New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) Far be it from this author to weigh in on a debate between Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Satmar Rebbe, but there is one thought that could have been, perhaps, missed.

The two giants of Torah once debated about AI — not the current one but the other one. Rav Moshe held that it did not create mamzeirus, since Yirmiyahu HaNavi consulted with Ben Sira on spiritual matters notwithstanding that the midrash traces Ben Sira’s origin to an accidental embryo-genetic event in a bathhouse that, had it occurred in a different way, would have resulted in mamzeirus.

There is another proof, perhaps, that Rav Moshe zt”l could have cited — and it is hiding in plain sight, in the very Yom Kippur Mussaf that every shul davens. Min hashamayim, the writings of Ben Sira themselves entered the davening. The Ashkenazi piyut “Amitz Koach,” and in particular its famous refrain “Emes Mah Nehedar,” is built directly upon Ben Sira’s words in chapter 50 of Sefer Ben Sira.

A little background is in order. The Hebrew of Ben Sira chapter 50 has been preserved primarily in Manuscript B from the Cairo Geniza — a 12th-century manuscript that nonetheless reflects a much earlier Hebrew Vorlage — and partially in the Masada scroll, which dates to the 1st century BCE. Ben Sira opens this chapter to Shimon HaTzaddik with the words: “מה נהדר בהשגיחו מאהל, ובצאתו מבית הפרכת” — “How glorious (mah nehedar) was he when he looked forth from the Ohel, and when he came out from the Beis HaParoches.”

Now, those familiar with the Yom Kippur Mussaf will immediately recognize where this is going. The piyut opens with the words: “אמת מה נהדר היה כהן גדול בצאתו מבית קדשי הקדשים בשלום בלי פגע” — “In truth, mah nehedar was the Kohen Gadol in his coming out from the Beis Kodshei HaKodashim in peace, without mishap.”

 The keyword “mah nehedar” is taken straight from the Hebrew Ben Sira. The dependence does not stop at the opening line. The structural and imagery dependence is unmistakable throughout.

Ben Sira chapter 50, in the Hebrew, has the Kohen Gadol “ככוכב אור מבין עבים, וכירח מלא בימי מועד, וכשמש משרקת אל היכל מלך, וכקשת נראתה בענן, כנץ ענפי בימי מועד, וכשושן על יבלי מים” — like a star shining among the clouds, like the full moon on the festivals, like the sun reflecting on the King’s heichal, like the rainbow seen in the cloud, like blossoms on branches in spring, like a lily on streams of water. The piyut, for its part, has “k’ohel hanimtach b’darei maalah, k’vrakim hayotzim miziv hachayos, k’godel gedilim b’arba ketzavos, k’dmus hakeshes b’soch he’anan, k’hod asher hilbish Tzur litzurim, k’vered hanasun b’soch ginas chemed.”

The keshes b’anan — “the rainbow in the cloud” — is verbatim. The botanical comparisons differ in vocabulary but occupy the same slot in the structure. The moed/festival framing that Ben Sira uses to anchor his celestial imagery becomes generalized cosmic imagery in the piyut.

A theological point is worth noting before closing. Ben Sira composed this poem while the Bayis Sheni still stood. Shimon HaTzaddik II — son of Yochanan, the Kohen Gadol who served roughly 219–196 BCE, and whom Ben Sira knew personally — was alive in his memory. Ben Sira’s poem is, accordingly, a realistic description of an actual Kohen Gadol leaving the Heichal on Yom Kippur.

The piyut and placement, composed after the churban, transforms the same imagery into a tefillah – a reenactment and perhaps a substitute for the avodah we no longer have.

Which brings us back to the beginning of this article. If the tefilos of Klal Yisrael on the holiest day of the year draw on the words of Ben Sira — if min hashamayim it was decided that the keyword “mah nehedar” and the simile of “keshes b’anan” would enter our Yom Kippur Mussaf — then it would seem that Ben Sira’s wording was, indeed, received by Klal Yisroel. Which would seem to support Rav Moshe’s position. And whether or not this proof would have moved the Satmar Rebbe is, of course, a separate question — and one this author would not presume to answer.

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