה is (thankfully) transliterated into formal English as Petah Tiqwa, but in Arabic it is   ‎بتاح تكفا, or in Hebrew characters, פּתאח תכּבֿא, although it would have been more egregious had they rendered the first word as פתאך.

The Vowels

The Arabic counterpart of the dagesh hazaq is the shadda, a small W or shin-like symbol written above the letter indicating its gemination. The counterpart of the sh’wa nah (silent sh’wa) indicating that the consonant closes the previous syllable is the sukkun, which appears as a small circle above the letter in question.  

As a general rule, the major vowels are represented with their plene spellings, while the minor vowels are defective, and the ya represents what sound like the Hebrew tzeirei and hiriq, while the waw represents the holam and shuruq sounds. However, there is more ambiguity with regard to the representations of the minor vowels: there is one vowel superscript symbol that represents the short patah sound, and not coincidentally it is called fat-ha, while a single waw-like superscript is used to represent both the equivalents of the qamatz qatan and qubbus, and a single subscript dash represents the equivalents of the short segol and hiriq. Surprisingly, accented, segols in open syllables are transliterated into Arabic also as plene. For example, Petah Tiqwa, above, is sometimes spelled with a yod after the pei equivalent, פיתאח. And, along those lines, many of the counterparts of the qamataz gadol are represented by an additional alןf, as are patahs in open-accented syllables. Thus, names like Ibrahim (Abraham) and Binyamin are written with alif’s after the reish and ya respectively, and in Israel place names with the words sha’ar and har are represented by the Arabic equivalents of האר and שאער. This far more liberal use of the alif to represent the presence of vowels is also characteristic of Yiddish, in which the alef has completely transformed from a mater lectionis into a vowel-letter, although I would be very grateful if someone could enlighten me as to why in Yiddish, our ancestors chose to represent the segol with the ayin. I cannot fathom even a tenuous connection between that particular vowel and the consonant.

Concerning mater lectionis it must be noted that although in many of the languages under discussion they are silent place holders that do not affect the pronunciation, once upon a time they did. It is not due to some arbitrary decision or convenience that the prophets chose to represent the holam and shuruq sounds, for example, with a waw. Rather, it is because the vav and yod once were, and often should still be, a natural, necessary, and logical component of the vowels’ pronunciations, and as I wrote about in my book, the true hiriq and shuruq sounds cannot be articulated without the natural semivowels that complete them, and when they are followed by guttural letters that necessitate the additional patah g’nuva, or the epenthetic in Prof. Khan’s jargon, the semivowel is even geminated. 

Plural suffixes: Instead of im, יםx, in Arabic, as in Aramaic, “in” is often used. In feminine forms, instead of oth, ותx,  ات, which is the equivalent of אתx, is used. However, many nouns have a unique plural form that does not employ a suffix or any set rule of new vowel structure.

…

And now for the nitty-gritty of Prof. Khan’s book. The second volume of Khan’s work is a translation of the Hidāyat al-Qāri, which was written by a prominent grammarian, and it and other Karaite works and documents make up a significant portion of his sources. Although there may be that which we can learn from both Karaite and Samaritan sources, they can hardly be considered by traditional Jews to be sources for anything halacha l’ma’aseh. For example, the notion that the shuruq form of vav hahibbur before labial letters is pronounced as “wu,” and not “u,” is very hard for me to believe, especially because it contradicts most modes of pronunciation among world Jewry, and makes one wonder why such a vav would not therefore be considered a complete syllable unto itself. As I wrote about last time, an analysis of the trop indicates that the Masoretes did not not count the prefix vav as a syllable even when it was pronounced as a shuruq. If they had been pronouncing such a vav as “wu”, it would count as a full syllable, especially if it preceded a letter with a sh’wa. I believe that even the Karaites and Samaritans themselves do not pronounce it that way anymore, if they ever did. R’ Schachter likes to relate a story about a conversation between Rabbi Soloveitchik and Rabbi Saul Lieberman, in which the former was dismissive of certain medieval sources, because just like today when we have pseudo-scholars who write halachic nonsense, they also had such things back then. Just because you can find that Karaites distinguished between the mobile and silent sh’was using different criteria from ours, we should do as they do?!

I would also like an explanation as to why, considering the mountain of proof that the vav was and should be pronounced like a W and not like a V, he recommends that it be pronounced as a V in certain instances. It is inconsistent in theory as well as in practice. However, it is interesting to note that historically Jews in Palestine began to assimilate the vav into a V sound around the same time that speakers of Greek began to assimilate the sound. Although I am happy to let people speak however they may like, I would strongly recommend against this and another common phoneme, namely the Modern Hebrew pronunciation of reish. Both made it into Modern Hebrew via Yiddish, and both make Modern Hebrew sound unpleasantly Germanic. For example, the word aquarium is both pleasant and easy to pronounce, and sounds like a fun place to visit with children, while ak-VA-ghi-um is jarring, hard to pronounce, and sounds sinister. If most can pronounce the vav and reish properly, they should try to do so. For those who may ask, I spell the name of the letter v-a-v in order to distinguish it from the Aarabic waw, although I believe that it makes the W sound. 

Prof. Khan’s take on orthoepy on page 101 fits with my point here that the Sifrei Emet have a higher tendency toward conjunctive cantillation marks than the rest of the books of the Bible. Along similar lines, you will find that in the majority of the biblical books, the non-Emet books, the lower level disjunctives, which therefore also occur earlier in a particular half of a verse, tend to be musical flourishes, and not unsurprisingly, can have many more conjunctive words (i.e., words marked with conjunctive trops) preceding them. For example, silluq and ethnah have at most one conjunctive word connected by either a mercha or munah, respectively, and the second-level disjunctives like tip’ha and zaqef have at most two conjunctives, while the pazer and t’lisha g’dola often have four or five conjunctives, and even up to seven at my last count. (Often, a string of connective words form one adjectival phrase beginning with asher, that or who, even if that phrase itself has many parts of speech.) Jacobson has already pointed out that there are no disjunctives lower than these, and therefore, even at preceding words where we would expect disjunctives, we find conjunctives. There is thus a proportional relationship between musicality and connectivity. 

A recurring argument is that when the Karaite transliterations into Arabic omit mater lectionis, the indication is a short vowel in the original Hebrew. I disagree, because we see that the farther back we go in Biblical Hebrew, fewer and fewer long vowels, especially qamatz and holam, are in the plene form. Incidentally, some have asked me for rules of thumb as to when the holam is plene or deficient. I have two of them: 1. In post-biblical Hebrew, the accented holam of segolate nouns is deficient (e.g., חֹדֶש, עֹשֶק, אֹכֶל, etc.) while in participles, the holam is unaccented and written in the plene form (e.g., אוֹכל, עוֹשֶק, etc.). In Biblical Hebrew, the older the book, the less likely these participles are to have the vav. 2. In the Torah and the earlier biblical books, the holam is often deficient when it is part of a plural suffix. Those words in which it is written plene, e.g., in בנות, are the exceptions. However, when the vav is part of the root, it usually is written, for example when the root of the word is yod-reish-(silent) hei and the conjugation is in the hif’il, which is why the word תורה and its variants are written in the plene form. 

Pg. 113. I used to joke that the common Ashkenazi practice of distinguishing between qamatz and patah and tzeirei-segol was an enactment of the biennial convention of Ashkenazic Jewry, for if you were to claim that qamatz and patah used to sound the same, and tzeirei-segol sounded the same, why do Ashkenazim distinguish between? However, Prof. Khan seems to say that it was apparently the case, and we are left looking for an explanation as to how our ancestors figured out the difference in theory and adopted it in practice. 

The argument on page 409 regarding epenthetic vowels fits with the argument I made previously about the pronunciation of ohela.

Pg. 428: Yaamdu. I believe that Prof. Khan and I are making similar proposals, except that he is using much more advanced terminology. 

Pg. 450: As per the brilliant and indispensable treatise on cantillation found in the classic Tiqqun Mishor, I believe that it is much easier to explain the vocalization of the word מה (ma) with the rules governing the hei hay’dia, the definite article. The atei merahiq (dehiq) explanation may account for the dagesh in the first letter of the second word, but it does not account for the variety of possible vowels: segol, qamatz, patah, etc. that parallels that of the hei hayedia and that can be explained using the general principles of vowel shifts. 

Pg. 509. Is the masoretic hyphen supposed to be called a מַקֵּף or מַקָּף? I can entertain either, just like the exact vowelization (and names for that matter) of the words we use for the vowels are also pretty dynamic, and the same can be said of the trop. 

Pg. 519: Prof. Khan does not find any lengthening of the vowel in the syllable marked by the metiga of the zaqef gadol, nor of the geresh of the ravia mugrash. As I wrote earlier, I am of the belief that these particular symbols are quite arbitrary, and their placement is less about accentage, etc., and more about distinguishing them from similar symbols, and explains why trop like the dehi and t’lisha gedola are always marked on the first syllables even if those syllables are not accented. 

Pg. 524: Concerning the verb להניח, Prof. Khan offers that the forms which have the dagesh are not reflective of a different root altogether, but rather are a convention to create a distinctive meaning. The forms with the weak nun imply “to give rest,” while the forms with the strong nun imply placement. It would thus seem logical that the blessing on laying t’fillin should be להַנּיח תפלין and not להָניח תפלין. However, most siddurim follow the Shulhan Aruch’s ruling (Orah Hayim 25:7) to use the latter formulation, and indeed, the Mishna B’rura there explains that the weaker form implies placement, while it is the strong form that implies handing over. However, in the original source in the Beth Yosef, it is mentioned that there is no actual difference in meaning between the two forms, but the weak form is preferred because it is the one used in the verse (Ezekiel 44:30), להָניח ברכה, “to place a blessing within your house.” The Vilna Gaon seems to endorse this view. 

The following is from a letter I wrote to the publishers of the Makbili edition of the Mishneh Torah:

במהדורתכם, בהלכות תפילין, פרק ד׳, כל פעם שמדובר על מעשה הנחת תפילין וברכתה, הנו״ן דגושה והתנועה לפניה או חיריק חסר או פתח, ושתיהן תנועות קלות, וזה למרות דעת השולחן ערוך וכמה אחחרונים שצ״ל נו״ן רפה והתנועה לפניה או קמץ או צירה, ושתיהן תנועות גדולות. לדעת מרן הבית יוסף, זה בגלל שהנחת תפילין שורשו נו״ח, ומעשה ההנחה הוא בבנין הפעיל, לעומת הנחה בנו״ן דגושה, שהיא באה משורש אחר ומשמעותה לשון עזיבה

?האם דעתו של הרמב״ם מפורשת שכן צריכים להגות ״הנחה״, או האם יש לכם סיבה אחרת בשיטת הניקוד

In short, they decided to vowelize l’haniah t’fillin, the blessing on laying t’fillin, with a dagesh in the nun, l’hanniah t’fillin. This is in contrast to most known opinions, including that of the Shulhan Aruch. Whose opinion were they following, bearing in mind that Maimonides himself did not actually state anything in regards to the matter and his own editions of the Mishneh Torah were not vowelized?

The editor answered that

:זוהי תמצית תשובת ד”ר יחיאל קארה, עורך המשנה של המהדורה לענייני ניקוד

במהדורתנו ניקדנו על פי המסורת התימנית, וכן הוא גם בכ”י קאופמן של המשנה. אכן במקרא אפשר שיש מקום להבחין בין “והניח לכם מכל אויביכם” ב-נ’ פשוטה לעומת “והניחם שם” ב-נ’ דגושה, כהבדלה בין נתינת מנוחה לבין שימה, אך הדבר אינו מוחלט, ובכל מקרה מדובר במה שמכונה “פועל עלול”, שבו יש תנועה בין הגזרות השונות. וראה גם במילון אבן שושן, שמביא את שתי הצורות בלא להבחין ביניהן

Or in short, that there is a Yemenite tradition that it should be that way. Indeed, one Yemenite rabbi showed me some Yemenite codes that explicitly record the practice.

A few years ago, I found what may be the source for the Yemenite/Maimonidean tradition.  According to the Shulhan Aruch, the three-letter root of l’haniah is nun–yod (or waw)-heth. Thus, all the letters of the root are present in that conjugation, and thus do not require any letter to be geminated in order to compensate. However, In The Guide for the Perplexed, 1:67, Maimonides wrote (Friedlander translation):

Our Sages, and some of the Commentators, took, however, nuaḥ in its primary sense “to rest,” but as a transitive form (hif’il), explaining the phrase thus: “and he gave rest to the world on the seventh day,” i.e., no further act of creation took place on that day.

It is possible that the word wayyanaḥ is derived either from yanaḥ, a verb of the class pe-yod, or naḥah, a verb of the class lamed-he, and has this meaning: “he established” or “he governed” the Universe in accordance with the properties it possessed on the seventh day”; that is to say, while on each of the six days events took place contrary to the natural laws now in operation throughout the Universe, on the seventh day the Universe was merely upheld and left in the condition in which it continues to exist. Our explanation is not impaired by the fact that the form of the word deviates from the rules of verbs of these two classes: for there are frequent exceptions to the rules of conjugations, and especially of the weak verbs: and any interpretation which removes such a source of error must not be abandoned because of certain grammatical rules. We know that we are ignorant of the sacred language, and that grammatical rules only apply to the majority of cases.

Thus, it seems that in the form l’hanniah, the yod of the beginning of the shoresh has been left out, necessitating the dagesh in the second letter of the root, the nun. However, Maimonides acknowledges the apparent difficulty: usually, when the first letter of a root is yod, verbs in the hiph’il conjugation are vowelized with a full holam after the prefix, for example להוציא from יצא and להושיב from ישב, and even להוליך from הלך, which does not even have a yod. 

Pg. 599-600: The discussion reminds me of my epiphany concerning the Vilna Gaon’s pronunciation of זֵכר. The difficulty native speakers have when trying to distinguish between sets of similar sounds is very frustrating, especially when they attempt to add their own vowelizations. I tell Israeli schoolteachers that it is not even worth it for them to try, because when it comes to qamatz-patah and segol-tzeirei, they will always get it wrong. 

Finally, Prof. Khan is not alone in advocating that the sh’wa na’ of Tiberian Hebrew be pronounced basically like a hataf patah. Support for this position comes from written testimony that describes it as such. However, I do not accept this. It seems to me today, linguists discuss dozens of types of vowels, and spoken English, for example, utilizes dozens of vowel sounds, but in the medieval period, they used to only discuss three, and then five, different vowel qualities. It makes sense that to them, the sh’wa would have to fit into one of those descriptive categories even if we now have the tools to be more specific. Further, if the sh’wa was supposed to sound like a hataf patah in the majority of cases, why did the Msaoretes choose the sign of the sh’wa, which half the time is used to mark a letter that closes a syllable, and not the hataf patah, which they had already created to mark specific sh’wa’s? Also, it would be a practice that contradicts the living custom of most of Jewry, and would require a thoroughly novel explanation as to why the pronunciation of the vav hahibbbur changes before words that begin with a letter vowelized with sh’wa. However, I also believe that a sh’wa should not be pronounced identically to the short I sound as is common in most places today. The best description of the sound that I can offer today is the sound in the word “the,” as in “I went to the store.”

…

Concerning Vav Hahippuch

As opposed to the conjunctive vav, the vav hahippuch generally turns a past-tense verb into future tense, and a future-tense verb into past tense. Many thus believe that the hippuch, inversing, refers to the tense. But, the vav hahippuch inverses a lot more:

The accentage: In most past-tense verbs converted to future, the accent is shifted from the middle syllable, if that is its position, to the last syllable. E.g. a-HAV-ta is “you loved,” whereas w’A-hav-Ta is “you shall love”. (Most speakers of Hebrew are unaware that the past-tense second person plural verbs are accented on the last syllable: אהבתם is ahav-TEM, and not aHAV-tem, and when marked with the vav hahippuch stay accented as such.) Notable exceptions occur in verbs with yod/silent hei as the last letter of the root. E.g., w’a-SI-tha, “you shall make,” is accented on its middle syllable even though it is future tense. Once again it is verbs of this category that are the major exception; last time I pointed out that the singular masculine past-tense conjugations of these verbs do not follow the rule of athei merahiq. In the case of a future-tense verb made past, the accent is shifted from the last syllable to an earlier one. (e.g., ya-QUM becomes way-YA-qom, and yo-MAR becomes way-YO-mer).  

The syntax: Standard form would be subject-verb-object. When vav-hahippuch is utilized, the order is verb-subject-etc.. This is the usual form used throughout the Bible when describing events, and usually in chronological order. When I teach about vav hahipppuch, this is the first indication: Does the verb start the sentence or clause instead of the subject? If yes, then you most likely have vav hahippuch.

Lastly, the vocalization is changed, at least from future to past. Instead of simply being marked with a sh’wa, or whatever would have taken the sh’wa’s place based under other considerations (e.g., becoming a shuruq before labial letters), the vav hahippuch is vowelized with either a patah before the future-prefix tau, yod, or nun, or a qamatz before the future prefix alef, which cannot receive a dagesh. Thus, when you have a vav hahippuch before a first-person singular pi’el verb like avaqqesh, which starts with an alef vocalized with a hataf patah, the vav hahippuch will be marked with a qamatz. There are two practical applications with regard to the meaning: If the vav preceding such a verb was not a vav hahippuch, it would be marked with an ordinary patah and the verb is in standard future-tense form, and therefore the reader must distinguish between the two. If he does not, he should be corrected, and normally, the vocalization of the vav hahippuch actually matters.  However, the vocalization of the vav hahibbur, which can prefix all parts of speech, is not critical, i.e., whether one pronounces it with a sh’wa, or any vowel, or as a shuruq, does not affect the meaning and intent. Because vav hahippuch only prefixes verbs, any time a vav prefixes anything but a verb, I would not correct the reader if he pronounces it with the wrong vowel. For example, if one were to read וגדולה as vig-do-LA  instead of ug-do-LA, or ושמעון as wa-shim-’ON instead of w’shim-’ON.

As far as I can tell, classical Aramaic has no vav hahippuch, and perhaps others can weigh in on whether such a form exists in other semitic languages.  

Once one is familiar with the style of the vav hahippuch, he will notice that certain verses (or parts of verses) actually follow standard syntax: The subject will precede the verb, which will be in the correct tense. In such cases, the subject may be preceded by a vav hahibbur, and the overall indication will be that the information expressed is that which had happened previously. I.e., such a style of syntax indicates the past perfect. Some examples:

Genesis 4:1: והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו, “The man had known his wife, Eve.” Many scholars have pointed out that this indicates that Eve had at least conceived her first children before Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, with the Midrash even describing Cain’s birth the day Adam and Eve were created.

Genesis 14:1: עָשׂוּ מִלְחָמָה אֶת-בֶּרַע מֶלֶךְ סְדֹם, “They had made war against Bera, King of Sodom, etc.” As is evident from the subsequent verses, the initial war preceded the events of the running narrative by some fourteen years.

Genesis 18:17: וַה׳ אָמָר הַמְכַסֶּה אֲנִי מֵאַבְרָהָם אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה “And the Lord had said, would I conceal from Abraham that which I am doing?” That is, God had already decided, so to speak, that He would inform Abraham of the judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah. 

If you read II Samuel 2, it seems that Abner crowned Ishbosheth in the aftermath of Saul’s death, shortly before or right around the time David was crowned king of Judah, and considering that the verse describes how Ishbosheth’s kingdom gradually expanded as more tribes accepted him, it seems to me that it took David five and a half years after Ishbosheth’s death to then be accepted as king over all of Israel, and in support of the Ttosafists’ classical position against that of  Rashi’s (Sanhedrin 20a) , it took some time before Ishboshesh was accepted  by all of the tribes, but the five years of no kingdom seem to have been after his death, as the tribes came around to accepting David as king.  

An Appreciation of HaRav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, zt”l

By Rabbi Akiva Males

On Thursday, the 24^th of Kislev, 5781 (December 10, 2020), Jews around the world prepared to use their Shamash candles to light their Chanukah Menorahs. On that same day, leading rabbinic representatives of Chicago’s strong and diverse Orthodox community delivered moving eulogies for a world-renowned Torah scholar: Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, zt”l. For 95 years, Rav Schwartz served as a powerful living Shamash, using his vast Halachic knowledge to illuminate Chicago — and communities around the world.

Several of the speakers remarked that in addition to all of his responsibilities heading the Beis Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council (CRC), Rav Schwartz readily made himself available to answer the Halachic questions of rabbis across the USA. As a Shul rabbi who regularly reached out to Rav Schwartz, I can confirm that detail as being absolutely true. However, in all honesty, Rav Schwartz shared so much more than answers to the Halachic questions he was presented with.

Having served for decades as a Shul rabbi himself, Rav Schwartz readily understood the context of the Halachic questions he was presented with. He also knew the challenges, pressures, and anxieties that rabbis ‘out in the field’ often experience. In addition to providing clear answers to the queries of puplit rabbis, Rav Schwartz was an overflowing spring of wisdom, guidance, and practical rabbinic advice.

Why would a Shul rabbi out in Harrisburg, PA (where I served from 2007-2016) join a rabbinical association based in Chicago, IL? While membership in the CRC benefits a rabbi for numerous reasons, for the most part, I joined the CRC because of Rav Schwartz. As a young rabbi in my first pulpit position, I quickly realized how much I needed someone to turn to for Halachic and rabbinic guidance. On what seemed like a near-daily basis, I found myself facing numerous scenarios I had never imagined encountering — and certainly did not learn about in Yeshiva. After reaching out to Rav Schwartz on a few occasions, I quickly felt embraced and supported — and a long-distance relationship was born.

After Rav Schwartz’s funeral, I felt drawn to look over the notes I took of many of our conversations. Packed away in a box, I found a six-inch-thick file containing some of the incredibly diverse Halachic questions that came up — and that I had discussed with different Poskim — during my years in Harrisburg. Reading through those pages brought back a flood of memories and emotions. Using Post-It notes, I began flagging the pages that involved Rav Schwartz. When I was finished, I was shocked by the number of times (and the vast spectrum of issues about which) he had generously shared his time, Halachic knowledge, and direction with me.

Since so many of the matters we discussed were of a sensitive nature, I cannot share the details of those questions — as that would not be fair to the parties involved. However, here is a small sampling of some of the questions I asked Rav Schwartz about:

• A Shul member is extremely allergic to bee stings. The community’s Eruv will be down for a few weeks for major repairs. Can this fellow go out on Shabbos carrying his EpiPen — or must he stay home and indoors the entire Shabbos?
• One of the Shul members has an expensive African parrot that will only eat the Chometz crackers that it is used to. What should this parrot’s owner do with it over Pesach?
• The apartment building in which a Shul member lives installed motion sensitive lights in the halls and stairwells. Is there a Halachically acceptable way for her to leave her apartment on Shabbos?
• A Jewish-owned chain of stores asked me to be their agent to sell their Chometz before Pesach. However, they will be open and doing business as usual over Yom Tov. Does such a sale of Chometz accomplish anything?
• A photographer working for the local newspaper took some beautiful pictures of our community while we were reciting Tashlich on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. The pictures appeared in the next day’s paper. Can we purchase those pictures from the paper for our own use?
• I received a letter from a Pennsylvania State prison inmate claiming to be Jewish. With his newfound free time, he has been exploring his Judaism. He recently learned that although he received a medical circumcision as an infant, in order to meet the Halachic requirements of Bris Milah, he requires a Hatafas Dam. He wants me to advocate for him to be allowed to have this procedure done while serving his time behind bars. Is this a case I should take up?
• An out-of-town Jewish college student has unfortunately been exploring her interest in Christianity. She reached out to a family in our Shul asking if she could stay with them in order to attend a Messianic conference that will take place in our locale. Could the family agree to host her — with the hope that they will be able to dissuade her from pursuing her attraction to another religion?
• How far must a Ger Tzedek go to prevent the cremation of his / her non-Jewish parent?

In looking through that file, I was struck by how many of the questions I posed to Rav Schwartz had to do with: A) the myriad of complex issues that result from intermarriage, B) the delicate balance that needs to be found in dealing with the local Jewish Federation and non-Orthodox congregations (and their leaderships) when it comes to matters of communal concern, C) enabling the local Jewish day school to thrive and continue providing a Torah education to as many Jewish children as it can, and D) helping Jewish converts in every way possible.

As stated above, when I called Rav Schwartz, I was looking for more than just his clear answers to the Halachic questions that I had for him. I also craved his sound advice, reassurance, and sometimes, his support. On one page of my notes, I read how I had sought his guidance in a particular thorny issue. He listened to all that had taken place, shared with me what he thought I had done right, what I could have done better, how I might still be able to iron out a wrinkle I had created, and finally, some excellent ideas for dealing with similar situations that might arise in the future.

On another page of my notes, I read how he fully agreed with a position I had taken in a complicated matter. I was set to discuss what had happened with the Shul’s leadership, and had reached out to Rav Schwartz to learn what he thought. He told me he agreed with me 100%, and that if I experienced any pushback, I could let the Shul’s Board know that he absolutely stood behind me. Fortunately, this was not necessary – as, thankfully, the Shul’s Board supported me. Nonetheless, knowing that Rav Schwartz was in my corner, and willing to back me up, gave me the reassurance I greatly needed at that time.

As I looked through my files, the following five stories jumped out at me:

1. While Rav Schwartz clearly had a phenomenal mastery and memory of all Torah-related subjects, he was also keenly aware of the world around him. His attention to detail — and his recall of those details — was often quite surprising. As an example: I once turned to him with an important Halachic question from an Israeli family who had joined our community for a year so the husband (a high-ranking IDF officer) could attend the U.S. Army War College in nearby Carlisle, PA. After answering the question, Rav Schwartz commented, “I wonder if that college is located on the campus of the boarding school that Jim Thorpe attended.” (Thorpe was a famous Native-American athlete who passed away in 1953 — and indeed, the U.S. Army War College is located on the grounds of the former ‘Carlisle Indian Industrial School’.)
2. Often, after answering a question, Rav Schwartz would let me know that he could relate to what I was experiencing by sharing a story from his own rabbinic career. He once told me about how decades earlier, while serving as a young pulpit rabbi in Providence, RI he turned down the local Jewish Federation leader’s invitation to deliver an invocation at a gala dinner they were holding to honor one of the most prominent Jews in town (who was intermarried). The guest speaker was going to be the famous Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver (Reform), and the food being served at the dinner was in no way Kosher. Rav Schwartz told me how shocked the Federation head was upon hearing his refusal to deliver a blessing at a dinner that was so at odds with Halacha.
3. Rav Schwartz once mentioned that Orthodox rabbis will make the greatest impression on the broader non-Orthodox Jewish community through their Chesed and Menshlichkeit — and not via their scholarship. He recalled how once while visiting Cincinnati, OH he leafed through a year book published by the local Jewish Federation. In one year’s edition, there was a small blurb on the great Rav Eliezer Silver, zt”l. (He noted that during the time of Rabbi Silver, Cincinnati’s Jewish Federation did not have the warmest feelings towards Orthodoxy.) In that small write-up they sang Rabbi Silver’s praises. What was it about Rav Eliezer Silver’s many accomplishments that had caught their notice? It was not his Torah brilliance. Instead, the Ohio River had flooded and parts of Cincinnati were devastated. In the middle of all the chaos, Rabbi Silver was spotted in a boat bringing food and aid to others. It was Rav Eliezer Silver’s selfless Chesed that had made a lasting impact on those who were not aligned with him.
4. In 2011, my wife Layala faced a great health challenge, spent several months in hospitals, and underwent life-saving surgery. Thank G-d, she recovered, and we will always be grateful to everyone who helped us get through that extremely trying time. Over the course of those months (and the months that followed), I reached out to Rav Schwartz with many personal and Shul-related Halachic questions. Inevitably, the first words out of Rav Schwartz’s mouth were, “How’s Laya Adinah bas Chaya Esther?” My wife’s Hebrew name — as well as my mother-in-law’s — was on the tip of his tongue. Not only was Rav Schwartz thinking of my wife throughout that challenging time, but he was letting me know that he was Davening for her as well. I cannot begin to describe how much that meant (and continues to mean) to Layala and me.
5. I once turned to Rav Schwartz for guidance with an extremely sensitive situation involving a Jewish man who had married a non-Jewish woman. In the course of conversation, Rav Schwartz taught me an important lesson I will never forget. In asking my question, I had initially used the word ‘Shiksah’ in referring to the the gentile spouse. Rav Schwartz stopped me and said that such language is not refined, and is not appropriate for anyone — especially a rabbi — to use. He went on to explain that the term ‘Shiksah’ has a derogatory connotation, and that is why it never appears in any rabbinic responsa literature. Instead, non-disparaging terms like ‘Nochris’ or ‘Goya’ are always used. Rav Schwartz told me that moving forward, I should use those terms as well. I sincerely thanked him for sharing his advice, and have made a conscious effort to remove ‘Shiksah’ from my vocabulary ever since. (Each year, I make a point of sharing this lesson with my high school students as well.)

Unfortunately, the notes of my conversations with Rav Schwartz end in May 2016. That was when the CRC membership received an email informing us that sadly, our beloved Av Beis Din, Posek, teacher, and role model had suffered a debilitating stroke while leading a Daf Yomi Shiur. In the years that followed, I would regularly mail Rav Schwartz cards and hand-written notes. However, that fateful stroke put an end to the phone conversations which I had valued so greatly. (During a quick trip to Chicago in November of 2016, I was able to visit Rav Schwartz at his home. Though my visit was short, I found much meaning in it. I truly envy all the CRC members living in Chicago who were able to regularly visit Rav Schwartz over the past four years.)

Looking back, there are so many matters I would have loved to discuss with Rav Schwartz since the last time I reached him by phone at his CRC office in 2016. Sadly, that was not meant to be.

In reflecting on the interactions I feel privileged to have had with Rav Schwartz I realize something unique about him. Whenever I spoke with him, I gained more than just additional Torah knowledge and the guidance he so generously offered. I always departed (or hung up the phone) feeling I was a better person than I had been before our conversation began. In his very humble — yet noble — manner, Rav Schwartz had a way of elevating and bringing out the best in others. Interacting with Rav Schwartz was an uplifting opportunity for self growth — one that I and so many others wish we could experience again.

_________________________

Rabbi Akiva Males is privileged to serve Young Israel of Memphis as its rabbi, and also teach Torah at the Margolin Hebrew Academy — Finestone Yeshiva of the South. He can be reached at rabbi@yiom.org

Anim Zemiros – A Poem for All Ages

By Rabbi Elchanan Adler

Feldheim Publishers, New York, 2020, 192 pages

Reviewed by Myron Wakschlag

Rabbi Myron Wakschlag is a musmach of Rav Ahron Soloveichik zt”l at Yeshivas Brisk of Chicago, and is currently an IT executive in the Washington, DC area. He has researched and published on the early Orthodox rabbinate in America.

It is rare to find a book that is able to successfully illuminate a complex topic, yet still remain captivating and easily accessible. Rabbi Elchanan Adler’s new sefer on Anim Zemiros is just such a book. While Anim Zemiros is familiar to most people, its contents remain largely enigmatic due to its challenging Hebrew terminology and its esoteric meaning. Rabbi Adler has opened up new pathways that enable the reader to unlock both the simple meaning and the profound concepts lying beneath the surface of the text.

In this beautiful volume, Rabbi Adler notes how each stanza of Anim Zemiros is based on specific verses from Tanach or Talmudic/Midrashic passages. This itself is a valuable tool that sheds light on the underpinnings of the text. But the real strength of the book is in its ability to be megaleh amukos, to uncover the deep hidden beauty of the poem and make it accessible to the average reader untrained in the analysis of medieval liturgical poems. Rabbi Adler’s analysis weaves together explanations offered by traditional sources with his own fascinating insights. Rabbi Adler, an esteemed Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary for over 20 years, is an erudite scholar and master teacher who has an unusual gift for presenting difficult material in a way that is easy to understand.

The sefer begins with an overview that describes the origin of the formal name Shir HaKavod, the authorship and dating of the work, the origins of its inclusion in the liturgy, and the manner in which it is recited in the synagogue. It then transitions into an analysis of the overall themes, structure, and style of the text, including many interesting observations about the common ideas that are expressed within each section, and numerical allusions that emerge from the text. The next section transitions into the essence of the book, which comprises a textual analysis of each stanza, offering unique insights, explanations, interpretations, and suggestions to explicate the poem based on the full range of rabbinic literature. While it is not an exhaustive treatment of every word in the poem, Rabbi Adler’s choice of what to include helps to capture and hold the reader’s interest.

The book is valuable on many levels. In addition to its primary objective of elucidating both the plain and hidden meaning behind Anim Zemiros, a careful reading of the book allows the reader to acquire a methodology for analyzing piyyutim. Determining exactly what the author of Anim Zemiros meant to convey and what messages he buried beneath the surface is much like solving a mystery. Rabbi Adler employs many analytical tools to uncover the clues and piece together the various threads. It is enlightening to study the manner in which he carefully examines the text to identify nuances and different shades of meaning based on the poem’s rhythm, meter, textual variances, word roots, grammar, alternative translations, vowelization, allegory, and symbolism. He also often adduces prooftexts from Tanach, and contrasts the opinions of the various early and later commentaries to suggest various possibilities in the text. Utilizing this methodology, Rabbi Adler is able to “connect the dots” and uncover the concealed gems that are impossible to discern at first glance.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Rabbi Adler, not only for giving me a much greater understanding of the magnificence of Anim Zemiros and its prominent place in our liturgy, but also for imparting his approach to analyzing piyyutim and understanding their significance. He has given me a derech to better appreciate medieval liturgical poems in general, and has also provided me with the tools to be able to analyze them on my own.

On the History of the Custom to Announce Upcoming Fasts in the Synagogue on the Shabbat Preceding the Fasts

By Ezer Diena

About the author: Ezer Diena teaches Science and Judaics at Bnei Akiva Schools of Toronto. After studying at Yeshivas Toras Moshe for two years, Ezer received his B.Sc. in Chemistry and B.Ed. from York University.  He then joined Beit Midrash Zichron Dov of Toronto, where he studied for two years while serving as Rabbinic Assistant at BAYT and teaching in the Toronto and Thornhill communities. He welcomes any comments or feedback at ediena@torontotorah.com

Part 1: The sources of this custom

Many communities have the custom to make some type of announcement¹ of a fast day on the Shabbat preceding it. In what is likely the best-known version of this custom, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 550:4) writes:

:(בשבת קודם לצום מכריז שליח צבור הצום חוץ מט”ב וצום כפור וצום פורים וסימנך אכ”ף עליו פיהו² (ומנהג האשכנזים שלא להכריז שום אחד מהם

On the Shabbat prior to a fast, the Shaliach Tzibbur announces the [upcoming] fast, except for the 9^th of Av, the fast of Kippur, and the fast of Purim [i.e. Ta’anit Esther], and the mnemonic for this is “AKaF alav pihu” [A = Av, K = Kippur, F = Purim] (Mishlei 16:26). Rema:³ And the custom of the Ashkenazim is not to announce any of them.

While the source of Shulchan Aruch’s formulation of the custom to announce fasts on the Shabbat prior is Abudarham⁴, this custom is described in a number of early sources. Two sources cited in support of this custom appear to be from Geonic times⁵, while another seven major sources span the first half of the second millennium. The Hebrew and English text of these nine sources, along with minimal analysis, follows:

Masechet Soferim (no later than 8^th Century CE)

In standard printings of Masechet Soferim, Chapter 21 Halacha 3⁶ references a custom that some individuals had to fast on Monday(s) and Thursday towards the end of the month of Nissan.⁷ The next passage⁸ reads

.במה דברים אמורים בצינעה, אבל לקרוא צום בציבור אסור, עד שיעבור ניסן

When is the above said? [When the fasting is done] privately, but to call a fast in public is prohibited, until Nissan has passed.

Rabbi Dr. Michael Higger (in his critical edition of Masechet Soferim, Volume II, p. 354, notes to line 13) notes no less than four other versions of the words that appear in the place of לקרוא צום בציבור, to call a fast in public: להטריח ציבור, to burden the community; להכריז צום בציבור, to announce a fast in public; להזכיר צום בציבור, to mention a fast in public; and להדין צום בציבור, to rule (?) a public fast. (Note as well that some of the versions lack the word צום, fast, but their meaning likely remains the same.)

Some commentaries to Masechet Soferim⁹ have therefore suggested that this line references this custom to announce fasts on the preceding Shabbat. While it is indeed the custom of many communities, even now, to recite a Mi Sheberach blessing on the first Shabbatot following Rosh Chodesh Iyar and Cheshvan for those who fast the Monday/Thursday/Monday fasts following Nissan and Tishrei,¹⁰ this does not seem to be the simple meaning of this passage of Masechet Soferim, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the passage in Masechet Soferim makes no mention of Shabbat, unlike all of the other sources discussing this custom. Secondly, it seems to be discussing the nature of the fast day itself as a fast of an individual, as opposed to the fast of the public. Thirdly, similar wording is used by Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 429:2) to describe the prohibition of fasting during the month of Nissan, and the overwhelming majority of commentaries¹¹ explain this phrase to refer to the act of public fasting, having nothing to do with an announcement on the Shabbat preceding the fast.¹²

A more plausible explanation¹³ of this passage in Masechet Soferim would be that this refers to the public display of fast day rituals, such as reading the Torah portion associated with a public fast day, or that there was some announcement of the fast to the public, but had nothing to do with the Shabbat preceding the fast.

In conclusion, there is no evidence from this passage in Masechet Soferim to suggest that the its author was aware of a custom to announce fast days in the synagogue on the Shabbat preceding.

Seder Rav Amram Gaon (9^th Century CE)

Another early source supporting the custom of announcing fasts on Shabbat may be Seder Rav Amram Gaon. In Seder Hilchot Ta’aniyot (usually indicated as Section 57), some editions¹⁴ of this work contain the following paragraph:

ונהגו בכל המקומות שמכריז ש”ץ בשבת קודם התענית ואומר צום פלוני ביום פלוני שיהפוך אותו הקב”ה עלינו ועל כל עמו ישראל לששון ולשמחה. ככתוב. כה אמר ה’ צבאות צום הרביעי וצום החמישי וצום השביעי וצום העשירי יהיו לבית יהודה לששון ולשמחה ולמועדים טובים והאמת והשלום אהבו. תענית של צום הרביעי י”ז בתמוז, צום החמישי ט’ באב, וצום השביעי ג’ בתשרי, צום העשירי עשרה בטבת

It is the custom in all communities that the Shaliach Tzibbur announces on Shabbat before the fast and says “the fast Ploni will [take place] on the day Ploni, may Hakadosh Baruch Hu transform it for us and for His entire nation of Israel to gladness and happiness.” As it is written: “Thus said the LORD of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah; but you must love honesty and integrity.” (JPS 1985 translation of Zechariah 8:19) The fast of Tzom Harevi’i is the 17^th of Tammuz, Tzom Hachamishi is the 9^th of Av, and Tzom Hashevi’i is the 3^rd of Tishrei, [and] Tzom Ha’asiri is the 10^th of Tevet.¹⁵

Unfortunately, this passage is not authentic. In addition to language that does not seem to fit the rest of the work¹⁶, it appears only in Manuscript Aleph (Oxford Bodleian Library Opp. Add. 4⁰28) of this work, a manuscript known for many later interpolations based on French customs.¹⁷ Also, if such a custom was so widespread at that time, one would expect other evidence from approximately the same time period or earlier, which, if extant, has eluded this author entirely. Indeed, Professor Daniel Goldschmidt treats this section as a later addition in his edition of Seder Rav Amram Gaon.¹⁸ Therefore, it is significant as testimony to the custom in France in the 1400s, but not as a report from 500-odd years prior in a different part of the world.

Machzor Vitry (11^th-12^th Century CE)

Standard printings of the Machzor Vitry (Section 190), a French work composed around 1100 CE,¹⁹ read as follows:

וכשחל תענית כתוב בשבת הבאה יאמר הכי: מי שעשה כו’. עד לירושלם עיר הקודש ונאמר אמן. צום פלוני יום פלוני זה הבא עלינו יהפכהו הק’ לנו ולכל ישר’ לששון ולשמחה ולברכה ולשלום ונאמר אמן. ככת’ כה אמר י”י צום הרביעי צום החמישי צום השביעי וצום העשירי יהיה לבית יהודה לששון ולשמחה ולמועדים טובים האמת והשלום אהבו

When a “written fast” falls in the coming week, he should say as follows: “He who did…” until “to Yerushalaim, the holy city, and we say ‘Amen’!” [This text is found in the previous section as part of the prayer recited on the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh.] “The fast of Ploni is on this day, Ploni, which is approaching. May Hakadosh Baruch Hu transform it for us and all of Israel to gladness and happiness and blessing and peace, and we say ‘Amen’!” As it is written, “Thus said the LORD of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah; but you must love honesty and integrity.” (JPS 1985 translation of Zechariah 8:19)

Although there are various manuscripts of Machzor Vitry, and many of them have slightly different readings, the passage is considered entirely authentic. The details of this retelling of the custom, as well those which follow, will be analyzed at length later in this piece, and are brought here as a form of introduction, as well as if the reader would like to reference the full texts during other portions of this article.

Sefer Eitz Chaim (13^th Century CE)

Rabbi Yaakov Ben Yehudah Chazzan lived in London in the 1200s, and produced a Halachic work called Eitz Chaim.²⁰ Page 109 of the Brody Edition reads:

כשיארע צום²¹ לשבוע יאמר: צום פלוני יהיה יום פלוני, יהפכהו הקב”ה עלינו ועל כל ישראל לששון ולשמחה ולמועדים טובים, לריוח והצלה והצלחה, לברכה ושלום ונאמר אמן, כאמור: כה אמר יי [צבאות] צום הרביעי צום החמישי צום השביעי וצום העשירי יהיה לבית יהודה לששון ולשמחה ולמועדים טובים האמת והשלום אהבו

When a fast will fall in the week, he should say: “The fast of Ploni will be the day of Ploni, may Hakadosh Baruch Hu transform it for us and all of Israel to gladness and happiness and holidays, relief, deliverance and success, blessing and peace, and we say ‘Amen’!” As is said, “Thus said the LORD of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah; but you must love honesty and integrity.” (JPS 1985 translation of Zechariah 8:19)

Kol Bo (13^th-14^th Century CE)

In an anonymous halachic work from around 1300, often attributed to Rabbi Aharon Ben Yaakov Hakohen²², we find the following in Hilchot Tefillat Yotzer Umussaf, Chapter 37:

.ועל ד’ הצומות שהן י”ז בתמוז וט’ באב וצום גדליה ועשרה בטבת מכריז בשבת שלפניהן ואומרים צום פלוני יהיה יום פלוני וכו’, אבל²³ אין מכריזין על ט’ באב ועל צום גדליה²⁴ לפי שהם ידועים לכל

On the four fasts, which are the 17^th of Tammuz, the 9^th of Av, the fast of Gedaliah, and the 10^th of Tevet, he announces on the Shabbat prior to them, and they say: “The fast of Ploni will be on the day of Ploni…”. But we do not announce on the 9^th of Av and the fast of Gedaliah, since they are known to all.

Orchot Chaim (13^th-14^th Century CE)

Standard printings of Orchot Chaim, an early 14^th Century work by Rabbi Aharon Ben Yaakov Hakohen²⁵ (Volume I, Seder Tefillat Shabbat – Shacharit, Section 8) read:

ועל ד’ הצומות שהן י”ז בתמוז וט’ באב וצום גדליה וי’ בטבת מכריז בשבת שלפניהם צום פלוני יהיה יום פלוני וכו’²⁶ ועל ט’ באב וצום גדליה י”א שאין מכריזין עליהם לפי שהן ידועים לכל.²⁷

On the four fasts, which are the 17^th of Tammuz, the 9^th of Av, the fast of Gedaliah, and the 10^th of Tevet, he announces on the Shabbat prior to them: “The fast of Ploni will be on the day of Ploni…”. [Regarding] the 9^th of Av and the fast of Gedaliah, some say that we do not announce them, since they are known to all.

Sefer Mitzvot Zemaniyot (13^th-14^th Century CE)

Rabbi Yisrael Ben Yosef Hayisraeli of Toledo, Spain, authored an Arabic work known as Sefer Mitzvot Zemaniyot around the beginning of the 14^th Century. It was translated into Hebrew not long after his death by Shem Tov Ben Yitzchak Ardotial, and that translation alone remains.²⁸ In his Hilchot Ta’aniyot, he writes:

וצריך להזהר בהם ולהזכירם ש”ץ ביום השבת הקודם אחר ההפטרה קודם שיאמר אשרי “אחינו ישראל [שמעו] צום פלוני יום פלוני. יהפוך אותו לנו²⁹ הקב”ה לנו לששון ולשמחה, כמו שהבטיחנו בנחמות, ונאמר אמן”. והענין לזה, כדי שיקבלו עליהם הצבור קודם בואו. כי אם לא יקבלוהו ולא כיונו בו אלא אחרי בואו, יקרא תענית שעות, שאינו יום צום אלא מעת שכיון לקבלו עד תשלום היום. ואמרו אין מתענין לשעות. ואמרו עוד כל תענית שלא קבלו עליו מבעוד יום לא שמיה תענית.

One needs to be careful about them and the Shaliach Tzibbur should announce them on Shabbat Day after the haftarah before he says “Ashrei”: “Our brothers, Israel, hear: The fast of Ploni is on the day of Ploni. May Hakadosh Baruch Hu transform it for us to gladness and happiness, as he promised us in the consolations, and we say “Amen”!” The purpose of this, is so the community accepts [the fast] upon themselves before it arrives. For if they do not accept it, and only focus upon it after it arrives, it will be called a Ta’anit Sha’ot [fast of hours], which is [only considered] a day of fasting from the time that he intended to accept it until the completion of the day. And they said (Ta’anit 11b): “[One] does not fast for hours.” They also said (Ta’anit 12a): “Any fast which they did not accept while it was still [the previous] day is not considered a fast.”

Although he lived in Spain, he was tremendously influenced by Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel (Rosh), who had lived in and travelled through various Ashkenazic communities before settling in Spain in 1306. Thus, this work may reflect an Ashkenazic custom, albeit one that may have become accepted in Spain at that time. It is also imperative to note that scholars have documented the influence of this work on the next two works listed, Sefer Abudarham and Sefer Menorat Hama’or.³⁰

Sefer Abudarham (14^th Century CE)

As mentioned above, Sefer Abudarham, a classic 14^th Century Spanish liturgical work,³¹ served as the source for Shulchan Aruch’s ruling on this matter. The original text, found in printed versions of Sefer Abudarham (Seder Tefillat Hata’aniyot), reads:

ובשבת שקודם להם אחר קריאת ההפטורה קודם אשרי צריך שיכריז שליח צבור ולהודיע לקהל באיזה יום יחול הצום ואומר אחינו ישראל שמעו צום פלוני יום פלוני יהפוך אותו הקב”ה לששון ולשמחה כמו שהבטיחנו בנחמות ונאמר אמן. וג’ תעניות אין מכריזין עליהם ט’ באב יום הכיפורים ופורים וסימניך אכ”ף.³²

And on the Shabbat before them, following the reading of the Haftarah, prior to Ashrei, the Shaliach Tzibbur must announce and notify the congregation on which day the fast falls, and he says: “Our brothers, Israel, hear: The fast of Ploni is on the day of Ploni. May Hakadosh Baruch Hu transform it to gladness and happiness, as he promised us in the consolations, and we say “Amen”!” There are three fasts which we do not announce [the date of]: The 9^th of Av, Yom Hakippurim, and Purim, and the mnemonic is AKaF [A = Av, K = Kippur, F = Purim].

Sefer Menorat Hamaor (Rabbi Yisrael Al-nakawa; 14^th Century CE)

Finally, at approximately the same time and place as Sefer Abudarham was written, Sefer Menorat Hama’or, a chiefly ethical work by Rabbi Yisrael Al-nakawa, was also composed.³³ Standard printings of Chapter 2 of the book, entitled Hilchot Hata’aniyot (p.p.278-279 in the Anlau Edition), contain the following passage, in the context of formally accepting the “minor fasts”:

…ולפי’ נהגו להכריז ש”צ ביום השבת שהתענית חל להיות באותו שבוע הבאה אחריו. ואומר, אחינו ישראל שמעו, צום פלוני ביום פלוני, יהפוך אותו הב”ה לששון ולשמחה, כמו שהבטיחנו בנחמות, ונאמר אמן. כדי שיקבלוהו הקהל עליהם קודם שיחול, לפי שאין רובם בקיאים לקבל אותו עליהם מבעוד יום בתפלת המנחה, כמו שאמרתי.

…therefore, they have the custom that the Shaliach Tzibbur announces the fast on the Shabbat Day on which the fast falls in the week which follows it. And he says: “Our brothers, Israel, hear: The fast of Ploni is on the day of Ploni. May Hakadosh Baruch Hu transform it to gladness and happiness, as he promised us in the consolations, and we say “Amen”!” [This is done] in order that the congregation should accept it upon themselves before it arrives, since most of them are not expert enough to accept it while it is still daytime [before the fast] during the Mincha prayer, as I said.

To sum up the history of this custom, we see that it arose sometime near the start of the Second Millennium CE and was reported to be the custom of French Ashkenazic communities for at least the next few hundred years. We also see it in a distinct group of Spanish sources in the 1300s, which may have been influenced by Ashkenazic rabbis who either emigrated to Spain or were well-known in Spain, causing this to become common practice in those Sephardic communities. In the 1400s and 1500s, it appears that this custom was strong in certain Sephardic communities (especially Spanish ones), and possibly still in French communities, but virtually nonexistent in many Ashkenazic communities.

Following the dissemination of the rulings of Rabbi Yoseph Karo and Rabbi Moshe Isserles in the Shulchan Aruch and Mappah, we see significant adoption of this custom by communities that tended to follow Sephardic customs, and strong rejection of the custom by Ashkenazic communities across Europe. Ashkenazic codes of law from this point on either rejected this custom (which may be evidence that it was known to them, possibly via the ruling in Shulchan Aruch), or failed to mention it altogether, since it was not practiced.³⁴ However, we see evidence of adoption of this custom among Yemenite Jews,³⁵ Egyptian Jews,³⁶ and Italian Jews.³⁷

Part 2: Approaches to this custom

In order to properly understand this custom, we must ask the following questions:³⁸

1. What benefit might there be to people to announce a fast day on the Shabbat beforehand, and why would someone initiate such a custom?
2. Why might some communities not have adopted this custom or disagreed with it?
3. How do these reason(s) fit in with various details of the custom, as indicated in the sources noted above, including:
   1. the language of the announcement?
   2. the placement of the announcement in the prayer service?
   3. the dates which some communities do not announce?

In answering these questions, we find three distinct conceptual approaches³⁹ to this custom, which will be outlined below. Each of these approaches finds support among the various details of this custom, as mentioned in the sources introduced above. However, rather than attempt to assign these understandings to various authorities, this article presents the general approaches and incorporates appropriate material from the primary sources. Assigning a particular approach to each source is inappropriate, since they do not fully reflect exactly how that author may have understood the custom, but rather, how it was being practiced in that locale at that time.

Approach #1: Informing the Community

Perhaps the simplest way to explain this prayer and custom is that it serves as a method of alerting the community to an upcoming fast day.⁴⁰ The custom may have begun simply by necessity – members of a particular community may have not been fully aware of upcoming fast days, and as a result, it could have been decided by the community leaders that an announcement on Shabbat would be most effective to share this information with the community. Notably, around the times which we see this custom first being mentioned, there is reason to believe that there were more participants in the Shabbat prayer service than at other weekday services,⁴¹ and in addition, it provides significant time to prepare for the fast, which could be no earlier than the following day.⁴²

One could further conjecture that in communities where the fasts were communicated otherwise, or where the general population was more aware of such dates, this announcement was simply unnecessary. Alternatively, even if there were more communities that would have benefitted from a public declaration about the upcoming fast, it is possible that while some communities incorporated this into their prayer service, others may have felt it unnecessary or inappropriate.

Such an approach is primarily taken by Abudarham⁴³, who adds the words ולהודיע לקהל, emphasizing the element of announcement. (Truthfully, it is hard to reject this reading of virtually any source that mentions this custom.) If so, the words “אחינו ישראל שמעו⁴⁴, צום פלוני [ב]יום פלוני”, serve as a crucial part of the announcement, as they serve the main goal of passing this information on to the congregation. This would also explain the proximity of this prayer to the similar announcement of when Rosh Chodesh will take place the following week.⁴⁵

Commentaries to Shulchan Aruch that take this position are quite limited.⁴⁶ One example is Kaf Hachaim (Orach Chaim 550:24), who cites the language of Sefer Abudarham, and in 550:26, he also cites Yafeh Lalev (Volume III, Orach Chaim 550:2), who in turn cites Orchot Chaim’s language (brought above). Since Orchot Chaim writes that according to some, we do not announce the fasts of the 9^th of Av and Tzom Gedaliah “because they are known to all”, many understand this phrase to reflect an understanding that the purpose of the announcement is to make these dates known to all.⁴⁷ This would be true of the passage in Kol Bo as well, which also gives that rationale without citing another view. Similarly, in Sefer Abudarham (and Shulchan Aruch), three dates are given on which we do not announce the fast on the preceding Shabbat. Yom Kippur and the 9^th of Av were likely well-known, and did not need to be announced, and the Fast of Purim (Ta’anit Esther) need not be announced due to its proximity to Purim.⁴⁸ However, it would be hard to understand why Tzom Gedaliah, which immediately follows Rosh Hashanah, would not fall into this category as well.⁴⁹

Of particular interest⁵⁰ to those who follow this approach is the custom in Egypt. Sefer Minhagei Mitzrayim (authored by Rabbi Yom Tov Ben Eliyahu Shirizali, Rabbi of Cairo in the mid-late 1800s; note 55) testifies that the custom in Egypt was not to announce any of the fasts. However, his successor Rabbi Rafael Aharon Ben-Shimon, in Sefer Nehar Mitzrayim (Hilchot Ta’aniyot 1) spoke very harshly against the custom of not announcing these fasts, since he was personally aware of complaints from G-d-fearing Jews who had unintentionally eaten on the 17^th of Tammuz, and he re-instituted this custom in accordance with the view of Shulchan Aruch.⁵¹

Notably, a recent authority that takes this approach is Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. In Kol Tzofayich (Balak 5761), p. 3, he advocates that even in communities that do not have this custom, on the Shabbat preceding the fast, the Gabbai should announce the date on which the fast falls, as well as the start and end times for the fast.⁵²

Approach #2: A Prayer

It is quite clear that the actual text of this addition to the Shabbat morning services contains two major components:

1. An announcement of when the fast will be taking place
2. A prayer that Hashem turn it into a day of happiness

When examining the various versions of this passage and the way it is described, one can see different emphases on each of these components. For example, in Orchot Chaim’s version, which reads “צום פלוני יהיה יום פלוני וכו’”, the only text mentioned outright is the announcement of the fast, although it is clear that some form of prayer was recited, since he includes וכו’, or “etc.” at the end of his statement. Thus, one would presume that the main focus of this addition is to alert the community to the upcoming fast, but we take the opportunity to also request from Hashem that these days be turned into happy occasions.⁵³

In a second set of texts, we find the second component, the prayer, clearly written following the announcement, but it tends to be fairly short. For example, Sefer Abudarham has “יהפוך אותו הקב”ה לששון ולשמחה כמו שהבטיחנו בנחמות ונאמר אמן”.

In Machzor Vitry, we find two interesting changes. Firstly, prior to the actual announcement, there is an opening prayer which matches the opening prayer recited before the announcement of Rosh Chodesh. Secondly (and this is found in various early French records⁵⁴), it concludes with a citation of the verse in Zechariah (8:19) that these days will be transformed into happy occasions. It cannot be determined if this verse was actually recited as part of the prayer at the time that these texts were written, or if the verse was printed following this prayer to explain it,⁵⁵ but it clearly demonstrates a strong connection to the consolation of that verse. Additionally, in Machzor Vitry as well as Sefer Eitz Chaim, the list of blessings that we pray for is significantly longer than in other sources.

Furthermore, in Machzor Vitry we find an odd phrase – it refers to each fast that we recite this before as a “תענית כתוב”, a written fast. Different interpretations have been proposed,⁵⁶ one of which is that this phrase refers to those fasts enumerated in Zechariah 8:19.⁵⁷ What criterion would be only applicable to those four fast fasts, and why refer to it in this strange way? Perhaps the emphasis of Machzor Vitry was on the fact that these four fasts are enumerated in a verse which explicitly states that they will be turned into days of happiness, which according to him, would be the main purpose of this passage and custom.⁵⁸

In addition to the above, many versions of Machzor Vitry omit the day of the week on which the fast will fall.⁵⁹ This too serves to deemphasize the notion that this section was added to remind others of an impending fast, and perhaps further emphasizes the role of this addition primarily as a prayer.

Additionally, another text can be called upon to support this notion that the primary reason for adding this section was to pray for a reversal from sadness to happiness. Kol Bo’s language about this custom appears to be internally contradictory. It opens saying that on each of the four fasts listed in Zechariah, the fast should be announced, and the prayer text should be recited. He then writes that Tzom Gedaliah and Tish’a B’av should not be announced. Why would he open by stating that we do announce those fasts, and one line later, write that we don’t?⁶⁰

Perhaps this contradiction can be resolved by noting a slight difference between the language of Orchot Chaim and that of Kol Bo.⁶¹ Kol Bo adds the word ואומרים, and they say, prior to the passage recited in the synagogue. Thus, Kol Bo opens with a statement that on these four fasts: a) one individual announces the fast to the congregation, and b) the community recites the following prayer text. Kol Bo continues by noting that on two of the aforementioned fast days, the announcement is not made, but it is possible that the prayer is still recited.⁶² In Orchot Chaim, however, the prayer recited is the same as the announcement, and thus, it is brought as two separate opinions as to whether the announcement/recitation takes place at all.

This suggests that the Kol Bo distinguishes between the announcement element and the prayer element of this passage, and according to him, although the announcement is recited only prior to the 17^th of Tammuz and 10^th of Tevet, the prayer is recited prior to each of the four fasts listed in the verse, which would also seem to indicate that its primary purpose was to ask G-d for this reversal.

If the main or sole purpose of this addition to the Shabbat morning service would be for prayer, its placement within the prayer service (as opposed to before or after, or at a completely separate time) is quite appropriate. The parallel to the mention of Rosh Chodesh, which is also surrounded by prayers for a successful month, is very easy to understand. However, as stated above, this view is limited in regards to the applicable dates on the Jewish calendar, since according to this view, the most appropriate fast day to ask for a reversal of would be the 9^th of Av, yet, many sources, including Shulchan Aruch, designate that day as one that we do not recite this passage on the Shabbat prior.⁶³ Additionally, it is hard to understand the opposition to this custom – why wouldn’t other communities have followed this custom as well?

Although there is no certain answer to this question, there are two factors worth noting:

1. If one were to view the passage announcing the upcoming Rosh Chodesh as fulfilling a different role than a prayer for the future, this passage seems out of place. If some Ashkenazic authorities viewed the Birkat Hachodesh as either an announcement or as some ritualistic acceptance of the new month,⁶⁴ they may have felt it inappropriate to add another section to the prayers which did not serve that same purpose.
2. There is a general hesitancy to mention sad things on Shabbat;⁶⁵ some have suggested that the rejection of this custom was in line with this ethic.⁶⁶ Indeed, there were even communities that did not recite the general Rosh Chodesh passage during the month of Av, due to its negative nature, so as not to bring that up on Shabbat.⁶⁷

While this view that this addition to the service serves primarily as a prayer is not explicitly mentioned by commentaries to the Shulchan Aruch, nor almost any writers,⁶⁸ it is clear that there is certainly an element of prayer according to all views of this custom, and that it may indeed be the main purpose of the custom according to some of the authorities that we brought above.

Approach #3a: An Informal Acceptance

The final general approach brought here is the one that has been most discussed in previous sources. In particular, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber’s article on the topic mainly addresses this approach, and the classic commentaries on Shulchan Aruch who take note of this custom (in this case, Be’ur Hagra to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 550:4 and, following in Gra’s footsteps, Aruch Hashulchan (Orach Chaim 550:4) also follow this approach.⁶⁹ However, as we will see, there is much material on this topic that has not yet been addressed, and therefore, it would be best to present the following spectrum of views within this approach, ranging from a wholly unofficial and non-halachic acceptance of the fast, to an extremely formal and legally valid acceptance of the fast.

On the less-formal side of things, Be’ur Hagra suggests that as per Talmud Bavli Rosh Hashanah 18a, the status of the fasts listed in Zechariah (likely excluding Tish’a B’av) depends on the situation of the Jewish people at that time. As the Talmud states there:

.אין גזרת המלכות ואין שלום רצו מתענין רצו אין מתענין

At a time where there is no decree of the kingdom and no peace, if they wish to fast, they should fast, and if they don’t wish to fast, they should not.”⁷⁰

Based on one opinion⁷¹ that nowadays (assuming there is no persecution), or at the very least, several hundred years ago, when this custom first appeared, the status of these three⁷² fast days was still in the hands of the people, an announcement on the Shabbat beforehand was a form of “accepting” the fast as a community by declaring that the community wishes to fast. According to this approach, those who disagree with the institution of this custom believe that these fasts have already been formalized, and they are no longer dependent on community will at all.⁷³

This approach does well in explaining the exclusion of Yom Kippur and the 9^th of Av, since they have a status of being completely established,⁷⁴ and do not require the will of the community to take effect. However, the exclusion of Ta’anit Esther is somewhat perplexing. Although it is certainly not included in the list of fasts that depend on community will, it doesn’t seem to be particularly established, especially when we contrast other halachot of the day. This led Gra to suggest that Shulchan Aruch was of the opinion that Ta’anit Esther is considered to be established in our day, that just as the Jewish people fasted as a community on the 13^th of Adar, we too continue to fast each year. This is in line with Esther 9:31, as applied in Rambam Hilchot Ta’aniyot 5:5.⁷⁵ On the other hand, based on Rema (Orach Chaim 684:2), Sperber suggested that Ta’anit Esther was simply a weak custom, and not obligatory to fast on at all,⁷⁶ which is why it was excluded from this list.

This approach, while initially appealing, has several issues. Firstly, it is impossible to suggest this as a plausible understanding of Sefer Abudarham, the source of Shulchan Aruch, since he brings the view of Ramban that the fasts are considered absolutely obligatory and not subject to communal approval, without bringing a dissenting view. Thus, to suggest that those who support announcing the fast must disagree with Ramban would be a clear contradiction. Furthermore, a number of commentaries⁷⁷ (possibly including Gra himself) understand that Shulchan Aruch also follows Ramban’s view, in which case Shulchan Aruch would also be subject to this contradiction.⁷⁸

Addition issues are the lack of a clear parallel to the Rosh Chodesh announcement⁷⁹, as well as language that doesn’t seem to indicate any sort of acceptance⁸⁰.

Approach #3b: A formal acceptance

Many descriptions of this custom are very consistent in presenting it as a form of acceptance. Sefer Mitzvot Zemaniyot makes extensive reference to the possibility of this addition being an acceptance of the fast, and earlier in his Hilchot Ta’anit, he mentions that only the 9^th of Av has status as a public fast day, unlike the other fasts. Sefer Menorat Hamaor, earlier in his Hilchot Hata’aniyot is also explicit that each individual must accept these fasts for them to be considered binding. One could certainly argue that the purpose of the announcement is to remind people to accept the fast individually, but it seems more likely that these sources viewed the mention on the Shabbat prior to be some sort of acceptance. It is also worth mentioning that this may be a more formal and individualized type of acceptance than what Gra and Sperber were referring to.

(It is also interesting to note the placement of this halacha in the various works which refer to it. In general, although it is not absolute, it seems that those authorities who place it in the Shabbat section⁸¹ tend to view it more as a prayer or announcement than an acceptance, whereas others who place it in the laws of fast days⁸² may view it as more of a formal acceptance.)

The question which must be posed for the adherents to this approach is by what mechanism mentioning a fast on the Shabbat prior is considered acceptance of a fast. For Mitzvot Zemaniyot (and possibly Menorat Hama’or), who view those fasts as optional, one would expect a halachically-binding acceptance.

Firstly, regarding the time gap that may occur between Shabbat and the actual fast day, it is possible that the acceptance is binding even a number of days prior to the fast. Interestingly, this halacha is derived by Ra’avyah (Ta’aniyot 857; also cited in Mordechai Ta’anit Remez 624 and Or Zaru’a Volume II, Hilchot Ta’anit 404) from the Mi Sheberach blessing of those who accept the fasts of Bahab (Monday-Thursday-Monday) around the time that the Torah is returned to the Aron on Shabbat morning on the Shabbat preceding those fats. Ra’avyah notes that if an individual answers Amen to this blessing and intends to fast on those days, they do not need an additional acceptance of the fast. Ra’avyah contends that despite the disagreement found in the Talmud (Ta’anit 12a) between Rav and Shemuel as to whether the fast must be accepted during the Mincha prayer, or simply at Mincha time, they would both agree that an agreement on the Shabbat before would be binding.⁸³ While to lay out the specific details of accepting fasts according to all authorities is far beyond the scope of this article, it is still our custom to accept the Bahab fasts by answering to the Mi Sheberach on the Shabbat preceding, which means that practically speaking, we follow Mordechai. Nevertheless, Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 563:1 (based on Tur Orach Chaim 563 and Rosh Ta’anit 1:13) clearly implies that accepting a fast prior to Mincha-time on the day before the fast is insignificant, and that one would not need to fast if they accepted the fast earlier.⁸⁴

Secondly, as to whether an announcement may serve as a formal acceptance of the fast, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 562:12) writes:

תענית שגוזרים על הצבור אין כל יחיד צריך לקבלו בתפלת המנחה, אלא שליח צבור מכריז התענית והרי הוא מקובל. ויש אומרים דהני מילי בארץ ישראל שהיה להם נשיא, לפי שגזרתו קיימת על כל ישראל, אבל בחוצה לארץ צריכים כל הצבור לקבל על עצמם כיחידים, שכל אחד מקבל על עצמו

A fast that they decree on the public, each individual does not need to accept it during the Mincha prayer, rather, the Shaliach Tzibbur announces the fast⁸⁵, and it is accepted. And some say, that this was stated [only about] the land of Israel where they have a Nasi, since his decree is binding upon all of Israel, but in the diaspora, the entire community needs to accept the fast upon themselves as individuals, in that each [person] accepts it upon themselves.

It appears that this pronouncement of the community establishes the fast as a communal fast, which does not require any acceptance from anyone – they all must fast regardless.

If we follow the earlier view that the fasts of the 10^th of Tevet, 17^th of Tammuz and Tzom Gedaliah are still dependent on communal will, such an announcement might be required in order to formalize the fast. Such a view is ascribed by Sperber to Tur.⁸⁶ However, one could argue that the purpose of the announcement here is to create a fast which would otherwise not exist, but for these established fasts, there is no such need. This position is explicitly taken by a number of authorities.⁸⁷ Furthermore, even if there is a need to announce these fasts as a form of acceptance, as noted above, according to the second view in Shulchan Aruch, it is ineffective, so this seems to be a weak basis for announcing the fast. However, it is possible that it may be effective at continuing the custom of generations past to fast on this date,⁸⁸ and despite the above challenges, Menorat Hama’or, noting that the general public was not knowledgeable and many did not formally accept the fasts as individuals, appears to suggest that this serves as a form of acceptance.⁸⁹

However, both of these concerns (the acceptance of a fast not being effective prior to Mincha-time of the day before, and the potential inability of a non-Nasi Shaliach Tzibbur to affect a fast) can be addressed. Firstly, it is possible that this was not simply something announced by one individual, but that this section of the prayer service was actually recited by every individual (similar to what we find with the Rosh Chodesh announcement).⁹⁰

Alternatively, one could posit that the Amen recited at the end of the passage acts as a verbal acceptance, just as it does in the case of the Mi Sheberach for those who commit to fast on the aforementioned Bahab days.⁹¹

As to the second concern, that the acceptance was made too early, it is possible that this custom of announcing the fasts was at one point practiced only in the afternoon prior to the fast. Sefer Mitzvot Zemaniyot brings up the fast in the context of the fast days which fall on Shabbat and are delayed to Sunday, and writes “therefore”, leading into his description of the custom to recite this extra passage on Shabbat. It is possible that this point in the prayer service was close enough to the time of Mincha to be considered an acceptance of the fast even by those who would require it to be accepted at Mincha-time. However, this is admittedly a very creative and innovative read of Mitzvot Zemaniyot, and various considerations make it highly unlikely that this was the author’s intent.⁹²

The same cannot be said for Machzor Vitry. Firstly, of the four manuscript copies of this passage of Machzor Vitry, Rabbi Aryeh Goldschmidt notes that one version reads “וכשחל תענית כתוב למחר”, when a fast falls the next day.⁹³ Additionally, he notes that three of the four manuscripts do not mention the day on which the fast falls, from which he concludes (Shinuyei Nuscha’ot note 15 and footnote 2) that the custom was not to announce the day on which it would fall, and that this indicates that the passage served more as a prayer than anything else. However, his analysis was based on looking at the sum of the manuscripts, rather than following each manuscript tradition individually. MS ex-Sassoon 535, which (as noted above) limited the prayer to when the fast fell on a Sunday, could not possibly include a day on which the fast falls, since the prayer is only recited the day before the fast! This leaves three manuscripts, two of which omitted the day. These two manuscripts⁹⁴ read “וכשחל תענית כתוב לאחר השבת”, “when a fast falls after Shabbat”. This phrase, used in various places in Machzor Vitry⁹⁵ refers to Sunday, which would explain why no weekday is provided in that version of the supplication text.

If so, three manuscripts of what appears to be the earliest record of this custom testify that this passage was added only on the day prior to a fast day.⁹⁶ Thus, historically speaking, this addition may indeed have served as a form of accepting a fast for individuals or the community.⁹⁷ This would also explain the emphasis on the verse in Zechariah, which serves as a reminder that these fasts are not as established as one might think, in that they are dependent on the will of the community, as above.

In conclusion, while many later authorities suggest that this announcement served as a form of accepting the impending fast, there is little explicit support for this notion among early records of the custom. Only Menorat Hamaor and possibly Mitzvot Zemaniyot seem to conceptualize the added passage in this way, but it may be a major factor in the origin of this custom.

Conclusion

This custom to add a short passage announcing an upcoming fast to the Shabbat morning services is multi-faceted. While many authors have tried to provide a clear conceptual framework for this custom, based in one of the three approaches outlined above, in truth, there is no clear approach to explain every detail of this custom. Rather, as we analyze the text, placement and framing of the custom over many hundreds of years across different locales, we find that it incorporates elements of each of these three understandings. Such is the richness of this custom, that we find a way to provide practical reminders to the community, properly accept these fasts upon ourselves, and simultaneously pray for G-d’s salvation, may it come speedily in our days!

[1] Note: Although this article presents three major conceptual framings of this custom, the custom itself will be often described as an “announcement” or “prayer” throughout the article, even when those approaches to the custom are not being discussed.
[2] While the mnemonic AKaF is the product of Rabbi David Abudarham, who served as Shulchan Aruch’s source for this law (see below), Rabbi Karo appears to have expanded it on his own, as when he cites Abudarham in Beit Yosef, only the mnemonic AKaF appears, not the verse. (It is possible that other versions of Abudarham included this expansion as well – in the damaged St. Petersburg Russia Ms. C 98, folio 122, there is a larger gap than would be expected at that point in the text. His selection of this verse as an expansion of this mnemonic is interesting, since one could have also chosen Michah 6:6, “אכף לאלהי מרום”. Perhaps the reference to a verse about hunger is appropriate for a fast day, or, that the compulsion of one’s mouth refers to the acceptance of the fast by pronouncing it in advance. For a kabbalistic interpretation of this hint, see text box following note 44 in Halachot Uminhagim – Hilchot Ta’aniyot (Kovetz Halacha Umesorah – Teiman).
[3] See Rabbi Dr. Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael 4 (p.p.248-9) in regards to whether this comment was actually written by Rema, or whether printers added this in accordance with Rema’s view in Darkei Moshe (Orach Chaim 550:1) that the custom of the Ashkenazim is not to announce any of these fasts on the preceding Shabbat. Early printings of Shulchan Aruch with the comments of Rema (such as the early 1600s Krakow edition) contain this comment but lack an introductory “הגה:”.

It should also be noted that the Knesset Hagedolah, whom Sperber noted brought this comment from the Sefer Hamapah (possibly as opposed to Darkei Moshe) seems to not have had a copy of Darkei Moshe on Orach Chaim, as both times he cites something from it in his works, it is a secondary citation.
[4]Seder Tefillot Hata’aniyot; p. 254 in Abudarham Hashalem, (Yerushalaim/Usha Edition). This text will be presented in full later in this article.
[5] Tosfot Yom Tov (Ta’anit 2:9) raises the possibility that this was the custom in Mishnaic times as well, but this seems to be without a firm basis.
[6] All of this is part of Halacha 1 in the Higger/Debei Rabbanan Edition of Masechet Soferim (Volume II, p. 354).
[7] See Tur, Beit Yosef, and other commentaries to Orach Chaim 429 and 492 for discussion of this custom, and interpretation of this passage of Masechet Soferim; some understood this to be referring to fasts following the conclusion of Nissan.
[8] Halacha 1, lines 12-13 in Higger’s edition, Halacha 4 in standard printings.
[9] See e.g. Be’urei Soferim (Wasserstein) to Masechet Soferim 20:4, citing Nachalat Ariel to Masechet Soferim 20:4.
[10] See e.g. Shach Yoreh Deah 22:31
[11] See e.g., the comments of Chok Ya’akov, Magen Avraham, and Mishnah Berurah to Shulchan Aruch there.
[12] It would be appropriate to note that similar phraseology appears in multiple places in Tanach, such as Melachim I 21:9, Yonah 3:5 and various other places. See Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael 1:24, footnote 5 for some sources that address this.
[13] Be’urei Soferim (Wasserstein) to Masechet Soferim 20:4 (citing Nachalat Ariel, as above) does offer an alternative explanation as well, and the Kerem Re’em Edition of Masechet Soferim (Chapter 21, note 28) concludes similarly.
[14] See e.g. Seder Rav Amram Hashalem (Frumkin), Volume 2, p. 78. As we will discuss, any printing which used the Oxford Bodleian Library manuscript of the work includes this passage.
[15] Two notes on translating this passage, which apply to the remaining translations as well: 1. Although the citations of Zechariah 8:19 found in the different sources are not identical, the same JPS translation was used throughout. 2. Whether to close the quotes before or after the citation of the verse from Zechariah was not certain; some versions of the prayer include the verse, but others do not.
[16] For example, elsewhere, the author identifies customs by locale, rather than write “all places”.
[17] See Seder Rav Amram Gaon (Goldschmidt/Mossad Harav Kook Edition), p. 12, which details the history of this manuscript.
[18] Seder Rav Amram Gaon, Mossad Harav Kook Edition, p. 96, section 57*.
[19] See e.g., the Encyclopedia Judaica entry for Mahzor Vitry and The Jewish Encyclopedia entry Simha Ben Samuel of Vitry.
[20] See e.g. The Jewish Encyclopedia entry for Jacob ben Judah Hazzan of London.
[21] This term, as opposed to Ta’anit (found in other descriptions of the custom) may indicate that it refers to the four fasts in Zechariah, which are referred to in that fashion; compare the language of Orchot Chaim and Kol Bo. For further discussion of the differences between these two terms, see The Academy of the Hebrew Language, Tzom Veta’anit (published August 4, 2014).
[22] There is a significant amount of literature devoted to the relationship between (and history of) Kol Bo and Orchot Chaim, a work authored by Rabbi Aharon Ben Yaakov Hakohen, and virtually every edition of either work addresses this issue to some degree. Rabbi Mordechai Menachem Honig (“On the new Edition of Sefer Hamaskil of Rabbi Moshe ben Rabbi Elazar Hakohen” (Hebrew), published in Yerushateinu Volume I (5767), p. 237 and footnotes 144-145) writes, based on various sources, that Kol Bo was authored in Provence in the late 13^th Century, and served as an early version of Orchot Chaim, which was published in Majorca at a much later point in the author’s life.
[23] Shu”t Olat Yitzchak (Ratzabi) Orach Chaim 167 (p. 372) suggests that the words יש אומרים (and presumably the prefix of the next word) were omitted by a scribe; although this lacks manuscript support (e.g. Russian State Library, Guenzburg Collection, MS 72), it should not be discounted. This suggestion is motivated by the open contradiction in Kol Bo’s words, where he first writes that one announces the fast on all four days, then immediately writes that Tish’a B’av and Tzom Gedaliah are not announced. An alternative reading of Kol Bo will be presented later in the article.
[24] Based on the contradiction noted in the previous footnote, Rabbi David Avraham (Kol Bo Feldheim Edition, Volume 2, Column 218, footnote 59) suggests that this is a scribal error and should read “Tzom Kippur”. This is completely incorrect, as in addition to a lack of manuscript evidence, comparison to Orchot Chaim demonstrates that this is not the case, and even if one were to change this word, the contradiction in regards to the 9^th of Av would still remain.
[25] See footnote 22 above, as well as the Encyclopedia Judaica and The Jewish Encyclopedia entries for Aron Ben Jacob haKohen (spellings vary slightly). It should be noted that the author of Orchot Chaim was expelled from France (likely Narbonne) in 1306 and moved to Majorca. Although it is not clear exactly when this work was written, it is likely, however, that this work represents the French custom at the time, and not necessarily the Spanish custom.
[26] The previous section in Orchot Chaim contains a prayer recited on the Shabbat prior to Rosh Chodesh Av, which is intended to be recited here as well.
[27] According to this latter view that the announcement is only made on the Shabbat preceding the 17^th of Tammuz and the 10^th of Tevet, Or Torah (Elul 5777, p. 1204) provides the mnemonic יאמר ד”י לצרותינו (a play on words from Bereishit Rabbah 92:1), which references the fast of the 4^th (Daled) and 10^th (Yud) months.
28 See Dr. Nahem Ilan, “He who has This Book Will Need no Other Book”: A Study of Mitzvot Zemaniyot by Rabbi Israel Israeli of Toledo (published in various languages in various journals).
[29] The only printed version of Mitzvot Zemaniyot (published from manuscript by Rabbi Moshe Blau in 1985) contains this word, but it is clear that it is an error. Indeed, in the manuscript that Blau used, Oxford Bodleian Library Or. 603, one can observe folio 39v and see that this word does not appear. )The same is true of National Library of France Heb. 831 manuscript, folio 386v and Oxford Bodleian Library Reg. 63 manuscript, folio 141r, although in the latter, neither occurrence of לנו appears.) The full list of manuscripts of this work is available in Dr. Ilan’s article, and many of them are available online.
[30] See Dr. Nahem Ilan, “He who has This Book Will Need no Other Book”: A Study of Mitzvot Zemaniyot by Rabbi Israel Israeli of Toledo (published in various languages in various journals), especially footnotes 80 and 81; it is quite apparent that Mitzvot Zemaniyot was used as the basis for their formulations of this custom.
[31] See Encyclopedia Judaica and Jewish Encyclopedia entries for David Ben Joseph Abudarham.
[32] Note that Shulchan Aruch appears to have completed the verse in the mnemonic (see footnote 2), as it does not appear in printings of Abudarham. It is also unclear if this mnemonic was created by Abudarham, or may have been known in communities that followed this practice. Some considerations include the usage of the term Purim as referring to Ta’anit Esther (see Sperber’s comments on this in a footnote to Minhagei Yisrael 1:24), the lack of testimony to it in other contemporary sources, and Abudarham’s general tendency towards such hints.

It is also fascinating to note that Avraham Almaliach (Meichayei Hayehudim Betripolitania, in Mizrach Uma’arav, Volume III, p. 124) writes that the custom of Libyan Jews was to refer to Tzom Gedaliah as Achi Kippur, the brother of [Yom] Kippur, since they always fall on the same day of the week, and therefore, they have a special relationship. Or Torah (Elul 5777, p. 1204) suggests that this hint, AKaF, also includes Tzom Gedaliah, interpreting the mnemonic as Achi KiPPur.
[33] See Encyclopedia Judaica and Jewish Encyclopedia entries for Israel Ben Joseph Al-Nakawa (or Alnaqua).
[34] In addition to Rema’s comments in Darkei Moshe (Orach Chaim 550:1), Levush (Orach Chaim 550:4) writes explicitly that these fasts are not announced, and the vast majority of Ashkenazic commentators/codifiers, as well as books of customs from Ashkenazic communities, make no mention of such a custom altogether.
[35] See e.g., Moshe Gavra, Mechkarim Besidurei Teiman – Shabbat Uvirchot Hanehenin, p. 216 and Shu”t Olat Yitzchak (Ratzabi), Orach Chaim 167 (p. 371).
[36] Evidence and discussion of this practice will be brought later in this article.
[37] Early versions of the Italian liturgy contain no such custom, and modern-day siddurim do. Further research is required to track exactly when these changes occurred for many of the communities influenced by Sephardim, including Italian communities.
[38] A more basic version of these questions appears in Sperber’s treatment of this topic (vis-à-vis the disagreement between Shulchan Aruch and Rema), found in Hebrew in Minhagei Yisrael Volume 1, Chapter 24 and in English in Why Jews Do what They Do: The History of Jewish Customs Throughout the Cycle of the Jewish Year, Chapter 11.
[39] These do not include kabbalistic approaches; for more on the kabbalah that relates to this, See Rabbi Chaim Ben Avraham Hakohen, Tur Bareket to Orach Chaim 550:4 (1654 Amsterdam Printing, p. 244) and text box following note 44 in Halachot Uminhagim – Hilchot Ta’aniyot (Kovetz Halacha Umesorah – Teiman).
[40] Note that such announcements (not on Shabbat) are very ancient in nature; see footnote 12 for further documentation of this practice.
[41] See e.g. Shibbolei Haleket Section 170 (a 13^th Century German/Roman Rabbi), who writes in the name of his brother that some don’t always come to synagogue on weekdays.
[42] Specifically, in communities where individuals may have formally accepted the fasts at Mincha (or Mincha-time) on the day before, this would make sure that the entire community was aware in advance. The notion of accepting the fast will be discussed at great length in Approach #3.
[43] Likely, by extension, Shulchan Aruch takes this approach as well; even though the language of Sefer Abudarham is not copied in Shulchan Aruch itself, it is copied in Beit Yosef Orach Chaim 550.
[44] The addition of these three opening words, which don’t appear in many of the early versions of this custom, indicate that this was viewed as an announcement. Almost identical language is found in Talmud Bavli Ketubot 28b, also in the context of alerting the community.
[45] In his critical edition of Machzor Vitry (Tefillot Shabbat, Section 16, footnote 2, p. 287), Rabbi Aryeh Goldschmidt suggests that if the focus of the announcement of the upcoming Rosh Chodesh, in accordance with various Rishonim, is to alert the community to the upcoming day of Rosh Chodesh so that they may properly follow the associated halachot, it is logical to assume that this announcement fills a similar need. If, however, the purpose of the announcement of Rosh Chodesh is some form of Kiddush Hachodesh (as suggested by Rokeach, Section 53), this pre-fast announcement should simply be a prayer. (Interestingly, in the Nissan 5775 (Volume 70) Or Yisrael Journal, p. 240, footnote 10, Rabbi Meir Rose supports the notion that the Rosh Chodesh prayer is an announcement from this following section about fasts.)

While the main comparison to the announcement of Rosh Chodesh is certainly valid, there are two clear issues with his argument:

1. a) Since Machzor Vitry itself follows the former view (that the Rosh Chodesh announcement is intended to alert the public to the upcoming Rosh Chodesh, so that they can properly follow the laws of the day), one would expect that the same purpose is served by the announcement of the upcoming fast. However, Rabbi Goldschmidt concludes (based on some manuscript evidence) that this section functions only as a general prayer and follows some manuscripts which remove the day of the fast from this prayer! These manuscript issues will be discussed later in the essay, but there are various possible explanations for the omission of the day of the fast in those manuscript without creating somewhat of an internal contradiction.
2. b) In terms of Rabbi Goldschmidt’s second comparison (to a watered-down version of Kiddush Hachodesh, which establishes the date as Rosh Chodesh), it would be more natural to view this announcement as a form of accepting the fast (which establishes the date as a fast day) rather than viewing it as a general prayer, which seems to be less related.

[46] As noted above, many Ashkenazic commentaries seem to ignore this ruling altogether, so this custom is addressed primarily by Sephardic commentaries.
[47] Although one could counter that the first opinion brought in Orchot Chaim (to recite this prayer in advance of all four fasts) clearly disagrees with this reason.

Fascinatingly, the custom to avoid announcing the fast of Tzom Gedaliah was addressed at length by Rabbi Menachem Ben Yosef Chazan in Seder Troyes, a 13^th Century work addressing customs of Troyes. The printed version (Section 9; Weiss Edition p. 25) reads:

ומן הזכרת צום גדליה מצאתי בשם הר”ר יהודה ז”ל וז”ל היה קשה לי מפני מה אין מזכירין צום גדליה שהוא בחדש השביעי כמו שמזכירים צום הרביעי וצום החמישי וצום העשירי, לסוף נ”ל מפני יום כפור שאינן מניחים להזכיר צום גדליה, ועוד ט”א טוב שלא יטעו העם כשישמעו צום הרביעי ויסברו זיהו צום כפור ונפיק חורב’ מיניה, מ”ר יהודה עכ”ל. ואמנם מורי אבי היה מזכירו גם מנהג ק”ק טרוייש להזכירו גם בשבת, אך שאין מזכירים חדש תשרי כשאר החדשים

In regards to mentioning Tzom Gedaliah, I found in the name of Rabbi Yehudah z”l, and these are his words: “It was troubling to me, for what reason don’t we mention Tzom Gedaliah, which is in the seventh month, just as we mention the fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the tenth? It later seemed to me because of Yom Kippur that they do not allow to mention Tzom Gedaliah, and another reason it is good that the nation should not err when they hear the fast of the fourth and think that it is the fast of Kippur, and destruction will emerge from it. Rabbi Yehudah.” However, my father would mention it, and the custom of the holy congregation of Troyes was to mention it also on Shabbat, even though they don’t mention the month of Tishrei like other months.

These words are particularly hard to understand, no doubt due to a very corrupt text. If we restore this text from available manuscripts (Cod. Parm. 1902 and JTS Rab. 1489; unfortunately, this entire chapter is missing from the copy of Seder Troyes in the Austrian National Library Cod. hebr. 175 manuscript, and the German Senckenberg Ms. Oct. 227 has been catalogued incorrectly; it contains a different Seder Troyes (usually spelled differently in Hebrew), often printed at the back of standard copies of Sefer Haminhagim – Tyrnau), we find three very significant changes to the text:

1. מפני יום כפור שאינו נזכר מניחים להזכיר צום גדליה. Presumably, since Yom Kippur is not mentioned, it seems inappropriate to give so much honour and exposure to a minor fast that is so close in proximity.
2. שלא יטעו העם כשישמעו צום השביעי ויסברו זיהו צום כפור. If people misunderstand the “fast of the seventh” to refer to Yom Kippur, there are various issues that may arise, including not fasting properly on Yom Kippur itself. This is an obvious emendation and should have been changed even without other manuscript evidence.
3. גם מנהג ק”ק טרוייש להזכירו גם כשחל ר“ה בשבת. This text may indicate that they regularly announced Tzom Gedaliah on Rosh Hashanah, even when Rosh Hashanah coincided with the Shabbat prior, or the reverse.

Both this source and general topic requires much further study and analysis and could certainly serve as the basis of another full article of its own. Some additional sources to see are Rabbi Yair Rosenfeld, Hama’ayan 56:1, #215 (Tishrei 5776), p. 17 and footnote 12, Halachot Uminhagim – Hilchot Ta’aniyot (Kovetz Halacha Umesorah – Teiman), note 44 and Shu”t Olat Yitzchak (Ratzabi), Orach Chaim 167.

[48] Mark Mietkiewicz pointed out that in some communities, there might already be changes to the liturgy on these Shabbatot that would remind any attendees of the impending fast, even without explicitly noting the date of the fast, although one would expect that the same applies to Tzom Gedaliah as well, since it follows Rosh Hashanah.
[49] Indeed, Kaf Hachaim (Orach Chaim 550:27) rules in accordance with the view that this is not recited, and a quick survey of modern-day siddurim shows that this is the accepted view.
[50] And as brought by Sperber in Minhagei Yisrael 1:24 footnote 3, as evidence that not all “classic” Sephardic communities followed this rationale. One can add that Ateret Avot (Machon Moreshet Avot Edition, Volume II, Chapter 26 footnote 1 p. 378) writes that some communities in Jerusalem, Tunis and Djerba did not have the custom to announce fasts either.
[51] He even instituted that there should be further announcement on Shabbat, not just the prayer recited in the synagogue.
[52] This does seem superfluous in a world where synagogue calendars, which generally include this information, are so well disseminated, both in print and online forms, and it is possible that now, Rabbi Eliyahu would be more lenient in this regard than he was approximately 20 years ago.
[53] Although it is more likely that Orchot Chaim did not print the full prayer to save space, since an identical prayer was mentioned in the previous section to be recited on the Shabbat prior to Rosh Chodesh Av.
[54] Sefer Eitz Chaim, the selection from Seder Rav Amram Gaon, as well as the 12^th Century Provencal work, Malmad Hatalmidim (Parshat Devarim), which explores why this verse was chosen to be recited in this passage.
[55] In the versions found in Eitz Chaim and Machzor Vitry, the words ונאמר אמן, which appear to conclude the prayer, appear before the citation of the verse. However, one could argue that this was recited after the answering of amen, and the evidence from Malmad Hatalmidim (above) appears to favour this interpretation.

If one looks to modern versions of this passage, there are various customs and siddurim that include the verse as part of the prayer (e.g. Siddur Sha’ar Binyamin – Damascus, p. 402), and many others that do not (e.g. Tichlal Hamevu’ar – Baldi (Korach Edition, p. 302)). Also note the Provencal custom to recite it, as recorded in the 1762 Amsterdam printing of Seder Le’arba Tzomot Ule’arba Parshiyot according to the Provencal custom.
[56] Sperber (Minhagei Yisrael 1:24 footnote 6) assumes that this refers to any Biblical fast (which would include Yom Kippur), and this seems to be the understanding of Rabbi Dr. Alter Hilewitz in his Chikrei Zemanim, p. 375 (Ta’anit Esther). In 1954, Sefer Keter Shem Tov (by Rabbi Shem Tov Gaugin) Volume IV p. 49 suggested that this refers to any fasts listed in the verse in Zechariah, and this is also the position taken by Rabbi Goldschmidt in his commentary to Machzor Vitry (p.p. 287-8, footnote 5).
[57] In line with the latter view above.
[58] As noted in footnotes 21, 47 and 55, similar emphasis is found in Eitz Chaim, Seder Troyes and Malmad Hatalmidim.
[59]  While Rabbi Goldschmidt puts tremendous emphasis on this point, even choosing to follow the versions that do not list the weekday, we will provide an alternate reading later in the article that significantly weakens the argument from this detail.
[60]  See further footnotes 23 and 24 for suggested emendations that attempt to resolve this contradiction, which may render the following suggestion unnecessary.
[61] As outlined in footnote 22, these works are strongly related.
[62] These two elements could be roughly equivalent to the two major components of Birkat Hachodesh, one of which is to announce the day on which Rosh Chodesh actually falls, and the prayer which follows.
[63] A similar argument was made in the Sinai periodical (Tishrei-Adar 5729, 64) by Rabbi Dr. Alter Hilewitz on p. 27 of his article on Ta’anit Esther. See also his article in Chikrei Zemanim referred to in footnote 56.
[64] See the views mentioned in Rabbi Goldschmidt’s footnote 2 on p. 287 of his edition of Machzor Vitry, referred to in footnote 45.
[65] See various details relating to fasting and crying or otherwise relating to troubles on Shabbat in Tur and Shulchan Aruch (and their various commentaries) to Orach Chaim 288 and note Mishnah Berurah Orach Chaim 307:3.
[66] Rabbi Amram Aburbia, in his Netivei Am (Orach Chaim 55:2 p.p.323-324 in the 5766 edition) appears to be the first to invoke this reason, although Professor Zvi Zohar (in his article on Rabbi Aburbia, published in Harav Uziel Uvnei Zmano, p. 148) understands this not to be the rationale of Rema in his disagreement with Shulchan Aruch, but rather, an external reason which happens to support Rema. This is quoted by name in a few Sephardic works, and interestingly, appears word for word in Nitei Gavriel Hilchot Chanukah (Chapter 60, footnote 2) in the name of “Poskim”. Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi (Shu”t Or Yitzchak 1:216) also mentions this possibility.
[67] See mentions of this custom in Mordechai (Hagahot Tish’a B’av, found in Hagahot Mordechai to Moed Katan Section 934, citing Tosfot), Orchot Chaim (Seder Tefillat Shabbat – Shacharit, note 7) and Kol Bo, Chapter 37. See also Sefer Yisrael Vehazemanim (Rabbi Mordechai Hakohen, Volume II, p. 225), who writes that the custom to avoid blessing Rosh Chodesh Av is related to (if not influenced by) the hesitation to announce upcoming fasts on Shabbat.

One could argue that there is a connection between these two practices, although a less direct one. Although Mordechai (cited above) brings the custom to not announce Rosh Chodesh Av on the Shabbat prior, he also brings a number of objections to this practice, and concludes that one should announce even Rosh Chodesh Av. One objection brought is that one should specifically pray for blessing in this month, since it is “מוכן לפועניות”, or, in other words, a time of bad luck. One could make a similar argument regarding announcing the fasts, which might have been instituted specifically to pray for a reversal. Those who opposed this custom might not have felt it to be that important to pray for the upcoming month (or that mentioning these fasts would be in some way inappropriate).
[68] The various footnotes on this section list some of those who do raise this possibility.
[69] Quite shockingly, despite significant overlap between his own presentation and the presentation of Gra (and Aruch Hashulchan), Sperber does not mention their views at all throughout his article, which is especially strange since he focused on the disagreement between Shulchan Aruch and Rema, and quotes lesser-studied commentaries, such as Kaf Hachaim. This was later pointed out to him by two colleagues, Professor David Henshke and Rabbi Chaim Cohen (of Ramat Modi’in), and he noted this omission in Minhagei Yisrael 4, p.p.249-50.
[70] The details and exact parameters of this statement (e.g. which body decides whether or not they wish to fast – individuals, communities, or the entire Jewish people?) are discussed by various Rishonim and Acharonim, and are far beyond the scope of this article. Some details are discussed by Sperber in his presentation of this view, and interested parties are referred there.
[71]  See Sperber’s article (Minhagei Yisrael 1:24), which includes Mar Rav Cohen Tzedek cited in Shibolei Haleket 278, Rabbeinu Chananel (Rosh Hashanah 18a), Rashba (Rosh Hashanah 18a), and other Geonim. Be’ur Hagra to Orach Chaim 550:1 seems to identify Tosfot (Megillah 5b, d.h. verachatz) as potentially agreeing with this group of authorities, or at the very least, taking a lighter stand than Ramban (cited in the coming notes).
[72 ]The fast of Gedaliah, the 10^th of Tevet, and the 17^th of Tammuz. The Talmud in Rosh Hashanah continues with a discussion of the differences between the 9^th of Av and the remaining three fast days. Various commentaries there address whether it is possible that the 9^th of Av may also have this status; while the majority assume that the 9^th of Av is not subject to the will of the public, there is a minority view which does understand that the 9^th of Av is equivalent to the other “minor” fasts – see Rashba Megillah 5b, as well as Tur Orach Chaim 550 with Bach; the view of Rashba is elaborated upon by Rabbi Asher Weiss in “Gidrei Hatzomot Bazman Hazeh” (5777).
[73] This view is generally identified with Ramban (Torat Ha’adam Sha’ar Ha’evel – Inyan Aveilut Yeshanah, Chavel edition p. 243), who is widely cited by modern-day authorities, and is identified by many as the source of Tur’s comments in Orach Chaim 550.

In that passage, Ramban offers two reasons for fasting, which appear to be distinct: a) the Jewish people have accepted this as a custom, and one must not veer from that custom, b) various communities are experiencing persecution, and therefore, these fasts return to their original status, that of Divrei Kabbalah as established by Nevi’im. However, Tur omits the detail of persecution, and it is not clear if he assumes that these fasts return to their original status just through our acceptance of them. This confusion is compounded by various authorities who mix these reasons without clarifying, and who compare other views to them. It is particularly hard to understand Sperber’s classifications in Minhagei Yisrael 1:24. A much clearer classification of views is provided by Professor David Henshke, who is quoted by Sperber in Minhagei Yisrael 4, p. 249.
[74] Yom Kippur certainly does not require acceptance, and as noted in footnote 72, the vast majority of authorities agree about the 9^th of Av as well. Note also Talmud Bavli Ta’anit 11b and 12b, that the only public fast day in Babylonia is the 9^th of Av.
[75] Birkat Eliyahu commentary on Be’ur Hagra, p. 212, footnote 2 notes that although Gra also states that Ra’avad wrote the same, the author was unaware of a source. It is possible that Gra is referring to the second answer of Ra’avad cited in Rosh Ta’anit 2:24, which is similar to the approach detailed above. Once again, there is a lot more to be said about the status of Ta’anit Esther, but this is not the forum for it. Various authors have written excellent articles on it, and some of them incorporate this comment from Gra.
[76] See Minhagei Yisrael 1:24, footnote 28 (spanning p.p.175-177), much of which is relevant to Gra’s view as well.
[77] Only Ba’er Hagolah, Nachalat Tzvi and Gra cite Ramban by name as the source for Shulchan Aruch, and Gra also cites a dissenting view. However, Machatzit Hashekel and Ma’amar Mordechai also make reference to Ramban’s view (all commentaries are found in Orach Chaim 550:1).

Truthfully, the association with Ramban likely depends on how one understands the two statements made by Ramban (see footnote 73), since Shulchan Aruch uses similar language to both Ramban and Tur but omits their key statement that the status returns to one of Divrei Kabbalah. Sperber argues therefore that Shulchan Aruch believes that these fasts are theoretically dependent on community will, but we simply have a strong custom which cannot be violated. See Magen Avraham Orach Chaim 550:1 as well.
[78] One could resolve this contradiction by suggesting that historically the custom was intended as a form of acceptance but was later adopted and adapted by these authorities (perhaps as an announcement), despite their disagreement with the original reason.
[79] Although one could reasonably argue that this view is parallel to the minority view that the Rosh Chodesh announcement is a form of Kiddush Hachodesh, which also creates the status/sanctity of that day and informs our behaviour on it, that view is almost universally rejected; see Rabbi Goldschmidt’s notes to Machzor Vitry (Tefillot Shabbat, Section 16, footnote 2, p. 287). See further footnotes 45 and 64.
[80 Compare this to the regular prayer used to accept fasts during the Mincha prior, which explicitly mentions acceptance.
[81]  Machzor Vitry, Eitz Chaim, Orchot Chaim and Kol Bo.
[82]  The addition to Seder Rav Amram, Mitzvot Zemaniyot, Abudarham and Menorat Hama’or.
[83] This is far from being universally accepted; see Tur and Beit Yosef to Orach Chaim 562 and 563 for extensive discussion of sources on this topic. In particular, the view of Rabbeinu Tam (cited there) that an actual verbal acceptance may not be necessary at all would seem to support the notion that an announcement in advance might qualify as a formal acceptance of a fast.
[84]  Note the very strong disagreement with this view from Taz, Orach Chaim 562:16 and 563:1. For further discussion, see Magen Avraham Orach Chaim 563:1, Peri Megadim (Mishbetzot Zahav) Orach Chaim 563:1, Sha’ar Hatziyun to Orach Chaim 562, note 37, and various other sources in these two sections of Orach Chaim.
[85]  Note: there is no indication that this happens on Shabbat.
[86] Tur writes “תענית שגוזרין על הציבור אין כל יחיד ויחיד צריך לקבלו תחלה אלא ש”ץ מכריז התענית והרי הוא מקובל וכל שכן תעניות הכתובים בפסוק”. Sperber assumes that the final clause, which references the fasts listed in Zechariah, is referring to Tur’s comment that the Shaliach Tzibbur announces it, and then it takes effect. It seems more likely that Tur is referring back to the fact that it needs not be accepted, and that an announcement is necessary only when a fast is being instituted anew, but that for an established fast, there is no need for an announcement. This fits well with the usage of “כל שכן” by Tur here. Additionally, Tur himself clearly follows the stringent opinion of Ramban that these fasts have returned to their original status of Divrei Kabbalah, and also does not bring the custom of announcing the fasts on Shabbat.
[87] Sperber notes Levush (Orach Chaim 562:12) and Elyah Rabbah (note 11)/Zutah (note 4), who are followed by a number of later commentaries.
[88] See Sperber’s conclusion. See also Aruch Hashulchan Orach Chaim 562:32.
[89] Albeit with some reluctance. Rabbi Blau, in his notes to Mitzvot Zemaniyot, footnote 6, understands that Mitzvot Zemaniyot follows suit, and traces this to Rosh Ta’anit 1:13 (citing Ra’avad) that an announcement certainly works to accept a fast, and it would not require a formal acceptance. This is significant, since Mitzvot Zemaniyot (and following it, Menorat Hama’or) appears to be influenced by the school of Rosh, and such an announcement may have been far more acceptable at that time and place than at later times. On the other hand, Rosh also does not allow for early acceptance of the fast, as noted above, so this approach is hard to understand.
[90] For example, the language of Kol Bo seems to indicate that each individual recited the formula, as the printed versions read “ואומרים” prior to the text recited. Having an individual acknowledge out loud that the fast will be taking place on a specific day is tantamount to verbal acceptance. However, other (earlier) printings and manuscripts only had the word ואומר or a shortened form from which no conclusions can be drawn.
[91] See Levush, Orach Chaim 562:9, Magen Avraham 563:1 and commentaries for further discussion of this.
[92] The full citation of Mitzvot Zemaniyot is:

ואמנם שאר הצומות כשנופל ביום שבת, ואפילו ט”ב, ידחה ליום ראשון שלאחריו. וצריך להזהר בהם ולהזכירם ש”ץ ביום השבת הקודם אחר ההפטרה קודם שיאמר אשרי

However, it is far from certain that this was his intention, since those who relied upon this passage (Abudarham and Menorat Hamaor) interpreted it as referring to any fast which falls within the same week. Furthermore, the wording used includes “יום פלוני”, which would be entirely unnecessary if it was only ever practiced when a fast fell on Sunday.
[93]  Manuscript Shin, MS ex-Sassoon 535, which is the oldest, and possibly most authentic version. Rabbi Goldschmidt writes (Shinuyei Nus’cha’ot there, note 14) that this requires further study.
[94] Manuscript Nun, JTS Library MS no. 8092 and Manuscript Mem, Russian State Library, Guenzburg Collection, MS 481.
[95]  Sections 222, 499, 500, and Hilchot Pesach, Sections 23, 106, 108, albeit without the lamed prefix.
[96]  The only manuscript which does not support this reading is the British Museum MS no. 655, which contains various additions (see Rabbi Goldschmidt’s introduction to Machzor Vitry, where he dedicates Chapters 7 and 8 to discuss this manuscript). We can only speculate as to whether this was accidentally or purposefully changed, and it may have been due to a different custom at that time, or a harmonization to the custom of mentioning Rosh Chodesh.
[97]  It is still unlikely that this was the intention of Machzor Vitry, for there would be no reason to include the 9^th of Av, for as part of the school of Rashi, the author would have understood that the 9^th of Av does not require any form of acceptance (see Rashi to Rosh Hashanah 18a and Megillah 5b; contrast to the view of Rashba, mentioned in footnote 72). One other plausible explanation would be that this announcement was made on the day before every fast, not necessarily on Shabbat only; compare the language of Seder Troyes cited in footnote 47.

Note as well that if the fasts were originally scheduled for Shabbat, but pushed to Sunday, that may also be a basis for accepting them early (meaning, on the day that they were originally scheduled to take place on), or general leniency. This factor is discussed in Aliba Dehilchesa 97 (Haminhag Veta’amo, p. 36), in regards to the possibility of requiring an announcement prior to when the fast of Tish’a B’av falls on Shabbat, and by Rabbi Yair Rosenfeld, Hama’ayan 56:1, #215 (Tishrei 5776), p. 17 and footnote 12 in regards to Tzom Gedaliah.