Shadal has an interesting theory for the small aleph in the first word of parshat Vayikra. The first pasuk reads:
His theory, written on Bereishit 27:46, but referenced in his first comment on Vayikra, is as follows, in Hebrew -- I'll summarize in English in a moment.
| א וַיִּקְרָא, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֵלָיו, מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר. | 1 The LORD called unto Moses, and spoke unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying: |
מו ] ותאמר רבקה אל יצחק קצתי בחיי : הקו"ף זעירה ; נ"ל כי היה מנהג הסופרים בימי קדם כשהיתה תבה מתחלת באותה האות שהתבה הקודמת מסיימת, היו משמיטין אחת מהאותיות הדומות ואולי היו מציינין האות ההיא באיזה סימן להודיע שהיא עומדת במקום שתיים ; ואחר זמן הוסיפו בין שתי התבות האות החסרה, ולהיות המקום צר כתבו אותה זעירה, וכיוצא בזה ויקרא אל משה ( ויקרא א' א' ). והנה מהמנהג להשמיט אחת מהדומות נמשכו כה וכה קצת טעויות, קצתם נתקנו אח"כ על ידי כתיב וקרי, וקצתם לא נתקנו, כגון ( שמואל ב ה' ב' ) והמבי את ישראל , במקום והמביא, ( ירמיה ל"ט ט"ז ) הנני מבי את דברי , במקום מביא, ( מלכים ב' י"ג ו' ) החטי את ישראל , ( ירמיה ל"ב ל"ה ) החטי את יהודה , במקום החטיא, (שם כ"ג י"ד) לבלתי שבו , (שם כ"ז י"ח) לבלתי באו , במקום ישבו יבאו, ( ישעיה מ"ה כ"ד ) עדיו יבא ויבושו, ( יחזקאל כ' ל"ח ) ואל אדמת ישראל לא יבא וידעתם , במקום יבאו, ( ד"ה א' י"ז י"א ) כי מלאו ימיך , משפטו כי ימלאו ( שמואל א' י"ט ט' ) ודוד מנגן ביד ויבקש , צ"ל בידו, ועוד זולת אלה.
That is, when a word begins with the same letter the previous word ended with, the scribes used just a single letter, perhaps using some designated sign to indicate the doubled letter. Then, as time went on, they started putting the missing letter back in. But of course, there was little space to insert the letter, so they had to write it small. And this then became convention rather that what it was initially, motivated by the constraints of space.
Thus, for Vayikra, the words are וַיִּקְרָא אֶל. They originally left the first aleph out. Then, when they started putting it in, the made the aleph small to squeeze it in. And he offers another example of the small letter, from Bereishit 27:46, in Toledot:
kuf of katzti is small because it follows the word Yitzchak. But perhaps one need to assume this happened at a time when there was no inter-word gap. Firstly, that would make more sense for them to leave out one of the repeated letters. Secondly, in this case in Bereishit, it is the second kuf which is small. So I think we would have to posit no word gap, and the scribe inserted the second letter wherever it could most easily fit.
But what will Shadal do about small letters which do not fit this pattern. He might have to posit a second cause. I am thinking of Bereishit 23:2, in Chayyei Sarah:
kaf. Shadal has commentary on that pasuk, but he offers no explanation of the small kaf. Perhaps we could claim that the kaf looked like the preceding bet and so the scribe accidentally omitted it (as opposed to deliberately as Shadal claims for other cases), and then went back and fixed his error by inserting a small kaf, which would fit into that space?
Shadal supports his theory by noting a bunch of cases where the last letter is omitted from the first word, but that is fixed by the krei over the written text. But that others were not fixed. And he gives a whole bunch of examples (it should be stressed, in Neviim, as opposed to Torah) which he argues they accidentally did not put in that omitted letter. See each of his examples in turn. Very good evidence of this phenomenon in play.
However, I should note that we should examine krei and ketiv in general, and see if these alternations in this context of duplicated letters is more common that these same alternations when there is no duplicated letter.
Also, it seems that all of his examples involve the letters ehevi, that is, aleph heh vav and yud. Either missing at the end of the word, or at the beginning. Perhaps what is it play is not this scribal practice of doubling. Rather, in terms of final vowel letters (matres lectiones), way back when they did not use them. So perhaps ויקרא was written as ויקר without the final yud because of the nature of the aleph usually as an em hakriya, and so perhaps it is here. (In this case, it is a root letter, and I would guess that the Yemenites would make sure to pronounce the aleph, and mark it as a mapik aleph). And so for many of his examples.
Of course, other examples have the ehevi letter missing in the beginning of the word, where it functions as a consonant, and so should certainly be present. Perhaps we could argue that particularly by vowels, since people will continue speaking, and will not stop at the end of the word like they would by a consonant, such is more likely to happen. (Perhaps if one scribe read and the next recorded.) Or just perhaps we could say once again that there was no word boundary, as well as frequent omission of ehevi letters at the end of the words, and so the ehevi letter in these cases was sometimes doubled correctly in the new text, sometimes attached to the end of the first word, and sometimes attached to the beginning of the second word.
Alternate spellings are also possible. For example, he notes החטי without the aleph. But this is in fact the consistent spelling in the Yerushalmi! And indeed the famous gematria of egoz as gematria chet was predicated on that local spelling, which was without the aleph. Perhaps the same for מבי, and so on.
Shadal says he has other examples, that he is not providing. I suspect that they are also the "vowel" letters, though we can only speculate. (Unless he made a larger list someplace else.) If so, this fact should be incorporated into his theory, and the theory should account for this peculiarity. But he based this on a pasuk where the duplication -- or rather the small letter -- was not ehevi, but rather a kuf.
Thus, for Vayikra, the words are וַיִּקְרָא אֶל. They originally left the first aleph out. Then, when they started putting it in, the made the aleph small to squeeze it in. And he offers another example of the small letter, from Bereishit 27:46, in Toledot:
kuf of katzti is small because it follows the word Yitzchak. But perhaps one need to assume this happened at a time when there was no inter-word gap. Firstly, that would make more sense for them to leave out one of the repeated letters. Secondly, in this case in Bereishit, it is the second kuf which is small. So I think we would have to posit no word gap, and the scribe inserted the second letter wherever it could most easily fit.
But what will Shadal do about small letters which do not fit this pattern. He might have to posit a second cause. I am thinking of Bereishit 23:2, in Chayyei Sarah:
kaf. Shadal has commentary on that pasuk, but he offers no explanation of the small kaf. Perhaps we could claim that the kaf looked like the preceding bet and so the scribe accidentally omitted it (as opposed to deliberately as Shadal claims for other cases), and then went back and fixed his error by inserting a small kaf, which would fit into that space?
Shadal supports his theory by noting a bunch of cases where the last letter is omitted from the first word, but that is fixed by the krei over the written text. But that others were not fixed. And he gives a whole bunch of examples (it should be stressed, in Neviim, as opposed to Torah) which he argues they accidentally did not put in that omitted letter. See each of his examples in turn. Very good evidence of this phenomenon in play.
However, I should note that we should examine krei and ketiv in general, and see if these alternations in this context of duplicated letters is more common that these same alternations when there is no duplicated letter.
Also, it seems that all of his examples involve the letters ehevi, that is, aleph heh vav and yud. Either missing at the end of the word, or at the beginning. Perhaps what is it play is not this scribal practice of doubling. Rather, in terms of final vowel letters (matres lectiones), way back when they did not use them. So perhaps ויקרא was written as ויקר without the final yud because of the nature of the aleph usually as an em hakriya, and so perhaps it is here. (In this case, it is a root letter, and I would guess that the Yemenites would make sure to pronounce the aleph, and mark it as a mapik aleph). And so for many of his examples.
Of course, other examples have the ehevi letter missing in the beginning of the word, where it functions as a consonant, and so should certainly be present. Perhaps we could argue that particularly by vowels, since people will continue speaking, and will not stop at the end of the word like they would by a consonant, such is more likely to happen. (Perhaps if one scribe read and the next recorded.) Or just perhaps we could say once again that there was no word boundary, as well as frequent omission of ehevi letters at the end of the words, and so the ehevi letter in these cases was sometimes doubled correctly in the new text, sometimes attached to the end of the first word, and sometimes attached to the beginning of the second word.
Alternate spellings are also possible. For example, he notes החטי without the aleph. But this is in fact the consistent spelling in the Yerushalmi! And indeed the famous gematria of egoz as gematria chet was predicated on that local spelling, which was without the aleph. Perhaps the same for מבי, and so on.
Shadal says he has other examples, that he is not providing. I suspect that they are also the "vowel" letters, though we can only speculate. (Unless he made a larger list someplace else.) If so, this fact should be incorporated into his theory, and the theory should account for this peculiarity. But he based this on a pasuk where the duplication -- or rather the small letter -- was not ehevi, but rather a kuf.
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Rabbi Reuven Margoliot has a list of other verses in Tanach that this phenomenon occurs that one letter works for the end and beginning of two words, and they are all types of letters, especially mem. He says "Ayin HaMishtadel sof parshat Toledot" in his footnotes so he knew this theory, but his theory is that it was completely normal to write this way, but not in relation to the small letters of the Torah. Fascinatingly, he thinks that even Chazal wrote this way, and it would clarify quite a few gemaras.
Jeremiah 29:7, for example, is understood by Chazal in many places as referring to seeking the welfare of Jerusalem, not of the cities they were exiled to. Mystery solved, the mem is going for both words.
Or Genesis 14:14 refers to Dan as a city in Israel even though that name wouldn't exist for a long time. Mystery solved, it refers to Didan, the daled of "ad" also applies to "dan". And many more.
As for Chazals, see Horayot 4a, and Rashi there on "neelam diber". And he applies this understanding to Yoma 52b where it says that there are 5 verses that have no hachra'a. This is difficult to understand for a few reasons, such as the fact that each of the words would not make sense if they were detached from the clause that it makes sense it would apply to. Additionally, some are bothered why the troup wouldn't fix the problem of hachra'a. His answer is that even words were sometimes used for two clauses if it is at the end of one and the beginning of another. There is no hachraa, the gemara means to say, whether that word is meant to apply to both clauses or just one.
See Hamikra VeHamesora chapters 19 and 20.
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