Should there be a pasek between Nesi Elohim and Ata?

An interesting thing in Minchas Shai on parashas Chayei Sarah.

The pasuk in our Mikraos Gedolos has a pasek between the word Elohim and Ata. Thus,

שְׁמָעֵנוּ | אֲדֹנִי נְשִׂיא אֱלֹהִים | אַתָּה בְּתוֹכֵנוּ

where the first vertical bar, after shema`einu, appears to be part of the munach legarmeih. The second vertical bar, after Nesi Elohim, would be a pasek.

Yet the Leningrad Codex does not have this pasek. Minchas Shai writes that Lunzano writes that there is no such paseik in this pasuk. {Update: See here in Or Torah, where he writes אלהים בלא פסק } And so too, he found in many seforim lacking, except in one rather old manuscript. Yet he thinks it is a good paseik, functioning to divide the Divine name from a following word, where otherwise there is only a meshares {Stealth edit in this sentence}. Similar to in parshat Vaetchanan, on the pasuk {Devarim 4:32}:

לב כִּי שְׁאַל-נָא לְיָמִים רִאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר-הָיוּ לְפָנֶיךָ, לְמִן-הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם עַל-הָאָרֶץ, וּלְמִקְצֵה הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְעַד-קְצֵה הַשָּׁמָיִם: הֲנִהְיָה, כַּדָּבָר הַגָּדוֹל הַזֶּה, אוֹ, הֲנִשְׁמַע כָּמֹהוּ.

32 For ask now of the days past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?

where there is a pasek between Elohim and Adam.

He also refers to Yalkut Shimoni on Mishpatim which lists this Elohim as kodesh, which might be a remez in favor of it,

נשיא אלקים אתה קדש.

but notes that in our version of masechet Soferim we lack this. It makes sense. If kodesh, there would be at least some cause for a paseik. But if it is chol, and so means "mighty prince" rather than "prince of God", then there would be little cause for a paseik pause.

My thoughts on this are as follows. I would lean rather heavily in favor of the absence of the paseik. Even with (according to Yalkut) Elohim as kodesh, there need not necessarily be a paseik. And the best masoretic manuscript we have, the Leningrad Codex, lacks it. As do most of the manuscripts Minchas Shai saw, with the exception of one.

I can understand the justification for a pasek. After all, we do not want to say that Avraham is God. However, I can also understand why there would not be a paseik, since Avraham is not being labelled a God, but rather a prince of God. Then, given both as options, this would truly seem to be an appropriate place to apply the principle of lectio difficilior, that the (seemingly) more difficult text is the original. And I can readily see a change, because of frumkeit, in adding the paseik, which doesn't really hurt anything, while I can see little reason for removing a paseik, in the direction of less frumkeit and in the direction of the removal of an existing masoretic note. Therefore, my strong guess is that the paseik was not original.

Furthermore, in terms of the particular example given by Minchas Shai: the pasuk in VaEtchanan is an example of almost accidental juxtaposition. Elokim created Adam, and so the noun is juxtaposed to the verb. True, they are related, but the pasek stops it from being Elokim Adam. In this case, however, the pasek would work against the direct meaning of the pasuk. The pasek betweek "Elohim | Ata" would work to prevent the message that "you are Elohim." But this is indeed what Elohim Ata means in the pasuk. Of course not that Avraham is Elohim. But the phrase is Nesi Elohim, and Avraham indeed is a Nesi Elohim, and this is what the Bnei Chais are trying to tell him.

Now, it is possible that such pasek divisions would occur even in such instances. But if so, the example offered is inadequate. Give me a pasuk like {Tehillim 82:6}:

ו אֲנִי-אָמַרְתִּי, אֱלֹהִים אַתֶּם; וּבְנֵי עֶלְיוֹן כֻּלְּכֶם.

6 I said: Ye are godlike beings, and all of you sons of the Most High.

There, the pasuk itself says that "you are Elohim" and "all of you are (sons of) the Most High". And so, this is the very message of the pasuk, rather than an accidental juxtaposition. And neither of these have paseik. I would like to have seen examples by Minchas Shai of this sort. Not being an expert on masorah and trup, I don't know that there are many, or any examples of this, which would let us prove this one way or another. (And reader participation would be much appreciated. Do you know of any examples?)

{Update: Thank you, commenter "Minchas Shy" who corrected my understanding of the Minchas Shai (who I will spell differently to avoid confusion). I am likely incorrect in my reading of Minchas Shai, and therefore I have placed the strikethrough in the preceding paragraphs and am rewriting it here.

Minchas Shai is not concerned with improper accidental juxtaposition, but rather the general rule that where otherwise there would only be a meshareis rather than a melech, and a given Elohim is kodesh, one should divide it.) (A type of Paseq emphaticum?)

I had assumed that this Pasek was what Wickes labels a Pasek Euphemisticum, whose object is to separate the Divine Name from a word, where it seems unseemly to associate with it."Indeed, though I didn't know it at the time, Wickes considers Minchas Shai's example of Asher Bara Elohim | Adam to be an example of this small class of paseiks.

Rather, as the commenter Minchas Shai writes, wherever we have the Divine Name with a mesharet, for reasons of sanctity we divide it. I don't know that this is really so in reality. Wickes gives many exceptions to it. To name but one of many, in parshas Noach, in Bereishis 8:1, why is there no paseik after the second Elohim? And we don't find it after many YKVKs, for example Bereishis 11:8. So while it might be influenced by some rule, such that we might want and expect it to be kodesh, it is not always so in reality.

If this is Minchas Shai's theory, then my objection (now struck through) is irrelevant. His example is spot on, as a case of marking an Elokim which is kodesh (if it indeed is) where it is a meshareis. However, I still maintain that lectio difficilior applies. This is a general rule for paseiks, and there is reason why someone might "correct" it. But if its use is indeed occasionally inconsistent, or it is possible that in reality is was chol, though later regarded as kodesh, then we can understand why one might correct it in the direction of paseik. But surely one would not just strip one out, against all these seemingly good reasons.

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But anyway, for all these reasons, I favor a lack of paseik in this pasuk.