Meitzitz U’Meilitz

Polemic against Tosephoth Bikurei Katzir by Pinchas Hai Anav and his Master Isaac Lampronti who published responsa the same year (1715) supporting the prevailing Aschkenazic custom in Italy where the particular melody utilized during the Priestly Blessing resulted in certain verses to be stressed on the last syllable against the view of Nechemia ben Baruch Cohen of Ferrara who stressed the penultimate syllable. Cohen enlisted Tzahalon to defend him from the attacks of Anav and Lampronti. It is interesting to note the compromise suggested by R. Yehudah Briel of Mantua (f. 22a) that the Priests change their custom to that of the Aschkenazim in Germany and Poland who sing between the phrases, thus diligent about pronouncing the actual words correctly. Meanwhile the Italians in Ferrara sang the words and thus placed the stress of the syllable according to the tune. Briel states "if changing the custom will engender a controversy, they can then continue their old custom." See I. Sonne, Avnei Binyan Lekorot Hayehudim Be'Italia in: Horeb,Vol. VI (1942) pp. 76-114. Also see E. Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies (1990) p. 158, who calls this polemical pamphlet "a monument to Rabbinic contentiousness in the 18th century."