Reply To: Oh vs Oy

Pashuteh Yid:

1) There is a mishna in Eduyos which says Chayav odom lomar bloshon rabo (I believe.) The rebbe there had a speech impediment and mispronounced certain words. Nevertheless, the talmid was required to pronounce them the same way. (Don’t have in front of me, and too tired to look up.)

??? ????, ??? ??? ??? ??????, ?????? ?? ?????–???? ???? ???? ????? ???

Hillel’s Rebbeim were Shemaya and Avtalyon who were geirim and couldn’t pronounce the letter “hay”. Yet, Hillel did pronounce it when quoting them. The Gra asks this on the peirush of the Rambam on the mishna and he answers that the “lashon rabo” is going on the word ??? . It is extra since a hin is obviously a full hin. But, when Shemaya and Avtalyon said it they added in the word ??? in order that the talmidim wouldn’t think they were saying the word ??? which would change the meaning of the halacha. They therefore added the extra word and Hillel also did, but when quoting them, Hillel did pronounce it as it should be pronounced. Source

2) I am extremely troubled by the quote from the Yesod vShoresh Haavodah that the holocaust and other tragedies are caused by something as minor as mispronounced words. How would he have known? Doesn’t the RBSH understand our tefilos even if not perfect. One can even daven in another language, altogether. (I am aware that the Tosfos Yom Tov is said to have had a dream that Tach vTat was caused by talking in shul. I am just as troubled, and furthermore, how can we learn from mayseh chalomos to denigrate the holy klal yisroel, when Chazal say Ein cholom blo dvarim bteilim.

I assume that, as was mentioned above, this is probably referring to people who mispronounce because they are rushing or not careful. I would assume that if someone is capable of pronouncing the words correctly and doesn’t, or as in the case here where he purposely mispronounces Hashem’s name every time he says it there would be a t’via against him.