My Morning's Excitement

[debka_notion]

After integrating seminar today, a couple of us were talking about liturgical additions permissible in WLSS (the main JTS minyan), and I mentioned that I'd been once scolded for saying 'ezrat Sarah rather than pokeid Sarah, and when someone asked why, I said that it wasn't in the book, which was in fact the reason I was given for why it was not acceptable.

All of a sudden, our teacher, who is also the head of the JTS library (yes, this fact is relevant, as you'll see momentarily), asks us if we have 5 minutes, and to put our bags down. All of a sudden, we're following him into the rare book room. So he sat us down, and showed us a handwritten siddur from 1475, written for a bride, where the scribe had written שעשיתני אישה ולא איש (for you made me a woman and not a man) rather than the usual form found in traditional siddurim שעשהני כרצונו (who made me according to his will). (Note that the liturgy used in Conservative siddurim just glosses over the gender difference entirely by taking all negative terminology out of it, and instead has שעשני בצלמו- who has created me in his image.) I'd read about this particular version of the text in an article that I read for liturgy in college, but seeing it for real was pretty incredible.

Comments

[cynara-linnaea.livejournal.com]

I have heard that it is halachically acceptable to include the matriarchs in the peticha, just not in the chatima, because there is precedent for changing the peticha to fit the needs of the community. The catch there is that you need a community who finds that they really need that change. It might be something to pursue.

Personally, I include them in the petitcha when I daven silently, but generally omit them when SHAA"TZing.

How do you include them in Bircat? My mom inserts "imhoteinu Sara, Rivka, Rachel v'Leah, heitiv, batov, tov, [some other variation I don't remember off the top of my head]," before "avoteinu Avraham, Yitzchak, v'Yaakov, bakol, mikol, kol."

And is anyone else ever bothered by Rachel's constant insertion before Leah? The one person I have met who puts Leah first (besides yours truly), also includes Bilha and Zilpa, which is a whole other can of worms.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, there are contradictory opinions about insertions in the peticha, having to do with the fact that we're not supposed to come up with new terms for G-d, and the others are all quotes from Tanakh, as it were- the issue isn't changing the petikha, it's talking about G-d as the G-d of Sarah, etc when that wasn't said before.

I do about what your bother does, although as I learned it, the list of 'tov' related words is 'heitiv, tovat, tov, tov" which nicely uses the same word for Leah and Rachel.

The order of matriarchs used to really bother me- because as I first learned it in the Reform world, Leah does come first in their lists. I get the whole "we like to privilege the same one who texts have privileged before" thing, but it does still bother me.

I just had the beginning of an argument about including Bilhah and Zilpah with a classmate on Friday. He does it, and wants to do so when he leads davening here on Tuesday. I think it's a problem- we have no indication that they were monotheists or monolatrists, let alone that they had any particular special relationship with G-d (and yes, I think the matriarchs did, I know some folks will disagree with me there).

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

I think R. Held deftly disposes with the argument you cite by pointing out the problem is not with new _descriptions_ of God, but rather new _praises_ for God. Saying that God had a relationship w/ Sarah, etc. (presuming this is "true"), is not to invent a new _praise_ of God.

"monotheists or monolatrists"

I'm not sure it matters. I think the point is to have a metaphor for the universe that is not ultimately capricious, in which one's actions have predictable consequences and therefore ought to matter. Whether or not there are lesser gods floating around should be irrelevent to that metaphor.

And see below my response in which I cite Esther Rabbah and Pesikta de-Rav Kahana who include Bilhah & Zilpa on the list. (Again, this is all support for shitot with which I disagree me-ikkaram.)

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

we have no indication that they were monotheists or monolatrists

First prove that they existed....

[cynara-linnaea.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Why do you say this?

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

"And is anyone else ever bothered by Rachel's constant insertion before Leah?"

Not particularly, since that list in that order appears in the Bavli on Nazir 23b, Sanhedrin 105b, and Horayot 10b. (Granted, I haven't checked the manuscripts.) Nevertheless, I have heard several people put Leah first. (I see the attraction, but I think if one is trying to balance the competing values of adherence to the tradition [= getting the psychological comfort of being connected to a tradition and the communal cohension that comes from connecting with a canon] with the value of this particular liturgical change, it seems to make sense to cling to any precedents in that canon that one can find.)

(BTW, an interesting support for including Bilha & Zilpa can be found in Esther Rabbah 1:12 where they are included on the list of _six_ imahot; see also Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:7 -- I don't know off the top of my head which is earlier.)

Also, according to the teshuva that makes that distinction between petiha and hatima, the reasoning is not that there is precedent for changing the petiha, but rather that since one is permitted to insert a piyyut for צורכי רבים, kal va-homer one may insert eight words in the middle. (Also note that there is a debate over the meaning of that phrase, i.e., does it need to be a piyyut for צורכי רבים or does there need to be צורכי רבים for a piyyut [that is not necessarily about צורכי רבים].) Be-mehilat kevod mori ve-rebbi ba`al mehaber ha-teshuva, I find that a weak kal va-homer, since inserting a piyyut after a unit of text is quite different than interrupting a phrase.