R. Israel Baal Shem Tov Davened Nusach Ashkenaz – ר’ ישראל בעל שם טוב התפלל נוסח אשכנז

On Shavuos is the yohrzeit of the founder of the Chasidic movement, R. Israel Baal Shem Tov.

It seems that there is significant evidence that he davened nusach Ashkenaz. A site devoted to him says as much.

See section ה. סידורי הבעש”ט, where the writer states וכידוע ומוכח שהבעש”ט הקדוש התפלל נוסח זה בלבד ולא שינה ממסורת אבות חסידי אשכנז (and as known, and is shown, that he davened that nusach alone and did not change from the tradition of his ancestors, the pious of Ashkenaz). Pretty strong words there (h/t).

There was an important, extensive article on this topic a few years ago by רב יש”י כהן in the קולמוס special Torah supplement of משפחה magazine, which can be seen here (at a Lubavitcher website – where, although some try to obfuscate things, the essential facts remain).

So for those of the Chasidic persuasion who want to follow in his footsteps, now you know what nusach to daven.

יה”ר שנזכה לקבלת התורה באמת ובפנימיות ע”פ המסורה הקדושה הישנה שלנו

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Teitch=Deutsch – Illustration & Proof – טייטש=דייטש בשער ספר ישן ובויקיפדיה

In a previous post  it was mentioned that the Yiddish word טייטש, as in teitch of a posuk in Chumash, comes from the word Deutsch (German-German language), as Yiddish is Yiddish-Deutsch, a Jewish-German hybrid language.

It seems that some people are not totally convinced of it though, and are harboring doubts if it is just a pshetl (fanciful interpretation), or a drash, rather than the simple meaning, or פשוט פשט of the matter.

So here is some proof.

1) See the Wikipedia entry on the Yiddish language. Right in the beginning, in the second paragraph, one sees that teitch=Deutsch.

2) It can be seen in old seforim. Here is a nice illustration of it, for example, at the top of the title page (שער בלאט) of a sefer printed approximately two centuries ago, courtesy of Hebrewbooks.org, where one sees the words ובלשון אשכנז הנקרא טייטש.

So it is not a figment of someone’s imagination, but rather a plain fact.

We (all Ashkenazic Jews) are the children of Ashkenaz – as seen in the words of the poskim

(Continued from Three things that point to a common origin for various ‘tribes’ of Ashkenazic Jewry)

רבש”ה also pointed out, that not only those cultural hints mentioned earlier (such as our calling ourselves Ashkenazim, sharing the Yiddish language, and teitching a posuk of chumash) are proof of our common descent, it’s also the expressions which the פוסקים, like the רמ”א, the לבוש, the ב”ח, the ט”ז…….. down to Reb Moshe Feinstein, use, saying that we are מבני בניהם של אשכנז (descended from Jews of Ashkenaz), therefore we are bound to the poskim of Ashkenaz. That’s why we do not follow the בית יוסף, who has the Sepharadi heritage, which is parallel to Ashkenaz. We follow the Ashkenaz poskim because we are descended from them.

Note that none of the poskim mentioned above resided in Germany (אשכנז), at least as far as I know. They were from Central and Eastern Europe. And yet they still considered themselves the continuation of the Jewry of אשכנז.

Three things that point to a common origin for various ‘tribes’ of Ashkenazic Jewry

Polish Jews. Galician Jews. Lithuanian Jews. Ukrainian Jews. Hungarian Jews. German Jews. French Jews. English Jews. Russian Jews. Latvian Jews. Czech Jews. Slovak Jews. American Jews.

Different groups or are they basically of a common origin?

רבש”ה maintains that all Ashkenazic Jews (basically) share a common origin.

He points to the following as supporting this contention.

1) They all label themselves as Ashkenazic Jews. People who self-identify as Ashkenazic Jews (e.g. if you ask them, are you Sepharadic or Ashkenazic?), are (often unknowingly) stating that they are German Jews in origin (although you may have to go back hundreds of years and many generations to reach that point), as אשכנז = Germany.

2) The Yiddish language that they (or their parents, or grandparents) share. Yiddish is basically a medieval German dialect, albeit mixed with Hebrew words, and some from other languages as well.

3) When studying Torah, they ‘teitsch’ a posuk of chumash.

Question: What does teitsch mean? Can anyone teitch word teitch? What is the derivation and etymology of the word?

Hmmmm….Let’s see….

Teitch. Teutsch. Deutsch. Daytsh.

Answer: Teitch is a heavy Southern German pronunciation of  Deitsch or Deutsch, which means German. So when we ‘teitch’ a posuk chumash, we basically are translating it into German (Judisch-Deutsch dialect, aka Yiddish).

True, there were other types of Jews as well in Europe, and some Sepharadim came to Ashkenazic lands at times. But generally speaking. And even when Sepharadim came into Ashkenazic lands, if they stayed there, usually after a while they intermarried with the locals and became Ashkenazic basically.

Sometimes people raise the question of the ספרדים, the Spanish Jews after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Did they not settle in Ashkenazic lands then? I believe the answer to that is that they mostly, or perhaps I should say overwhelmingly, went to the Ottoman empire, and only a relatively small amount went to Ashkenazic lands.