Textual Emendations in Minhag Anglia

Harry Freedman

Harry Freedman’s The Talmud: A Biography is published by Bloomsbury Publications. His next book, The Murderous History of Bible Translations will be published by Bloomsbury in 2016

In his book Changing the Immutable Mac Shapiro notes that, for reasons of מי propriety, the Birnbaum siddur transliterates the words פטום הקטרת in רגליים 1]], instead of translating them. Philip Birnbaum was not the only translator to be troubled by these words. In 1890 Rev. Simeon Singer produced a prayer book in London, with the sanction and authorisation of Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler. Singer’s object was to produce ‘a correct text and satisfactory translation’ which could be used in ‘Synagogues, families and schools.’[2] Singer used Yitzhok (Seligman) Baer’s Avodat Yisrael as his base text. As befits a prestigious Victorian publication, Singer’s siddur was grandly entitled The Authorised Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire. Known ever since as The Singer’s, it became and remains the defining text of Minhag Anglia.

Notwithstanding is מי רגליים its source in the gemara, and the fact that itself a euphemism, its translation must have been considered unsuitable for inclusion in Singer’s family friendly siddur. But unlike Birnbaum he did not transliterate the Hebrew words. Instead he just left והלא מי רגליים יפין לה אלא שאין out the entire translation of He left his readers with .מכניסין מי רגליים בעזרה מפני הכבוד no explanatory note as to what he had done. In 1904 Arthur Davis and Herbert Adler published a set of machzorim. Popularly known as the Routledge machzorim they served for many years as minhag anglia’s definitive yomtov texts. They followed Singer in omitting the entire translation והלא מי רגליים יפין לה אלא שאין מכניסין מי רגליים בעזרה of .מפני הכבוד By 1939 Singer’s siddur had run to its 16th impression. Now under the auspices of Chief Rabbi J.H. Hertz, those mitpallelim פטום accustomed to saying would have הקטרת been bemused to find the final sentence missing, not just in English, but now also in Hebrew. Dayan Ivan Binstock, the Minhag Anglia editor of the Sacks Koren machzorim, suggests that Hertz required this change for consistency, to bring the Hebrew and English into line. The alternative remedy, of adding an English translation to the extant Hebrew, was clearly not appropriate. This was not Chief Rabbi Hertz’s only editorial amendment. He substantially reduced the Prayer for the Government (in England this was known as the Prayer for the Royal Family). Amongst other omissions he הפוצה דוד עבדו מחרב removed and רעה significantly reduced the number of verbs required to elevate and protect the monarch. Possibly, such over-anxious concern for the monarch’s welfare was not deemed appropriate for the still-powerful British Empire. Chief Rabbi Hertz had his own concerns about indelicacy. In the siddur with commentary that he published in 1946 he too omitted all But he also .מי רגליים mention, in Hebrew and English, of ameliorated the words of the Shabbat shacharit Amidah. In the Hertz siddur, the who do not dwell in the Sabbath’s rest[3] have ערלים In his commentary Hertz notes that ‘for many .רשעים become ,ערלים centuries most prayer books had this reading instead of which recent editions, through the influence of Baer, have reintroduced’.[4] .is found in a number of siddurim including R לא ישכנו רשעים Shlomo Ganzfried’s Avodat Yisrael, R. Yehudah Leib ben Meir Gordon’s Beit Yehuda and R. Yosef Teumim’s Higayon Lev. R. Yaakov Emden[5] and R. Chaim Elazar Spira[6], amongst others, argue against it on the grounds that whereas are not ערלים .are רשעים obligated to keep the mitzvah of Shabbat, many Baer, whom Hertz holds responsible for the current use of ערלים: כן הנוסחא בכל ס”י (=ספרי :states in a footnote ,ערלים ישנים) ובסדורי Hertz’s [ספרדים וברמב”ם. [7 in place of reflects at best a minority רשעים choice of opinion and has neither precedent nor subsequent inMinhag Anglia. It was almost certainly introduced for reasons of propriety. In 2006 a fourth edition of the Singer’s siddur was published with a new translation by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. For the first was printed פטום הקטרת ,time in the history ofMinhag Anglia in full, including the final sentence, in both Hebrew and may have not מי רגליים .English but in our מפני הכבוד have been brought to the azarah seems פטום הקטרת more plain-speaking age its restitution to just as .כבוד much to be an expression of

[1] B. Keritot 6a. [2] Preface to 1st edition of the Authorised Daily Prayer Book, ed. Simeon Singer, London 1890 וגם במנוחתו לא ישכנו ערלים [3] [4] J.H. Hertz, Authorised Daily Prayer Book with Commentary, p 458-9 לוח ארש, 312 [5] מאמר נוסח התפילה, 23 [6] [7] Siddur Avodat Yisrael, 5628 edition p. 219.