Tough Day at the Office

[From תשע"ג]

Last week was an interesting one, to say the least.

First, at the beginning of כ"ו:י"ט, the בעל קריאה committed the capital crime of say וְלְתִתְּךָ instead of וּלְתִתְּךָ. What could be worse than that? I'll tell you what - half the shul correcting him! I really actually had an urge to tell him to specifically go back and say it wrong again. But I resisted the urge. Of course, later, כ"ט:ד, when he said וְאוֹלֵךְ instead of וָאוֹלֵךְ - not a peep! (Don't worry I did correct that one.)

My oversight of the קריאה has its pros and cons for the בעלי קריאה. On the one hand, they have to deal with me. But on the other, they don't have to deal with anyone else. Case in point: as soon as the עליה with the תוכחה was complete, a well-meaning individual raced to the בימה to insist to the בעל קריאה that in כ"ח:ס"ח he had said וְהֵשִׁיבְךָ instead of וֶהֱשִׁיבְךָ. He just looked at him, pointed at me and said, "Talk to him." I believe he was right. That was what it sounded like. However, I proceeded to convince him that there is actually no change in meaning and thus, it did not warrant a correction. Any objections? We certainly agreed that the vowel under the ו was inconsequential. I'm no expert when it comes to conjugation. But I pointed out that in a shorter form, there is a צירי under the ה, as in וְהֵשִׁיב אֶת הַגְּזֵלָה. My guess is that the elongation of the word "softens" the vowel into a סגול. (As confirmed more elegantly by Elie in the comments)

Clean Blood

In פרשת שופטים, there are four instances where the term דם נקי, or a variation thereof, appears. If the vowel underneath the ד is a פתח, it would indicate סמיכות and the translation would be, "the blood of a clean (innocent) person." If it were a קמץ, it would simply mean clean blood. Although one might argue that the connotation is ultimately the same, I would say this is still a rather significant difference. Oh, wouldn't it be nice and simple if it were always the same. Alas, not only is it not always the same, there is not always 100% clarity as to which way it should be pronounced.

In שופטים, we have the following:

י"ט:י וְלֹ֤א יִשָּׁפֵךְ֙ דָּ֣ם נָקִ֔י
י"ט:י"ג וּבִֽעַרְתָּ֧ דַֽם־הַנָּקִ֛י

כ"א:ח וְאַל־תִּתֵּן֙ דָּ֣ם נָקִ֔י
כ"א:ט וְאַתָּ֗ה תְּבַעֵ֛ר הַדָּ֥ם הַנָּקִ֖י

The latter three appear to be undisputed. However, someone came over to me about the first one suggesting the בעל קריאה had said it wrong. I was certain he had not. But sure enough his (Artscroll) חומש had a פתח while mine (חורב) had a קמץ. I have embedded a snippet from the ספר אם למקרא למסורת below which should bring some clarity to the subject.

(Or, now that it is available on HebrewBooks.org, you can view it here.)