Clip from Seth Qaddish's "Kevanah": According to Rabbi Yosef Qafahh, RMb"M truly believed that the prayer text he recorded in Mishna Torah actually was an official one. Because of its great similarity to the Yemenite Tiklal and because of the extraordinary accuracy, which is rightly ascribed to Yemenite scribes, Qafahh posited that the RMb"M simply adopted the Yemenite tradition because he was convinced that it was the best prayer text extant in the world at the time.
Qafahh found ways to explain all of the minor discrepancies between RMb"M's text and the Tiklal and thus considered it possible to reject earlier views of the origin of RMb"M’s text. Daniel Goldshmidt, in particular, had shown that the RMb"M's text cannot be directly related to any other extant text (including Tiklal) and simply concluded that it must simply have been the version popular in Egypt during RMb"M's lifetime.
Goldschmidts position is quoted by Qafahh, but Qafahh counters that Goldshmidt used an imperfect edition of the Tiklal and was thus led to the wrong conclusion! The TRUE tiklal according to Qafahh can be shown to match the RMb"M's version exactly.
Qafahh's faith in the Yemenite tradition is so firm, in fact, that in his edition of the prayer text in RMb"M’s Mishneh Torah, he exclusively follows Yemenite Manuscripts, even when they contradict the oldest known manuscript of Minshan Torah, a text that received RMb"M's imprimatur, in his own handwriting!
According to Qafahh, RMb"M simply certified that the scribe who copied that manuscript later checked it against the original autographed copy of Mishnah Torah. But who can say how carefully he checked it? In Qafahh's opinion, the Yemenite manuscripts of MT are to be preferred.
Site Admin: But there is another angle here as well. I'll give the final word to Mori Qafahh zs"l:
Selected Writings of Rabbi Yosef Qafih, of blessed memory
Excerpt from Journal "Sinai," pub. by Mosad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem, Tammuz 5718,
from article entitled "HaRMb"M wegaluth Teman," pg. 261
"I have heard from the old men that there is a tradition with the Jews of Yemen which says that the prayer version that Maimonides wrote in his book, the Yad HaHazaqa, he received from the Jews of Yemen, at his clear & absolute knowledge of the fact that the Jews of Yemen had preserved with utmost zeal the ancient most rendition of the prayer, and that its style was clean of all additions and innovations which the scholars of Babylonia, the wise men of Spain, and the Rabbis of Ashkenaz have made and inserted within their prayers throughout the generations which preceded Maimonides as well as during his lifetime. Proof of which, and a thing which lends support to this tradition, can be found in several places whereby Maimonides mentions, in a transient manner, a certain section taken from the prayers, which he then writes in a version unlike that used in his composition (i.e. the Mishne Torah, or what is also called, Yad HaHazaqa). For example: In his Commentary on the Mishnah, Berachoth chapter 5, he wrote that in the benediction made during the rainy season [the blessing is] 'Bless over us' (Heb. ברך עלינו), while in the book Yad [HaHazaqa] he did not write this version."
המקור: "שמעתי מזקנים שמסורת בידי יהודי תימן שנוסח התפלה שכתב הרמב"ם בספרו היד החזקה קיבל אותו מידי יהודי תימן בידעו ידיעה ברורה שיהודי תימן שמרו מאוד על נוסח התפלה העתיק ביותר ושנוסחתם היתה נקייה מכל ההוספות והתיקונים שתיקנו והוסיפו בנוסח התפילה גאוני בבל, חכמי ספרד ורבני אשכנז במשך הדורות שקדמו להרמב"ם ובזמנו. סמך וסעד למסורת זו יש להביא מכמה מקומות כשהרמב"ם מזכיר איזה קטע מן התפילה דרך אגב שהוא כותב נוסח שלא כתבו בחיבורו. לדוגמא: בפירוש המשניות, ברכות פרק ה', כתב שברכת השנים בימות הגשמים ,ברך עלינו, ובספר היד לא כתב נוסח זה." ("סיני," שנת תשי"ח)
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And the debate did not stop there...