I have not witnessed enough test cases to statistically verify anything, but I have heard various Chassidic Rebbes make b'rachos and daven out loud, and without fail, they mispronounce a majority of the words. I'm not talking about using a different pronunciation scheme (havara) for the vowels and letters (which is of course not mispronunciation), but mil'eil / mil'ra mistakes. This is in contrast to the many other non-Chassidic rabbis whom I've heard who do not make nearly as many such mistakes.
I can think of the following options to explain this:
- Chassidic Rebbes are ignorant of grammar, and simply don't know the correct pronunciation.
- They are purposely mispronouncing a majority of the words they say, even though they know how they really should be pronounced.
- I'm wrong. Chassidic Rebbes use normal pronunciation, and the ones that I've seen happen to have been the exception.
Now, here are the respective problems with those options:
- Why would they be ignorant of grammar? These Rebbes are, for the most part, known to be great Talmidei Chachamim, proficient in Torah knowledge. What kind of talmidei chachamim don't know basic Hebrew grammar? (Most siddurim even show which words are mil'ra and mil'eil, and even which sh'va's are na or nach.) And even if they are, for some reason, ignorant of grammar, why should they be any more so than the non-Chassidic rabbis?
- Why? I can't think of any reasonable explanation for this.
- This is in my opinion unlikely, but possible.
Does anyone know which of the options above (or another that I overlooked) is the correct explanation for this phenomenon? Please explain.
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