Friday, January 26, 2024

'מקדש ה

Note not only the vowels but the trop as well in the following phrase from (טו:יז)

The meaning of this phrase is "The sanctuary, HaShem, which your Hands have established." The vowels and trop are very instrumental in establishing this as the meaning of the phrase. The note above מקדש is a separator, essentially putting a comma between it and the following word. If it were connected to the following word, it would read "The sanctuary of HaShem which you (whoever that is) have established." If one reads the word with a מרכא note, which is an easy, lazy mistake, it might serve to connect the words and distort the meaning.
Additionally, the קמץ under the דל"ת makes the word stand alone. If it were to be mistakenly pronounced מִקְּדַשׁ, that would also imply the connection with the following word. Needless to say, both mistakes are to be avoided. I wouldn't correct the trop but I'm not so sure about the vowel.
See further discussion in the comments:

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why wouldn't you correct the trop? What does the halacha state about a trop that changes the meaning?

Shtikler said...

Well, it's hard to pin down the exact rules for what is and is not correctable. The opinions run the gamut. However, I feel it's hard to make the case that a change in the note represents an actual change in the essence of the word.

Anonymous said...

It is clear in the Poskim that trop should be corrected if it changes the meaning of the phrase. I once lained the beginning of the akeida "vayomer ailav avrohom" (mahpach pashta katon) instead of "vayomer ailav, avrohom" (munach katon tipcha), a clear error that obviously must be corrected.

Shtikler said...

Indeed, that is a serious problem. Were you corrected on the spot or did it go uncorrected? That's a hard one to catch on the spur of the moment unless you're waiting for it (that's the purpose of this blog.)

I do have to say, though, that our case is different. The קמץ under the דל"ת still implies a stop, regardless of the trop. My feelings are, although I have never seen this in writing, that in a battle of connotation, the ניקוד will win over the trop as it is more the essence of the word.

Nevertheless, I think we should devote some more attention to instances where the trop alone is essential in the proper reading of the pasuk. I invite Anonymous, whoever you are, to join as a co-autor of this blog.

I would also like to recommend a sefer - ויבינו במקרא by Rabbi Yisrael Gettinger which combs through each parshah for interesting trop-based insights. I will likely be quoting him from time to time.

ELIE said...

אצל מי שמבחינים בין קמץ לפתח,
זו אינה שגיאה חמורה כל כך.
אבל אצל הספרדים וכד' אם לא יעצור במילה מקְּדש וגם יקרא את הק' בשוא נח
יש כאן חשש חמור של שינוי משמעות שראוי להחזיר עליו.

MYY said...

Re Anonymous:
Actually, according to the accepted rules of trop, the seemingly correct trop on that possuk would be what you actually said. Although it is true that "vayomer ailav" is disconnected from "avrohom", still the whole phrase "vayomer ailav avrohom" is even more disconnected from the end of the possuk "vayomer hineni" (which is a different speaker than the beginning of the possuk). The seemingly correct trop would therefore be what you said (which might be why you subconsciously said it). I learnt in my trop class that the reason why the trop here does not follow the rules is because we want to make sure that nobody should mistakenly think that the whole possuk is Avrohom speaking (as in "Avrohom spoke to him and said 'Hineni'"). Therefore, we purposely put the "wrong" trop, but one that is unambiguous. I'm not so sure, therfore, that such a mistake needs correction.

Rav Sean Gorman said...

Very quickly, as I have to teach in an hour...none of the above deals with the sh'va na underneath the koof, forcing what would normally be a dagesh kal under the dalet to disappear.