Tefillah 036

27:
After the usual introductory formula, which we discussed in our last shiur, the first b^erakhah that precedes the Shema begins with a quotation from the prophets [Isaiah 45:7]. The prophet praises God as being the One that

The first part of this verse is most appropriate for a benediction whose topic must be "light and the passage from darkness into light", as we noted in Tefillah 034 #20. In its original context the verse presents God as affirming that there is only one ultimate power in the Universe, not two as the Zoroastrians claimed. (Our people were in exile in Babylon which had just been conquered by Cyrus of Persia, and the Persians were about to give the Judean exiles permission to return home. The Persian religion was Zoroastrianism, whose main teaching was that there are two forces at work in the world: the god of light and good, Ahura Mazda, and the god of darkness and evil, Ahriman. The task of man is to so conduct himself in life that he assists Ahura Mazda in his fight against Ahriman.) Thus the prophet proclaims that there is only one power, Israel's God, Who is responsible for all that is good in the world and for what is bad as well.

28:
As appropriate as it may be that in this benediction we hail God as the creator of both daylight and darkness, even the sages realized that the latter part of the verse was problematic in a liturgical setting: was it wise also to hail God as the source of woe as well as weal? Was this true? Surely there are many sources of woe, and some – probably most – are man made. Therefore in the Gemara [Berakhot 11b] the sages deliberately altered the last word of the verse when it is used liturgically. Instead of "forms light and creates darkness, makes weal and creates woe" the first benediction now begins as follows [Siddur Sim Shalom page 107; Siddur Va'ani Tefillati page 333]:

29:
It is reasonably clear from extracts in the Cairo Genizah that the original text of this benediction was much shorter than it is today. In all probability its original format was something like this:

The great lights here are, of course, the sun and the moon, which, when seen from Earth, are the brightest bodies in the sky. Despite its brevity this benediction is technically 'long' in the mishnaic sense because it both begins and ends with the benedictory formula. The surest sign that an extremely long interpolation was introduced into this benediction is the fact that, in the text as it now stands, the phrase "through His goodness daily and constantly God renews the work of creation" occurs at the beginning of the benediction and is then recapitulated towards the end (see Siddur Sim Shalom on pages 107 towards the bottom and 110 at the bottom; and Siddur Va'ani Tefillati on pages 333 in the centre and 337 at the very bottom).

30:
Even on weekdays there is a long interpolation at this point; however, the interpolation which is introduced on Shabbat – which is the service which is the subject of our present discussion – is even longer. We recognize four additional sections, three unique to Shabbat and one extra which is added on weekdays as well. Firstly there comes a hymn the first two Hebrew words of which are Ha-kol yodukha (Siddur Sim Shalom page 107, Siddur Va'ani Tefillati page 333). This hymn is very ancient, and was probably composed a very short time after the completion of the Babylonian Talmud. If we guess its date to be around the year 600 CE we would not be too far wrong. In its first few phrases it uses the poetic 'trick' called shirshur. All this means is that the first word of the hymn is a repetition of the last word of the preceding section. Since the preceding words in Hebrew were uvoré et ha-kol the first few phrases of this new hymn all begin with the word ha-kol:

Having established the verbal link with the beginning of the benediction the anonymous poet now brings his material back to the subject of the benediction: the arrival of daylight.

31:
Having fulfilled its duty towards the theme of the benediction the hymn now veers off in a different direction. God is praised with a typical agglutinative piling up of words and phrases which are just a series of 'saying the same thing in different words', so beloved of the Hebrew liturgist. In typical fashion, the author concludes his encomium of God by lauding His incomparability and thus reaches his eschatalogical peroration:

32:
I have mentioned on several occasions that in the ancient (and now defunct) ritual of Eretz-Israel the prayer-leaders were expected to extemporize and to embellish the basic requirements of the benedictions with ad lib poetic enhancements. It is possible that Ha-kol yodukha is one of these that somehow crept into the "Babylonian" ritual that we have inherited – possibly because it was very popular. Now one of the rules that defined these embellishments was the fact that before the concluding benediction the topic had to be briefly recapitulated. In our case the topic is, of course, light. Having introduced into his piece the future redemption, the messianic age and the resurrection of the dead, it may well be that the poet concluded with a phrase that is still to be found just before the conclusion of this benediction. In its present situation it has little or no meaning, but conjoined to the end of Ha-kol yodukha it makes a fitting conclusion:

To be continued.

Jerry Langer writes:

I have a question about the orchestration of the service as I generally see it. Liturgically it is evident that the ending b'rakhah of Yishtabach is a fitting conclusion to P'sukei D'zimrah. However, the orchestration of the service often (almost always, in my limited experience) does not strictly follow this logic . On weekdays and shabbat the '"baal shaharit" begins at "Shochein ad…", which also changes for chagim and for high holidays ("Ha-melekh"). I can certainly see the logic of
making the changes from shabbat to holidays (particularly the change for high holidays). I have sometimes wondered whether someone decided that the continuity of shaharit is enhanced by having any changes of liturgical leadership (if it occurs) occur a bit before "bar'chu", rather than right at it; but this is a vague guess. Do you know how/why (or where or when) the custom arose to have the baal shaharit begin at "shochein ad" rather than, for instance, before the hatzi kaddish or directly at "bar'chu"?

I respond:

This is a true conundrum, and I am not sure that anyone has a definitive answer. The custom – for custom it is – is Ashkenazi in origin and many are the other liturgical traditions that do not follow this custom. There are many customs that, like Topsy, just 'growed'. If one insists on searching for a more substantial reason for this custom any one suggestion is probably going to be as good as any other. One suggestion that I can put forward – very hesitantly – is that it is forbidden to insert a break or pause between Yishtabaĥ, Kaddish, Bar^ekhu, and the Yotzer benediction. So it may have become the custom to change the officiant before the end of Nishmat in order to pre-empt the possibility of pause. I am fully aware that this explanation does not explain why the place where the change of officiants takes place changes with the season, as Jerry points out. To emphasize "the King" on the High Holidays is understandable, but that would still leave us lacking an explanation for where the officiant begins on the other festivals. It "is a puzzlement".