How could different pronunciations arise when we are obligated to pronounce the Shema precisely?

Question

If one does not pronounce the Shema correctly, one has not fulfilled their obligation (שולחן ערוך או"ח סימן סב). If so, then how could different pronunciations of the Hebrew words arise? Shouldn't at least the majority have heard it from their father, and on back, with exactly precision? Even if you would say that casual speech is affected by local languages, liturgical Hebrew is not casual speech.

Given this obligation to precision in pronunciation, how could variants in pronunciation have arisen, at least for fulfilling this mitzvah?

Answer 1

This is a thorny issue, and lots of poskim have dealt with the issue of havarot (pronunciation systems for Hebrew) -- you can see a nice summary here. I think the most lucid summary of the situation is given by Rav Moshe Feinstein in Igros Moshe OC 3:5. He explains that it's true that Hebrew had an original havara (pronunciation) that all the modern havarot evolved from, but any havara which is used by a community is called "leshon hakodesh" for halachic purposes. His proof is from the fact that Ashkenazim hold by Halitzot performed by Sefardim and vice versa, despite the fact that the halacha requires the one performing Halitzah to be able to say the associated text in leshon hakodesh. He doesn't deal with the Shema explicitly, but it's implied that if a person pronounces it correctly according to his own havara, then for him that would be called pronouncing the Shema correctly. (There are other responsa that deal with the Shema explicitly, e.g. Rav Bentzion Uziel in Shu"t Mishpetei Uziel OC 1.) I believe that this resolves the OP's question of how it was permissible for havarot to change over the generations.

As for how the different havarot arose historically, Rav Moshe says that indeed, they were influenced by the surrounding languages. I can also add from my own studies in linguistics that there is very good evidence for this in many cases, e.g. the vowel shifts in different varieties of Ashkenazi Hebrew are mirrored in the vowel shifts in the varieties of Yiddish spoken by the same Jews.

Answer 2

The premise of this question is flawed. You state:

If one does not pronounce the Shema correctly, one has not fulfilled their obligation (שולחן ערוך או"ח סימן סב).

However, if one actually looks at Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim siman 62, we see that Rav Yosef Karo states the opposite:

אף על פי שמצוה לדקדק באותיותיה קראה ולא דקדק בהן יצא:

"Though it is a mitzvah to precise with (pronouncing) its letters, if he read and was not precise with them, he has fulfilled his obligation."

Looking at the Tur on that siman to see an expansion of the idea, the Tur writes the same:

אף על פי שצריך לדקדק באותיותיה, קרא ולא דקדק באותיותיה יצא.

And in the Bet Yosef commentary on Tur on the same page, Rav Yosef Karo explains:

אף על פי שצריך לדקדק באותיותיה קראה ולא דקדק באותיותיה יצא — בפרק היה קורא (דף טו.) פלוגתא דרבי יהודה ורבי יוסי, ואיפסיקא הילכתא בגמרא כמאן דמיקל:

"In perek Haya Korei (Berachot 15a) it is a dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yossi, and the halacha is ruled in the gemara in accordance with the one who is lenient.

In that gemara, we see the following:

The Mishna: קרא ולא דקדק באותיותיה ר' יוסי אומר יצא רבי יהודה אומר לא יצא

And the gemara on the next amud (15b) we read:

קרא ולא דקדק באותיותיה: א"ר טבי א"ר יאשיה הלכה כדברי שניהם להקל:

"R' Tavi cited Rabbi Yoshia: The halacha in both matters (audibility and pronouncing correctly) is like the one who is lenient."

Admittedly, it is still a requirement lechatchila to do this, and there are other good answers presented to your follow-up.

However, insofar as the question is predicated on the premise that one does not fulfill, by demonstrating that the quoted source shows you do fulfill, the question is answered.

Answer 3

The question is truly something to think about, and I wondered about it many times, as similar to the astounding fact that there can exist a difference in p'sak between the greatest of the Rishonim, the great Rashi and his "great" grandson Rabbeinu Tam about the correct order of the 4 paragraphs that we have written in our holy tefillin. But we actually find that already in the period of the "Shoftim" there were differences within klal yisroel in regard to their ability of pronunciation. -see Shoftim 12-6. how the men of Gil'ud were able to detect their belonging to Shevet Efraim from their disability of pronouncing the letter "shin". ו וַיֹּאמְרוּ לוֹ אֱמָר-נָא שִׁבֹּלֶת וַיֹּאמֶר סִבֹּלֶת, וְלֹא יָכִין לְדַבֵּר כֵּן, וַיֹּאחֲזוּ אוֹתוֹ, וַיִּשְׁחָטוּהוּ אֶל-מַעְבְּרוֹת הַיַּרְדֵּן; וַיִּפֹּל בָּעֵת הַהִיא, מֵאֶפְרַיִם, אַרְבָּעִים וּשְׁנַיִם, אָלֶף. May we always merit achdus(to end on a positive note).

Answer 4

The answer is very, very slowly. I will illustrate using the development of the common Ashkenazic pronunciation as an example:

The first Ashkenazim were just exiled from the Kingdom of Judaea. They knew the pronunciation of their first language perfectly, and that's what they taught their children. The children learned local languages but were easily able to pronounce the language they spoke at home.

It started, probably, with some parents who decided to speak local languages in their home. The child learned Hebrew just a bit more slowly, and he had difficulty pronouncing a couple letters that weren’t in the local language. The same thing happened in a few other households in the community.

A couple of generations later, the kids were mostly exposed to local languages; they learned Hebrew at about the same time as most modern Jews do. Around this time, Christian persecution led to many Jews forgetting observance. They didn't teach their kids Hebrew anymore. The children who remained observant were exposed to Hebrew very slowly, so they picked up more mistakes.

A couple of centuries later, Christian persecution stopped, and Ashkenazim started becoming more observant as a whole. A lot of subtle vowel differences had been lost, some replaced with the diphthongs of old German and French. Some letters were mixed or forgotten, like Alef and Ayin.

A similar trend occurred among Sephardim and Mizrahim. It happened much more slowly—many Middle-Eastern languages are phonetically similar to Biblical Hebrew, and Spain didn't go through any widespread loss of observance until after the Crusades—but it absolutely did happen. That’s why many Mizrahim don’t pronounce soft ב, pronounce Ayin as if preceded by an Alef, and more, and why many Sephardim pronounce צ as ס, etc.

The whole thing is sad. Our pronunciation Mesorah has been mixed up. We do know much more about it now, but not everything. Even if we did, I doubt most people would care.