Monday, January 14, 2008

The Age of Trup -- part x

Continuing Shadal's Vikuach Al Chochmat haKabbalah. He is attempting to prove Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur's position that trup and nikkud signs are post-Talmudic. (See last segment.)

The author: Another proof he brings from Razal, where he says that in Masechet Soferim they mention a sefer {Torah} שפסקו ושנקדו {interpreted perhaps as having the pisukei teamim = trup, and as having nikkud -- perhaps = vowel points}. And also this I searched for and did not find, but I did see there in perek 3: A sefer that pasku and that the heads of the verses in it were nakad {dotted}, one should not read from it.

The guest: And behold, the cantillation marks designate the end of the verse {such as silluq and sof pasuk}, not the heads of the verses. And if so, the intent of Razal in this was only to say that if, perhaps, someone came up with the idea to place dots on the tops of the verses, or to place a space between each verse (this is the meaning of sefer שפסקו), that sefer would be invalid to read from in public.

And where they said that the heads of the verses were dotted in it, and did not say nor ever meantion what the law is of a vocalized {menukad} or cantillated {mut'am} sefer, it is clear testimony that the vocal points and cantillation marks were not practiced in their days at all.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you seen Yaakov Bachrach's "Ishdatlus" in which he aims to disprove each one of Shadal's arguments?

joshwaxman said...

no.
perhaps I'll check it out after finishing this series. is it available anywhere online?
though it might render my own nitpicks redundant.

thanks for the tip.

Anonymous said...

Not that I'm aware of. It's extremely long and witty, discusses many points "by the way" and would probably take much longer to work on than what it's coming to refute.

Also to clarify: it only touches on the age of nikkud and trop part, not the rest of the "vikuach".

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