CF sent an important "heads up" for the proper pronunciation of a word in the "less familiar" Musaf amida for Shabbat - Rosh Chodesh. In the opening portion of ATA YATZARTA, we find the following: And because we have sinned (we and our ancestors), our City was destroyed... cha-R'VA u-REI-nu. cha-R'VA. Under the CHET is a KAMATZ GADOL and under the REISH is a SH'VA NA. This word, correctly pronounced - cha-R'VA (or in Ashkenazis, chaw-R'VAW) is past tense, destroyed. A common way to read this word incorrectly is: chawr-VA (or chawr-VAW), with a KAMAT KATAN under the CHET and a SH'VA NACH under the REISH. That word is a pleading-request-command format, which is definitely NOT what we want to say, that our City should be (G-d forbid) destroyed. Of course, the mispronunciation of cha-R'VA i-REI-nu comes from carelessness or being uninformed about the fine-tuning of correct pronunciation, but that is why this column exists. And, as I've said many times, it is not only to harp on the picky little points that we bring up these various issues. Paying attention to how we pronounce words goes hand in hand with understanding what they mean. Understanding what we say in davening and what we read in the Torah and NACH, is essential to proper KAVANA, intention, and feeling. And that is the goal of Towards Better Davening and Torah Reading. We find the "elongated Tzivui" form of verbs in many places in Tanach and davening. Be careful not to say that KA-R'VA SH'NAT HASH'MITA... that the Shmita year is approaching (and therefore you won't want to lend money to a poor person), contrasted with KAwRVA EL NAFSHI G'ALA, (please) draw near my soul and redeem it. With the KAMATZ KATAN and SH'VA NACH, it is a plea. With KAMATZ GADOL and SH'VA NA is is past tense (or present progressive). Bottom line, in Musaf this Shabbat, say cha-R'VA, and may HaShem answer our petition in the affirmative, when we say a few sentences later: Y'HI RATZON MILFANECHA... that You will bring us up in gladness to our Land and plant us within our boundaries (some of us are here already, B"H). There (here) we will perform before You the rite of our required offerings... (in the Beit HaMikdash, may it be built speedily in our time). And speaking of Musaf for Shabbat - Rosh Chodesh, we include below, the text of the concluding paragraph of the middle bracha of the Musaf Amida - with the KAD'SHEINU piece that seems to have gotten lost some when (of course we could say sometime, but then you wouldn't necessarily know that some when is a real word, which it is) in the last number of centuries. Rinat Yisrael siddur, in its later
editions, has this text, as do some other siddurim of recent
vintage. We recommend that you consult your Rav before switching to
this text from the more commonly found version. The Aruch HaShulchan,
for one, insists that this is the correct version to say. [The Parshat P'kudei Homepage]
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