Siddur variations
During Hanukkah, a paragraph is added to the `amidah and to birkat hamazon, beginning with the words `al hanissim, by which it is generally known. (A similar paragraph, with an identical introduction, is added on Purim.)
The opening line I've always known translates to something like this:
Siddur Sim Shalom, the standard siddur of the American Conservative movement, contains a slight variation in the text: בימים ההם ובזמן הזה. The siddur translates the segment — not totally inaccurately — as ". . . in other days, and in our time."
Which changes the meaning completely.
Has anyone else seen the additional ו in a siddur not published by the USCJ? If it's one of their innovations, why might they have changed it?
The opening line I've always known translates to something like this:
[We gratefully acknowledge you] for the miracles, the deliverance, the mighty acts, the salvations, and the victories in battle that you granted to our ancestors in those days at this season.The boldfaced section, in Hebrew, reads בימים ההם בזמן הזה. Now, זמן is a tricky word, and closely matches the German Zeit in its dual meaning of "time" and "season." Just keep that in mind for a moment.
Siddur Sim Shalom, the standard siddur of the American Conservative movement, contains a slight variation in the text: בימים ההם ובזמן הזה. The siddur translates the segment — not totally inaccurately — as ". . . in other days, and in our time."
Which changes the meaning completely.
Has anyone else seen the additional ו in a siddur not published by the USCJ? If it's one of their innovations, why might they have changed it?
posted by Lawrence | 9:52 AM
6 Comments:
Amusingly, or sadly, depending on your perspective, I'm so used to "בימים ההם בזמן הזה" from the standard brakha for candlelighting that I didn't even notice that added vav, even though I use Siddur Sim Shalom.
That said, it's a change that I'd think that a lot of people would like, even outside of the err, liberal Jewish community. But that that particular group chose to make that change is interesting. I do wonder where that came from, and what point they're trying to make.
Interestingly — and, depending on one's perspective, maybe more problematically — Sim Shalom also phrases the candle lighting b'rakhah that way.
Lawrence -- Any way to find out when/how the change came about? I'm curious.
--Meredith
I would guess that there were two variants and the editors of Sim Shalom chose the one that they prefered. I'll let you know if I learn anything about this.
Meredith: If it is a deliberate Conservative alteration, then it appears first in Sim Shalom (1985).
Elf: I also wonder if it might be, but I'm given pause by the fact that I've never seen it in any other siddur. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, since the editors of Sim Shalom borrow from Yemenite nusach, with which I'm quite unfamiliar, in at least one place.
I seem to remember a note in I think Sim Shalom (if it wasn't them, it was the Silverman Siddur) that mentioned that they also borrow from Rav Saadia Gaon's siddur, which apparently had a few things that are no longer common usage- I believe that's where they found the "ba'olam" in "Sim Shalom" in the Amidah.
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