Summary: Michlal Yofi says it is chaser here in Noach and in Vayeitzei, which happens to be against our Masoretic text. Minchas Shai explains that he is wrong, and how he is wrong. He misinterpreted Radak. But then I show (I think) that Radak indeed explicitly says this, and so Minchas Shai is incorrect. Further, the Samaritan text is (perhaps surprisingly)
chaser, and there are many Jewish texts that are
chaser. And perhaps R' Meir Abulafia, while at odds with Radak, is recording a
krei and
ketiv distinction. Naturally, this has repercussions of possibly invalidating all modern sifrei Torah, as well as many Torah codes.
Post: In the middle of parashat Noach, 9:24, we read:
| 24. And Noah awoke from his wine, and he knew what his small son had done to him. | | כד. וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ מִיֵּינוֹ וַיֵּדַע אֵת אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה לוֹ בְּנוֹ הַקָּטָן: |
In sefer
Michlal Yofi, a grammatical work on Tanach by R' Shlomo Ibn Melech (first printed in Constantinople, 1549), the author writes:
ויקץ נח • ביו״ד
האיתן לבד ויו״ד השרש נעלמה
That is, there is the
yud indicating the actor (masculine) within the verb, and there is a
yud which is part of the root. And, since there is only one
yud present in ויקץ, the one showing is the one which is part of the morphology, while the
yud of the root elides or is absorbed in some way.
The "problem" with this is that in our Masoretic text, there are two yuds.
Minchas Shai notes this.
"וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ -- the Michlol Yofi wrote ... [and then the above citation] ... and these words of his are too wondrous for me, for in all the sefarim it is with two yuds, and so wrote the Rama [Rabbi Meir Abulafia] za'l:
וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ מִיֵּינוֹ -- is malei with both yuds written, one read and the other not read, and its kuf is with a segol. And [Bereishit 28:29] וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ of parashat Vayeitzei, is malei with both yuds and its kuf is with a patach, and like it is [Bereishit 41:4] וַיִּיקַץ פַּרְעֹה, and like it is [same perek, pasuk 7] וַיִּיקַץ פַּרְעֹה וְהִנֵּה חֲלוֹם, in parashat Vayhi Miketz. And [same perek, pasuk 21] the וָאִיקָץ at the end of the pasuk of וַתָּבֹאנָה אֶל-קִרְבֶּנָה is malei yud [of a single yud] written.
End quote. And see that which I write at the start of parashat Vayeitzei, with the help of Heaven, upon וַיִּיקַץ פַּרְעֹה."
Perhaps at the end, he means upon וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב? Maybe not, as we will see from Minchas Shai's concluding words.
The Michlal Yofi on parashat Vayeitzei makes the same comment once again, on וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב. He
writes:
ויקץ: בא ביו״ד האיתן לבד
And Minchas Shai there notes this and
comments:
"
וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ -- In all the precise sefarim, it is with two yuds. And that which the author of Michlal Yofi wrote, that it comes with the morphological yud alone, is an error. And his words are taken from the Michlol [of the Radak], page 129, and so is implied from the gloss of the medakdek there, and also from his gloss in the [sefer] HaShorashim, root יקץ, and one should not rely upon them in this.
Now, come and rely upon what I have written in parashat Noach upon the verse וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ in the name of the Rama za'l, who was rav muvhak, and his words are precise in all places, and specifically in the work of the corrections of the Torah, for for this he came, and this was his craft, to determine the truth based upon the precise sefarim, and there is not to err in his rulings, for he was precise and found truth. And further, because all of the masorot agree that there is only in reading three which are chaser, and their mnemonic is [Shofetim 16:20] ויקץ שמשון [actually, וַתֹּאמֶר, פְּלִשְׁתִּים עָלֶיךָ שִׁמְשׁוֹן; וַיִּקַץ מִשְּׁנָתוֹ]; the second, [I Melachim 3:15] וַיִּקַץ שְׁלֹמֹה, and [Tehillim 78:65] וַיִּקַץ כְּיָשֵׁן. {Josh: There are others, but they refer not to waking but to disgust, such as וַיָּקָץ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל of I Melachim 11:25.} All this I have seen in the printed masoret of Tehillim 78, and other masorot in manuscript sefarim in Shofetim 16 and in Melachim perek 3. Also, the Masorah Ketana at the start of parashat Vayhi Miketz upon the verse וַיִּיקַץ פַּרְעֹה, there is a masorah that the entire Torah is written likewise."
Here is what I found in Radak's
sefer Shorashim:
At least as it appears in this printing -- perhaps some printer 'corrected' it -- the verses of both Yaakov and Noach are cited with two yuds. And in ויקצו מזעזעיך of Chabakuk perek 2, there is a
gaaya, which he notes is compensating for the absence of the
yud of the first root letter.
I would note that since
vayiketz of Noach is pronounced with stress on the first letter --
mile'eil, there is no place for the
gaaya as a secondary stress. But it seems that Minchas Shai is suggesting that R' Shlomo Ibn Melech misinterpreted Radak's mention of the
chisaron of the first root
yud as applying as well to these two examples.
Meanwhile, here is what appears in the
sefer Michlol of the Radak, in the Shaar Dikduk Hapaalim:
Thus, Radak says that it is with the morphological
yud alone. And he cites the verse in I Melachim. But then he cites the one of parashat Noach, in Bereshit 9. This printing has it spelled
malei with two
yuds, but this is plausibly the correction of the printer, to accord with our
masorah. It
does seem to be what Radak means, that the ויקץ of Noach is
chaser.
But Minchas Shai says that this is an error on Michlal Yofi's part, and that -- I suppose -- only the first was an example of
chaser, with the second example being a counterexample. Perhaps, but I find it strange.
In fact, I believe that I can
prove that Minchas Shai is the one misreading the Radak. Minchas Shai did not have access to Radak's commentary on Chumash, but we do. And this is what Radak says on the pasuk in
Noach:
"ויקץ -- with the morphological yud alone, and the yud of the root elides."
This is then
explicitly what Michlal Yofi says, and accords quite well with its citation in sefer Michlol of the Radak. And the printer here (I assume) put in parentheses that this is at odds with our Masoret.
What about alternative texts? Specifically, what do the Samaritans have? And what about Jewish masoretic texts? Do any of them have it
chaser the
yud hashoresh?
This is what we find in
Vetus Testamentum, regarding the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch, regarding Noach's awakening:
The Samaritan text is on the left, and it has only a single
yud. A
chaser spelling is perhaps more unexpected in the Samaritan text, since placing
malei vavs and
yuds aids in the reading. This recommends the reading. On the other hand, another Samaritan tendency is to regularize spelling across Tanach, and so perhaps this is a regularization.
Looking to the bottom of the page in Vetus Testamentum, we find a number of Jewish (meaning that they are supposed to be masoretic) texts which also have the
chaser reading. Thus:
If so, perhaps this is a perfectly valid masoretic tradition, as recorded by Radak, a Rishon, and attested to in multiple
sifrei Torah. What of the many masoretic notes? The masoretic notes were composed by people who looked over the various
sefarim and describing what was there. And undoubtedly this was the reality in the
sefarim they looked at. But had they looked at other
sefarim, they might have written a
masoretic note in accordance with the Radak. Indeed, we find
plenty of competing masoretic notes, which are based on differing texts.
Here, by the way, is the Samaritan text on Vayeitzei. It is
chaser, as pictured to the left:
And looking at the
variae lectiones of Hebrew ("masoretic")
sefarim listed at the bottom of the page, we see:
There is some overlap to the ones listed for parashat Noach, but not in its entirety.
At the end of the day, this appears to be a plausible reading, and we are left with a pretty big
safek. And the Rama, the Rishon, was an expert, so perhaps we should heed him over the Radak, but that does not mean that we must. (If our
sifrei Torah are in error, then this would naturally mess up any Torah code which passed through this word.)
There is, however, something to be
medayek in within the words of Rabbi Meir Abulafia. To cite it again, from Minchas Shai's quotation:
וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ מִיֵּינוֹ -- is malei with both yuds written, one read and the other not read, and its kuf is with a segol.
What does the Rama mean that one is read and the other is not read, even though it is
malei with both
yuds written. Maybe he means that one of them is a consonant, and so it is pronounced, while the second follows the
chirik, and so is encompassed within the
chirik. Perhaps, but grammarians distinguish between the
chirik malei and the
chirik chaser, with the former being a long vowel and the latter being a short vowel. So that yud
would be pronounced.
Rather, it seems to me that Rama is saying that
even though that second
yud is written in the
ketiv, it is not pronounced at all in the
kerei. And so, the
chirik should be a
chirik chaser.
Thus, this is a
krei and
ketiv. There are disputes about the origin of
krei and
ketiv, and the spur might be changing grammar, or differentiation between the text as written and the grammatical requirement (as described by Radak in sefer Michlol) for that first root letter to elide. But
maybe this
krei and
ketiv was a way of encoding two competing
masorot. Since some texts had the word
malei and some had the word
chaser, the compromise was to encode one in the
krei and the other in
ketiv.
If, however, we are only speaking of pronunciation, maybe we can go back and read this into even the Radak's commentary on sefer Bereishit...
