LaQqeren or LeQeren?

Two quick thoughts.

On Zevachim 53a, in the Mishnah, we read that he came to the four corners.

עָלָה בַּכֶּבֶשׁ וּפָנָה לַסּוֹבֵב, וּבָא לוֹ לְקֶרֶן דְּרוֹמִית מִזְרָחִית, מִזְרָחִית צְפוֹנִית, צְפוֹנִית מַעֲרָבִית, מַעֲרָבִית דְּרוֹמִית. שְׁיָרֵי הַדָּם הָיָה שׁוֹפֵךְ עַל יְסוֹד דְּרוֹמִית, וְנֶאֱכָלִין לִפְנִים מִן הַקְּלָעִים לְזִכְרֵי כְהוּנָּה בְּכׇל מַאֲכָל, לְיוֹם וָלַיְלָה עַד חֲצוֹת.

He ascended the ramp of the altar and turned right to the surrounding ledge and he continued east, and he came to the southeast corner and sprinkled the blood of the sin offering there and then to the northeast corner and sprinkled the blood there, and then to the northwest corner and sprinkled the blood there, and the southwest corner, where he performed the fourth sprinkling and descended from the altar. He would pour the remainder of the blood on the southern base of the altar. And the meat portions of the offering are eaten within the curtains, i.e., in the Temple courtyard, by the males of the priesthood. And they are eaten prepared in any form of food preparation, on the day the offering is sacrificed and during the night that follows, until midnight.

Artscroll has a Shinuyei Nuschaot commentary which aggregates many other girsological commentaries, with proposals for emendation. On the words לְקֶרֶן דְּרוֹמִית, the note (aleph) is that the Zohar parashat Bemidbar, page [118b] discusses this, and that based on the sod discussed there, the kabbalists are careful that we are gores it as lakeren deromit, with an aleph under the lamed (and presumably a dagesh chazak in the kuf), even though it is in construct form (and thus ungrammatical).

I see two Zohar passages that have keren deromit, with the first one being page 118b.

I don’t understand kabbalah, so I don’t know the sod or what would motivate pronouncing it with a patach for punctilious kabbalists. However, here are two bits of speculation.

1. The passage there in 3:35 talks about for instance HaReuveinIY with the ha corresponding to Heh and the IY corresponding to the name Yud followed by Heh. And then, each corner corresponds to a letter from Tetragrammaton, YKVK. If so, maybe we are trying for a Heh here, which can be indicated by full patach designating the definite article, just as by HaReuveini.

2. Much more likely, there is a subtlety I missed when scanning the Zohar here, but it is an idea mentioned by Yahel Ohr on a slightly later passage. It seems that, in the Zohar’s reading, keren is a standalone, and deromit mizrachit is next, in a list of corners. In that reading, it should NOT be read as a construct. So first, he comes to the Keren. And this links into the aforementioned identities of the corners connecting with the Tetragrammaton.

#2 is better, because now it is not ungrammatical at all. Thus, Yahel Ohr writes:

רזא ליתבי דרומא. כמ”ש למטה בתחלה לקרן ואח”כ דרומית מזרחית כו’ מערבית דרומית התחלה בדרום וסיום גם כן בדרום. והענין כי אבא ואמא י”ה הם מזרח וצפון, וזעיר ונוקביה ו”ה הם דרום ומערב, כמש”ל עי”ש:

Even so, Artscroll and Sefaria still with the classic nikkud and punctuation. And I go with nigleh, not with nistar.

I’ll just point out the Kaufmann manuscript, the full vocalized manuscript of the Mishnah. Here is what it records:

Note the sheva under the lamed.