<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Rav Chaim Volozhin in his work &ldquo;Orchot Chaim&rdquo; which speaks about the practices of the Vilna Gaon, writes that the Vilna Gaon did not sing &ldquo;Tzur Mishelo&rdquo; (end of paragraph 94). I have heard that the reason was that the content of &ldquo;Tzur Mishelo&rdquo; includes a summary of the three Torah berachos of birchas hamazon and by singing it one might fulfill the mitzvah of birchas hamazon. Furthermore, I have heard that to avoid this problem, when singing it one should say &ldquo;Hashem&rdquo; instead of the actual Divine Name.</span></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;" align="left"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;" align="left"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Should one find in a zemiros book brought out by an organisation whose orthodoxy has much to be desired, a zemer not appearing elsewhere, one might justifiably assume that it was written by a maskil. But this might not always be the case. One such example was the zemer &ldquo;Al Ahavoscha Eshte G&rsquo;vi&rsquo;i&rdquo; which I found in such an organisation&rsquo;s zemer book. As a result, for several decades I would not sing it. It was by hashgacha pratis that I found this zemer in Machzor Vitri (Hurwitz edition, pages 147-48), a work written by Rabbeinu Simchah a student of Rashi, and that the authorship was Rav Yehudah Halevi. Since then it forms part of my repertoire of zemiros, and I would like to see zemiros books incorporating this zemer. </span></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;" align="left">&nbsp;</p> </p> </span></span></span></p>