Richard Steiner, Kol Nidre - Yeshiva University Blogs

Kol Nidre: Past, Present and Future13faulty 45 and pin the blame on us. Nevertheless, havingfound here a blank page, we wish to present the correctversion to discerning people.... And as for those who wishto err, let them err. We have left them their old version, stillstanding in its place, so everyone can do what is right in hisown eyes.Similarly, Wolf Heidenheim does not dare to eliminate thecontradiction in the maḥzor of which he was both the editor and theprinter, despite the fact that only a few pages earlier he prints alengthy discussion of the grammatical aspects of Kol Nidre,concluding with a revised version. 46The present article is the latest attempt to deal with the problem. Ibecame involved with it some decades ago, when a distinguishedrabbinic authority called me before Yom Kippur and asked me if itwas possible to eliminate the tense contradiction in an inconspicuousway that would not provoke controversy. Clearly the verbs needed tobe emended, but the obvious emendations—the ones that came first tomind—were not adequate to the task. Take, for example, some of theAramaic expressions for “we shall vow” offered as emendations inpast centuries. R. Aaron b. Jacob ha-Kohen of Lunel, for example,writes:וזה נסחת כל נדרי:‏ כל נדרי וחרמי ואיסרי וקונמי וקיומי ושבועי דיעתידין אנחנא למדר ולמיסר ולקיומי על נפשתנא מיום הכפוריםהזה עד יום הכפורים הבא עלינו לטובה כלהון דנחרט בהון....‏47This is the text of Kol Nidre: “All vows, pledges,resolutions, promises, affirmations, and oaths that we shallvow, resolve, and impose upon ourselves from this YomKippur to (next) Yom Kippur, coming (we pray) favorablyupon us—all of them that we shall have regretted....”45The expression from Isa 28:7 is given a new meaning here.46(ed. W. Heidenheim; Roedelheim: Buchdruckerey מחזור לערבית ליום כפורvon W. Heidenheim, 1832), 6b-8b, 10a.47Aaron b. Jacob ha-Kohen of Lunel, ים (Florence: Stamperia diIsach di Moise di Pas, 1750), 105b §28 יום הכפורים)‏ ‏.(הלכות Cf. the Hebrewחידושי תוספות Trani, version attributed to Rabbenu Tam by R. Isaiah b. Mali of‏"ד64: 1995), ha-Sefarim, (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Yerid ראיתי שר ...ספר ארחות חי‏"ת בספר הישרתלה טעם כל נדרים שאנו אומרים בלילי יוה"כריוגם שיבש שנדרנו אלא שאנו עתידים‏.לידורhttp://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/12-2013/Steiner.pdf