526) Are There Controls and Limits to the Creativity of Minhagim?

This post, by Boruch Clinton, originally appeared on the B'chol D'rachecha site.

If we (theoretically) removed all innovations to the modern siddur which were added in the past 500 years, we’d probably spend considerably less time in shul. And from a halachic perspective, that’s a problem. So let’s talk about the prohibition of delaying a congregation (טרחא דציבורא).

We’ll begin with the Gemara (Berachos 12b):

בקשו לקבוע פרשת בלק בקריאת שמע ומפני מה לא קבעוה מפני טורח ציבור

The rabbis sought to include Parashas Balak in the recital of the Shema. Why did they not include it? Because it would delay congregations

It seems there was a compelling reason to add (at least) one more paragraph to the Shema, but it was ruled inappropriate solely due to the fact that countless Jews through countless centuries would be forced to spend more time davening. (Although we see from the subsequent Gemara that, had it been possible to add just the words “כרע שכב כארי וכלביא מי יקימנו" the minimal time delay would not have been a problem.)

467) Lechu Neranena on Wednesday

 

 Guest post by Moshe Tzvi Wieder

 

I thank Moshe Tzvi Wieder for sharing with us his research into the early Siddur (prayer book). Moshe Tzvi Wieder is the author of “The Siddur from Its Sources” (הסידור ממקורותיו) a unique Siddur which provides the earliest known sources for every part of the Siddur.  To learn more about הסידור ממקורותיו, see the site here.

 

Lechu Neranena on Wednesday

 

The Siddur from Its Sources, by Moshe Tzvi Wieder, Wieder Press, 2023.

The Mishna (Tamid 7:4) delineates which chapters of Tehillim the Leviim would say for each day of the week. While it does not explicitly state the ending of each section, both logic and early manuscript evidence bear out that the Leviim would stop at the end of each chapter.  

355) R. Moshe Ibn Gigatila: The Psalms are just prayers

Introduction

 

In the previous post, The Psalms are not prayers, we saw how Rav Saadia Gaon held the unusual view that psalms may not be used as prayers and that, like the Torah itself they are meant only to be studied but not prayed. Psalms are not liturgy. According to Rav Saadia, the psalms were used as a strictly controlled and regulated ritual during Temple times, but never as liturgy (supplications or prayers). On this view, the psalms were never an ‘early prayer book’ as was claimed by the Karaite Jews. It is believed that Rav Saadia formulated his unusual and limited view on the function of the psalms, in reaction to the Karaites, who had rejected the Rabbanite siddur and used the psalms as their prayer book instead.

In this article, however, based extensively on the work by Professor Uriel Simon[1], we explore another unusual view of the psalms. This is the view held by R. Moshe Ibn Gigatila, who believed that that the psalms are indeed prayers - but nothing more than prayers. And because they are just prayers, they are not profoundly holy nor do they carry any prophetic or spiritually subliminal innuendo.