Daf Ditty Megillah 32: The Music of Torah

‘There is geometry in the humming of the strings.

There is music in the spacing of the spheres.’

Pythagoras (569–490 BCE)

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

The Merchant of Venice

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Rebbe Nachman of Breslov said: It’s good for a person to accustom himself to reviving himself
with a nigun, because nigun is a powerful and mighty tool, and it has the great strength to
awaken a person and point his heart towards the Blessed Name. And even one who doesn’t
know how to play music [or sing out loud] can sing to himself and through that revive himself.
For the “lift” of a nigun cannot be measured.

Sichot HaRan 273

Sometimes, a person must build ladders to climb to the heavens. A nigun is one of these
ladders, specifically when we sing after the joy of a mitzvah, with a heart broken open…

R. Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piazetsne Tzav ve-Zeiruz §36

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 Rainer Maria Rilke

The Sages taught in a baraita: When a person reads from the Torah, he should open the scroll
and see the place from where he will read, furl it so that it is closed, and recite the blessing, and
then he should again open the scroll, and read. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. Rabbi
Yehuda said: He should open the scroll, and see the place from where he will read, and, without
closing it again, he should recite the blessing, and read.

The Gemara asks: What is the reason for Rabbi Meir’s opinion that the blessing is not recited
over an open scroll? The Gemara answers: His reasoning is in accordance with the statement of
Ulla, as Ulla said: For what reason did the Sages say that one who reads from the Torah should

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not assist the translator, but rather the translation should be exclusively said by the translator?
In order that people should not say that the translation is written in the Torah. Here too, the
scroll should be closed when reciting the blessings, in order that people should not say that the
blessings are written in the Torah.

And Rabbi Yehuda is not concerned about this, as he claims that with regard to the translation,
there is the possibility of people erring in this way, but with regard to the blessings, there is no
concern about people erring. People will realize the blessings are not actually part of the Torah’s
text because they are recited by each person who reads.

Rabbi Zeira said that Rav Mattana said: The halakha is that he should open the scroll, see the
place from which he will read, and, without closing it again, he should recite the blessing and
read. The Gemara asks: If so, let him simply say: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion
of Rabbi Yehuda. Why did he have to explicitly state the whole halakha? The Gemara answers:
Because there are those who reversed the names in the baraita and attributed the position of
Rabbi Yehuda to Rabbi Meir and vice versa. In order to avoid any lack of clarity, Rabbi Zeira
stated the halakha explicitly.

Rabbi Zeira said that Rav Mattana said: The boards, i.e., the empty margins of a Torah scroll,
and the platforms from which the Torah is read do not have any sanctity.

§ Rabbi Shefatya said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: When one furls a Torah scroll, he needs to
position it so that it closes on the seam between two sheets of parchment. Once closed, the seam
should be between the two rolls of the scroll, so that if it is mishandled or overly tightened, it will
come apart along the seam and not be torn across the writing.

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And Rabbi Shefatya said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: When one rolls a Torah scroll from one
section to another, he should roll it from the outside, i.e., he should position the scroll so the two
rollers are parallel to him and then roll the scroll by rotating the roller farthest away from him by
rotating it toward himself, and he should not roll it from the inside, by rotating the roller nearest
to him away from himself. If one does this and loses control, the scroll could roll away from him
onto the floor.

And when one tightens the scroll, after he has found the new section, he should tighten it from
the inside, by rotating the roller nearest to him, and not from the outside, by rotating the roller
furthest away from him, in order not to extend his arms over the text of the Torah and obscure the
view of the community, for it is a mitzva for them to be able to see the text.

And Rabbi Shefatya said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: If one was deliberating about whether to do
a certain action, and a Divine Voice indicated what he should do, from where is it derived that
one may make use of a Divine Voice and rely upon it? As it is stated:

‫ ֵמַאֲח ֶרי\ כא‬,‫ְוָאְזֶני\ ִתְּשַׁמְﬠָנה ָדָבר‬ 21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying:
‫ ִכּי ַתֲאִמינוּ‬,‫ ְלכוּ בוֹ‬m‫ ֶזה ַהֶדּ ֶר‬:‫ֵלאֹמר‬ 'This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right
‫ ְוִכי ַתְשְׂמִאילוּ‬. hand, and when ye turn to the left.'
Isa 20:31

“And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying: This is the way, walk in it”

The Gemara comments: This applies only when one heard a male voice in the city, which is
unusual, for men are usually found in the fields, or when one heard a female voice in the fields,

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for women are generally not found there. Since the voice is unusual, one need not doubt it and may
rely upon it. And that applies when the voice repeated its message and said: Yes, yes. And that
also applies when the voice said: No, no.

And Rabbi Shefatya said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Concerning anyone who reads from the
Torah without a melody or studies the Mishna without a song, the verse states:

‫ ֻחִקּים ל ֹא כה‬,‫ֲא ִני ָנַתִתּי ָלֶהם‬-‫ְוַגם‬ 25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not
‫ ָבֶּהם‬,‫ל ֹא ִיְחיוּ‬--‫טוִֹבים; וִּמְשָׁפִּטים‬. good, and ordinances whereby they should not live;
Ezek 20:25

“So too I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live” as
one who studies Torah through song demonstrates that he is fond of his learning. Furthermore, the
tune helps him remember what he has learned.

§ The mishna states: The verse:

‫ מד‬-‫ ֶאל‬,‫ֹמֲﬠֵדי ְיהָוה‬-‫ ֶאת‬,‫ַו ְיַדֵבּר ֹמֶשׁה‬ 44 And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the
‫ }פ‬.‫ ִיְשָׂרֵאל‬,‫}ְבֵּני‬ appointed seasons of the LORD.
Lev 23:44

“And Moses declared to the children of Israel the appointed seasons of the Lord” indicates that
part of the mitzva of the Festivals is that they should read the portion relating to them, each one
in its appointed time. The Sages taught in a baraita: Moses enacted for the Jewish people that
they should make halakhic inquiries and expound upon the matter of the day. They should
occupy themselves with the halakhot of Passover on Passover, with the halakhot of Shavuot on
Shavuot, and with the halakhot of Sukkot on Sukkot.

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Summary
Torah Rituals Then and Now

Masechet Megilla ends with a conversation about rituals around Torah reading.1 Rabbi Meir and
Rabbi Yehuda disagree about stringency. Rabbi Meir believes that when reading from the Torah,
the reader should touch the spot where the reading starts with an intermediary (a cloth; a
yad). Then the reader should state the blessing. Following this, he should begin the Torah
reading. Rabbi Yehuda believes that when saying the blessing, the Torah should be covered. This
stringency ensures that the congregation understands the translator's intention and does not believe
that the blessing on the Torah is written in the Torah. Rabbi Meir says that this is obvious, for the
blessing is repeated before each parasha is read.

Steinsaltz provides us with numerous versions of these practices in his notes. I was delighted to
understand the "why" of another ritual that I have witnessed and not fully understood.

The sanctity of the Torah and items that come into direct contact with the Torah are considered to
have the greatest sanctity. We learn about how to properly furl, unfurl, close and dress the
Torah. Most of these practices help to ensure that the text of the Torah is not damaged should, G-
d forbid, the scroll fall and/or rip. Again, having dressed the Torah numerous times, it is deeply
satisfying to understand why these rituals have become carved in stone, so to speak.

At the end of today's daf we are reminded of what we are to do on the festivals. Leviticus 23:44
tells us that "Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed seasons of the Lord". Thus
we are to read the portions that describe each Festival on that Festival. Further, the Sages taught
in a Baraita that we are to use each Festival to learn the halachot of that Festival.

Learning the origins of customs and rituals is terribly significant. There is a joke of the woman
who cut off the corner of her roast before putting it into the oven. She learned this from her mother,
who learned it from her mother. But why was this done? It would feel wrong to prepare a roast
with the corner attached, but did its removal come from Torah? or was it based on a health
concern? or something else? Asking her grandmother about this ritual, the woman learned the
origin of the removal: her great-grandmother's roasting pan was too small for the full roast.

1 http://dafyomibeginner.blogspot.com/2014/08/megilla-32-torah-rituals-then-and-now.html

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We ascribe meaning as a matter of course. Learning about the origins of our rituals helps us to
understand what was meaningful to our ancestors. We can then add that meaning to our own
experience of practice.

Rav Avrohom Adler writes:2

The Gemora cites a braisa: Rabbi Shimon ben Elozar said that Ezra established that the curses in
Vayikra should be read prior to the festival of Shavuos and those mentioned in Devarim should be
read prior to Rosh Hashanah.

Abaye and others say that it was Rish Lakish explain: This is in order for the year to end together
with its curses. The Gemora asks: This is understandable regarding Rosh Hashanah, but Shavuos
is not a new year? The Gemora answers: Shavuos is a new year for the fruits as we have learned
in a Mishna that we are judged concerning the fruits of the trees on Shavuos and it is therefore
appropriate to read the curses prior to Shavuos, so that the year relating to the fruits will end along
with the curses.

Rabbi Shimon ben Elozar states further: If elderly men tell you to destroy and young men tell you
to build, you should destroy and not build because the destroying of the elderly is building, and
the building of the young is actually destroying. The Gemora cites Rechovam, the son of Shlomo
as a proof to this (he listened to the advice of the young ones and not the elders – he eventually
lost the kingdom because of this).

The Gemora cites a braisa: Rabbi Meir maintains that the place where the Torah reading concludes
on Shabbos morning, that is the place we begin by Shabbos Mincha; the place where we conclude
by Mincha is the place we begin on Monday; the place where we conclude on Monday is the place
we begin on Thursday; the place where we conclude on Thursday is the place, we begin on Shabbos
morning. Rabbi Yehudah disagrees: The place where we conclude on Shabbos morning is the
place, we begin by Mincha, Monday, Thursday and the following Shabbos. The Gemora rules
according to Rabbi Yehudah’s opinion.

The Gemora cites a braisa: Rabbi Meir maintains that one who is called up to read from the Torah,
opens it and looks where he will begin reading. He then rolls the Torah closed and recites the
blessing. He then opens the Torah and begins to read from it. Rabbi Yehuda holds that he should
open it to see where he will begin reading and recite the blessing without closing it first. The
Gemora provides the reason for Rabbi Meir: One recites the blessing when the Torah is closed in
order that people will not think that the blessings are written in the Torah.

Rabbi Yehudah holds that this logic is applicable only to a different halacha. The reader of the
Torah should not help the translator because people might think that the translation is written in
the Torah, but it is well known that the blessings are not written in the Torah. The Gemora rules
according to Rabbi Yehudah’s opinion.

2 http://dafnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Megillah_32.pdf

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Rabbi Shefatya said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: One who is rolling a Torah scroll closed
should make sure that the seam (that joins one piece of parchment to the other) is positioned in the
center of the Torah.

Rabbi Shefatya also said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: The most prominent person among the
congregants should receive the honor of rolling the Torah scroll closed. It was said in the name of
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi that the one who rolls the Torah scroll closed receives a reward equal
to the reward of all the readers from the Torah.

Rabbi Shefatya also said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: One who reads from the Torah without
the trop (cantillation), or he recites a Mishna without singing it is regarded as a sin. Abaye
disagrees with this interpretation, and he states that it is considered a sin if two Torah scholars
reside in one city and do not properly communicate with each other in halachic matters.

Rabbi Parnach states in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: Whoever holds a Sefer Torah without a
covering will be buried bare. The Gemora offers various explanations of this statement. It is not
understood why one who holds a Sefer Torah without a covering should be buried without shrouds.
The Gemora then suggests that the statement means that the person will be buried without any
mitzvos. The Gemora questions the logic behind this and concludes that the statement means that
he will not be buried without that specific mitzvah.

Tosfos explains that if he had been studying from the sefer, he does not earn the reward of that
study. If he had rolled the sefer Torah with his bare hands, he does not receive the reward of the
gelilah (rolling the Sefer Torah).

It was taught in a braisa: Moshe ordained that we should publicly lecture on the duties of each day.
We must lecture on the halachos of Pesach on Pesach, the halachos of Shavuos on Shavuos and
the halachos of Sukkos on Sukkos.

VOWELS IN THE MEGILLAH

The Gemora provides the reason for Rabbi Meir: One recites the blessing when the Torah is closed
in order that people will not think that the blessings are written in the Torah. Shulchan Aruch
(691:9) rules that a Megillah which has been vowelized (the nekudos have been written in) or the
blessings have been written on the front page, is not disqualified and it may be used.

The Mishna Berura writes that one should not initially write the blessings in the Megillah. It can
be inferred that one may be permitted to insert the vowels and punctuation into the Megillah if he
doesn’t know how to read the Megillah otherwise.

The Gr” A rules however, that it is forbidden to place the vowels into the Megillah. The
Maharsham rules that one should not draw pictures on the margins of a Megillah. Reb Yitzchak
Zilberstein comments that if a person cannot read the Megillah without punctuation and vowels
written in, one may insert them in the verses and words that if they are read incorrectly would
invalidate the reading.

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The Aruch Hashulchan (691:14) rules that it is preferential to read the Megillah without the trop
than to write the trop inside the Megillah. Perhaps one can write the vowels and the trop on a piece
of paper and tape it to the Megillah.

A Study in Contrasts- Esther versus Haman

If we study the characters of Mordechai and Esther it is interesting to see the profound influence
one’s middos have over one’s actions and personality. We see how a refined character and healthy
self-esteem can build and give meaning to life while the converse is also true, that a flawed
character, someone who refuses to work on his faulty middos will ultimately self-destruct. When
Mordechai refuses to bow to Haman, “Haman is filled with anger” (3:5).

It is fascinating to note that Haman had been promoted to viceroy over the entire civilized world
(according to one opinion in the Gemora) and despite this when one little Jew refuses to bow, his
world falls apart. This is a sad but common symptom of those who have very big egos, of which
Haman was the standard bearer. If one’s world is dependent on public adulation and built on what
others think of me then when one individual, no matter how seemingly insignificant, refuses to
pay homage to me this means my identity, who and what I am is being called into question.

There is now a gaping hole in the artificial edifice which I have built up in my imagination which
serves as my identity. No-one likes being identity-less and a sure consequence of this is insane and
blind hatred for those who have robbed me of myself.

The Vilna Gaon points out that Haman did not even notice that Mordechai was not bowing down
but had to be told (3:4). Haman’s nose was so high in the sky he did not notice who or what was
going on while he passed along. Even once he was told he refused and was even scared to accept
this news and was prepared to judge Mordechai with the benefit of the doubt that maybe Mordechai
did not realize how hurtful this was to Haman. The loss of one’s identity is not an easy thing to
swallow, and Haman feared for himself.

HOW TO RECITE THE FIRST BLESSING OVER THE

READING OF THE TORAH

Rav Mordechai Kornfeld writes:

The Gemara records a dispute between Rebbi Meir and Rebbi Yehudah about how exactly one
should recite the blessing before he (or the designated reader) reads from the Sefer Torah. Rebbi
Meir maintains that one first rolls the Sefer Torah closed after he looks at the place from which
the reader will read, and then he recites the blessing. Rebbi Yehudah maintains that one may leave
the Sefer Torah open when he recites the blessing.

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The Gemara explains that the reason why Rebbi Meir requires one to close the Sefer Torah before
he recites the blessing is so that onlookers will not think that the blessings are written inside the
Sefer Torah. Rebbi Yehudah maintains that no one would make such a mistake, and therefore he
permits one to leave the Sefer Torah open when he recites the blessing.

The Gemara concludes that the Halachah follows the view of Rebbi Yehudah.

Rebbi Yehudah's opinion is not entirely clear from the Gemara. Although Rebbi Yehudah says
that one may recite the blessing with the Sefer Torah open, does he mean that one specifically
should not close it, or that one is not required to close it, but he may do so if he chooses? How
should one conduct himself in practice?

The BEIS YOSEF (OC 139) cites RABEINU SA'ADYAH who says that one should specifically
leave the Sefer Torah open and not close it when he recites the blessing. His source is apparently
the Yerushalmi (Megilah 3:7) which derives from a verse in Nechemyah (8:5-6) that one should
recite the blessing while the Sefer Torah is open. The PRI MEGADIM (Mishbetzos Zahav 139:4)
explains that the reason for this is in order to enable the reader to begin reading right away and to
minimize the pause between the blessing and the reading. In addition, whenever one recites a
blessing over a certain object, he should have the object (in this case, the Sefer Torah) open and
ready in front of him at the time of the blessing.

TOSFOS (DH Golelo) writes that l'Chatchilah one should close the Sefer Torah before he recites
the blessing so that onlookers will not think that the blessings are written in it. Nevertheless,
b'Di'eved, one who recites the blessing with the Sefer Torah open has not acted inappropriately
because today it is very rare that an Am ha'Aretz will think that the blessings are written in the
Sefer Torah.

Why does Tosfos rule that one should recite the blessing with the Sefer Torah closed, as Rebbi
Meir says? The Gemara itself says that the Halachah follows the opinion of Rebbi Yehudah!
The BACH explains that according to Tosfos, when Rebbi Yehudah says that one should leave
the Sefer Torah open when he recites the blessing, he means that one is not required to close it or
to open it, but he is allowed to open it. Tosfos means that even Rebbi Yehudah agrees that it
is better to close it, and therefore Tosfos rules accordingly.

The MAHARSHA questions the Bach's understanding of Tosfos. Tosfos says that nowadays it is
rare that Amei ha'Aretz should be so ignorant as to think that the blessings are written in the Sefer
Torah, and therefore one who recites the blessing while the Sefer Torah is open does not act
improperly. This implies that in the times of the Gemara, such Amei ha'Aretz were common, and
thus one was required to close the Sefer Torah when he recited the blessing. However, that was
the practice of Rebbi Meir and not Rebbi Yehudah! According to the Bach's explanation, Tosfos
effectively rules like Rebbi Meir, contrary to the Gemara's conclusion.

The TAZ (OC 139:4) explains that when Tosfos says "nowadays, such Amei ha'Aretz are not
common," he does not mean to imply that in the times of the Gemara they were common. Rather,
Tosfos implies that after the times of the Gemara such Amei ha'Aretz proliferated and thus it
became necessary to be stringent like Rebbi Meir and close the Sefer Torah when reciting the

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blessing. In the times of Tosfos, such Amei ha'Aretz became less common, and thus Tosfos says
that b'Di'eved one may keep the Sefer Torah open. According to Tosfos, during the times of the
Gemara the common practice (and the Halachah) was in accordance with the view of Rebbi
Yehudah, who did not require one to close the Sefer Torah, but who certainly allowed one to close
it.

The SHULCHAN ARUCH (OC 139:4) cites the opinion of Rebbi Yehudah and says that one
recites the blessing over the Torah with the Sefer Torah open. The REMA says that one should
look to the side, away from the Sefer Torah (so that Amei ha'Aretz should not think that the
blessing is written in the Sefer Torah). The MISHNAH BERURAH cites the CHAYEI
ADAM who says that instead of looking to the side, one should close his eyes so that he does not
appear to be looking away from the Sefer Torah and making a blessing on something else.

The BI'UR HALACHAH writes that some Poskim rule like Tosfos who says that one should
close the Sefer Torah when he recites the blessing. He concludes that both practices are acceptable,
and that each synagogue may follow its own custom.

With regard to the blessing recited after the Torah reading, the RAMBAM writes that one should
close the Sefer Torah before he recites the blessing. (The source for this practice is Maseches
Sofrim 13:8. This practice is also mentioned in the Beraisa quoted here, according to the text of
the DIKDUKEI SOFRIM. Tosfos apparently had that text as well.) As the MAGID
MISHNEH explains, since the Sefer Torah anyway must be closed after one read from it, one
should close it before he recites the blessing (lest Amei ha’aretz think that the blessing is written
in the Sefer Torah).

(Rebbi Yehudah's opinion that one keeps the Sefer Torah open while he recites the blessing applies
only before the Torah reading, because if one were to close the Sefer Torah for the blessing he
would have to open it again immediately in order to read from it, and this would entail an
unnecessary delay for the Tzibur. The reason suggested by the Pri Megadim (see above) for leaving
the Sefer Torah open during the blessing applies only to the blessing said before the Torah reading
but not to the blessing after the Torah reading.)

"SHO'ALIN V'DORSHIN" -- LEARNING THE HALACHOS BEFORE

THE FESTIVAL

The Maseches concludes by teaching that Moshe Rabeinu "enacted for Yisrael that they expound
upon the subject of the day, the laws of Pesach on Pesach, the laws of Shavuos on Shavuos, and
the laws of Sukos on Sukos."

The requirement to expound upon the Halachos of the festival specifically on the day of the festival
contradicts the ruling of the Gemara earlier. The Gemara earlier (29b, and Pesachim 6a) rules that
we are to expound upon the Halachos thirty days before the festival. How is this contradiction to
be reconciled? (See also Insights to Bechoros 58:1.)

(a) The RAN, RITVA (4a), and RASHBA answer that these are two separate enactments. The
enactment to learn the Halachos of the festival on the day of the festival refers to the obligation of

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the Rav to expound upon the Halachos of the festival in his public lecture on the festival. The
enactment to learn (or, literally, to "inquire" about -- "Sho'alin") the Halachos thirty days before
the festival refers only to the student's right to ask the Rav a question about the festival within
thirty days before the festival. Within thirty days before the festival, his question is considered
relevant to the subject matter being studied. (One student's question takes precedence over another
student's question only when it is relevant to the subject being studied; see SHULCHAN ARUCH
YD 246:14.)

According to the Ran, there is no inherent obligation to study the Halachos of the festival thirty
days before the festival.

(b) Many Rishonim, such as the BEHAG and the SHE'ILTOS, disagree with the Rank and assert
that there is an obligation to learn the Halachos of the festival thirty days before the festival (see
also TOSFOS to 4a, DH Mai). This is also the implication of the Gemara in Sanhedrin (12b).
What, then, does the Gemara here mean when it says that one must learn the Halachos of the
festival on the day of the festival?

The MISHNAH BERURAH (OC 429:1) gives a straightforward answer based on the view of
the BEIS YOSEF. The Beis Yosef explains that wherever the Gemara says that we expound the
Halachos of the festival thirty days before the festival, it refers only to Pesach and not to the other
festivals. When the Gemara here says that we expound the Halachos of the festival on the day of
the festival, it refers to all of the festivals.

The Chachamim instituted that we study the Halachos of Pesach thirty days before the festival
because the Halachos relevant to Pesach are so abundant and complex (such as the Halachos of
making Matzos, kashering the vessels, destroying Chametz), and they have such severe
consequences (the punishment of Kares for transgressing the prohibition against eating Chametz).
Moreover, many of the Halachos of Pesach are relevant before Pesach, such as how to kasher
vessels, how to bake Matzah, and how to get rid of Chametz. In contrast, the Halachos of the other
festivals can be mastered in just a few days, or on Yom Tov itself, as Moshe Rabeinu instituted.
The BACH makes a similar distinction between Pesach and the other festivals.

(c) A number of Rishonim, however, seem to rule that the thirty-day obligation applies to all three
festivals and not just to Pesach (see SHA'AR HA'TZIYUN 429:2; see also RASHI to Sukah 9a,
DH Beis Shamai and MAHARSHA there).

The VILNA GA'ON (Bi'ur ha'Gra) explains that when the Gemara here says that Moshe Rabeinu
enacted that we expound upon the Halachos of the festival on the festival, it does not mean only on
the day of the festival. Rather, it means during the season of the festival -- thirty days before the
festival.

(d) The PRI MEGADIM, PRI CHADASH, and CHOK YAKOV (as cited by the BI'UR
HALACHAH OC 429:1) answer based on the Yerushalmi (Pesachim 1:1) and Tosefta in Megilah
which teach that the obligation to learn the Halachos on the festival itself applies to
every individual, while the obligation to study the Halachos thirty days before the festival applies
to the groups of people who gather together in the study halls to learn. The Gemara here refers to

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the enactment made for individuals, while the Gemara earlier refers to groups of people who learn
together in the study hall. (This seems to be the opposite of the first answer cited above.)

The ELIYAH RABAH refutes this explanation. He contends that every time the Gemara (Bavli)
mentions this Halachah, it does not differentiate between an individual who learns by himself in
his home and a group of people who learn together in the study hall. Similarly, the BACH writes
that "every person is obligated to study the Halachos of Pesach on Purim (thirty days before
Pesach)." This is also clear from the words of the BEHAG.

HALACHAH: The SHULCHAN ARUCH (OC 429:1) quotes the words of the Gemara earlier
which says, “We expound (Sho’alin) the Halachos of Pesach thirty days before Pesach.”
The BI’UR HALACHAH there points out the apparent contradiction between the two statements
in the Gemara. He concludes that although it is preferable for every person to study the Halachos
thirty days before the Yom Tov, at least the public study groups should make it their practice to
do so, in order to fulfill the ruling of the Yerushalmi (in (d) above).

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:3

Common practice is to pay attention to the aliyot to the Torah as great honors, while the closing
activities of hagbah (lifting) and gelilah – of rolling up the sefer Torah so that it can be properly
returned to the ark – are perceived as less important, and are often given to young people. The
discussion on the last page of Masechet Megillah focuses on the act of gelilah, and its conclusions
fly in the face of common practice. Rabbi Yochanan is quoted as teaching that when there are ten
people available for Torah reading, it is the greatest among them who is asked to perform gelilah.
In fact, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi teaches that the individual who does gelilah received a reward
as great as all of those who were called to the Torah to read.

The Gemara also relates a series of halakhot that teach the proper way to perform gelilah. For
example, when tightening the scroll, Rabbi Yochanan requires it to be done on a seam, where the
parchments that make up the Torah scroll are sewn together. Rashi explains that this is the place
where it can most easily be tightened well; Tosafot Ri”d and Rabbeinu Yehonatan explain that
this will ensure that the scroll will not tear, and in the event that it does tear, only the stitches will
come out, but the scroll itself will not be damaged.

Other rules of gelilah are:

• golelo mi-bahutz ve-lo mi-bifnim – turn it from the outside, but not the inside
• mehadko mi-bifnim ve-lo mi-bachutz – tighten it from the inside, but not the outside

Many explanations are given for these rules. Rashi appears to understand that this is not talking
about gelilah in the synagogue after a public Torah reading, rather it deals with a case where a
person is reading privately from a scroll (before bound books became the norm). Rabbeinu
Chananel suggests that this means that the back of the Torah should be facing the person
doing gelilah, but that he should tie the knot closed on the other side, where the Torah is going to

3 https://www.ou.org/life/torah/masechet_megillah3032/

14
be opened. This is important because otherwise when the Torah is next taken out to be read from
it will have to be turned over, which will show a lack of respect and honor.

Two gentlemen discussing business by Fritz Wagner

After reading the Torah

Mark Kerzner writes:

After they have read the Torah in the synagogue - which was done by calling multiple people -
they call another person to raise the Torah scroll, for all to see, and then to "dress it up" - that it, to
put the cover on it. This person takes away the reward of all the previous ones. How could it be? -
The Talmud likes to emphasize things. Rather, his reward is equal to all of the previous ones
combined.

With all that we said about the Torah on the previous pages, how could God say, "I, too, will give
you laws that are not good?" Rabbi Yochanan says that it is talking about someone who is learning
but does not express his joy of learning in singing. However, Abaye asked about this, "Just because

15
someone does not know how to sing nicely, he deserves the bad words?" Rather, it is talking about
two Sages who live in the same city but not discuss Torah between them.

Finally, the phrase "And Moses told the laws of the Holidays to all Israel" teaches that he
established a custom to learn the laws of each Festival on or before its time. It is customary to
connect the end of a Tractate with its beginning - and here we can remember that the beginning of
this Tractate discussed when the people should read the Megillah - which obviously requires study
in advance.

Torah Tunes

Rabbi Jay Kelman writes:4

Learning Torah is meant to be enjoyable. It is for this reason that a mourner is not permitted to
learn (Moed Katan 21a) [1]--the joy that learning engenders is not appropriate for a mourner.
One of the ways we express joy is through song and music, and it follows that Torah is to be
expressed in song. In fact, the Torah itself is self-described as a song--the last of the 613 mitzvoth
being to "write down this song" (Devarim 31:19), which is understood by our Sages as obligating
us to write our own complete sefer Torah[2].

4 https://torahinmotion.org/discussions-and-blogs/megillah-32-torah-tunes

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"Rav Shaftai said in the name of Rav Yochanan: Whoever reads [the Torah] without ne'imah,
a melody, or learns without zimra, song, upon him the verse says, 'and I have given them statutes
that are not good and laws that they do not live with" (Yechezkel 20:25, Megillah 32a).

One may study Torah, but unless one does it with song, it amounts to very little. Saying something
and singing something are two very different modes of expression. We must sing as we study,
demonstrating most naturally our love for Torah and the joy its study brings us.

One of the beautiful sounds of the Beit Midrash is the singsong of many creating a symphony of
song--it may lack musical precision, but it touches the heart like little else. This is why many who
have spent time in a Beit Midrash find it very difficult to study in a library, where the sounds of
study are a major distraction. Even "sad songs", reflecting the sad parts of Torah--parts that
mourners are permitted to study--evoke longing for the ideas expressed therein.
The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 691:1) quotes the teaching of the Maharil (14th century
Germany) that one is not allowed to change the traditional tunes used in davening. Can one
imagine Yom Kippur without the traditional tune for Kol Nidrei, Shavuot without the classic tune
for Akdamut, or even Eicha without its melancholy tune?[3]
In addition to the emotions unleashed by song, there seems to be a more practical side to this ruling.
Tosafot offers a historical understanding of the need for song. As we all know, it is much easier to
memorize something if one sings it. Originally, Torah was studied only orally, and was forbidden
to be written down, making singing what one learned that much more crucial [4].
Rashi comments on the word ne'imah, a melody, "for example, ta'amei hamikraot, the notes of
cantillation". While the ta'amei hamikra reflect musical notes--with many musical traditions--they
are actually the first commentary to the Chumash and according to some views, these notes date
back to Sinai [5].
The te'amim indicate where we are to pause, what words should be joined together, and even where
we are to put our accent.
For reasons I cannot fathom, very few schools teach Chumash using te'amei hamikra. Doing such
(and I hope some school principals are reading this) would make it easier to learn (and
memorize) Chumash, would add to the understanding of the text, and would most likely remove
much of the boredom many students have with the recital of the text without melody.
The values and yearnings of a culture are reflected by its music. Choosing the Beatles over
Beethoven reflects much more than musical taste. The Torah is a beautiful song that comes in
many octaves and can hit all kinds of notes. Whether minor or major, we must sing as we learn, so
that we will be inspired to greater learning, adding more and more song.
[1] The Torah is a Torat Chaim, a book of eternal life. Torah and death are contradictory notions, and it is inappropriate to study
such in a shiva house, both for mourners and those who come to offer comfort. This also may explain why kohanim are forbidden
to become impure--impurity being caused by contact with death. Designated as teachers of Torah, kohanim were forbidden to
contact impurity.
[2] For a beautiful elaboration of how the Torah is a song, see the introduction of the Netziv to his commentary on the Torah, Emek
Davar, and/or see this summary (in English) here.
[3] While the exact limits of this prohibition are subject to discussion, suffice it to say that the vast majority of our shuls do not
fully comply with this ruling. While employing popular tunes for the davening may (or may not) make them more attractive, more
often than not, these tunes fail to reflect the mood the words are meant to evoke.

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[4] In addition to limiting this teaching to historical circumstances, something there is little hint of in the teaching, Rav Yochanan
himself lived in the generation after the Mishnah was put in writing. Perhaps during the time of the Tosafists, singing had gone out
of style, and they try to justify this practice--perhaps!

[5] While common practice is not to correct a ba'al koreh who makes a mistake in these notes, many--and for good reason--were
very strict, insisting the these too be chanted correctly as they are much more than musical notes.

Learning Through Song

Rachel Scheinerman writes:5

Today on the final page of Tractate Megillah, the rabbis describe the ways one should handle the
Torah in order to show it proper kavod, or respect. For instance, when closing the Torah scroll,
one should make sure to align a seam right between the two rollers. This way, if the Torah scroll
is accidentally yanked (God forbid!) the scroll will tear along the seam and not through the words.
Also, when rolling the Torah scroll to a new position for reading, one should “roll it from the
outside” — which means placing the rollers so that they are oriented from side to side, and then
using the furthest roller to unfurl it. This prevents the Torah scroll from accidentally flying off the
reading table. Conversely, when rolling the Torah scroll up for storage, one rolls “from the
inside” using the nearest roller to tighten the scroll — again to keep it securely on the reading
table. And when dressing the Torah for storage, the parchment is not awkwardly rolled in its cloth
cover; rather, the cloth is lovingly wound around the parchment.

Perhaps most importantly, one should never touch the parchment of the Torah scroll directly. As
Rabbi Parnakh rather sternly reminds us, in the name of Rabbi Yohanan, one who places grubby
fingers directly on the Torah scroll will be “buried uncovered.” It’s an arresting image — the idea
that one who touches the parchment will, when the time comes, be shunted naked into the grave,
without the dignity of a shroud.

If there is a single image we usually associate with the Torah scroll, it is the etz hayim, the Tree of
Life. Counterintuitively, this teaching compares the Torah scroll to a human corpse — fragile and
defenseless, requiring the utmost care and respectful handling. (Unsurprisingly, other sages
immediately suggest that we should read this punishment metaphorically; that the person who
touches the scroll is buried without the merit of mitzvot.)

Many of these rituals will look familiar to those who attend synagogue regularly. We always cover
the Torah with a garment and touch the scroll with a yad, a special pointer, and we roll it carefully.
Though in my synagogue, people usually roll the scroll from side to side rather than from front to
back.

We also chant the words of Torah when they are read aloud for the congregation. On today’s daf,
we find a source for that practice as well:

5
Myhewishlearning.com

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And Rabbi Shefatya said that Rabbi Yohanan said: Concerning anyone who reads from the
Torah without a melody or studies the Mishnah without a song, the verse states: “So too I gave
them statutes that were not good …” (Ezekiel 20:25)

Notice that this applies not only to Torah, but also to the Mishnah, which is studied in a sing-song
in many yeshivas. The Gemara does not tell us why the rabbis thought Torah should be chanted
rather than spoken. Steinsaltz suggests that singing expresses fondness for the text, or that the tunes
can be a helpful memory device. In a world where few people had access to written texts and their
encounters with the holy word were largely auditory, it makes sense that a melody would help with
memorization and parsing. Plus, it also serves to beautify the holy words.

If you are one of those people who cannot carry a tune or dreads singing in public, fear not, Abaye
has your back. He immediately counters that the condemnatory verse from Ezekiel applies to Torah
scholars who live in the same city and cannot get along, not someone who cannot or does not chant
Torah. Those who were not blessed with singing talent are not condemned for it.

We’ll close our reading of today’s daf with a different voice — God’s voice. Again Rabbi Shefya
teaches in the name of Rabbi Yohanan:

From where is it derived that one may make use of a bat kol (divine voice)? As it is stated: “And
your ears shall hear a word behind you saying: This is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

While the prophets heard God’s voice directly, the rabbis could only hear it one step removed, the
“daughter” of God’s voice — a bat kol. Curious to know what it sounds like and how you can
confirm it is real?

This applies only when one hears a male voice in the city, or when a female voice is heard in
the fields. And when the voice repeats its message and says: Yes, yes. And also when the voice
says: No, no.

The bat kol is distinguished by two features. First, it sounds different from other nearby voices.
When one is in the fields, mostly populated by men, it sounds like a woman’s voice. When one is
in the city, mostly teeming with women, it sounds like a man. The bat kol is also recognized by its
firm repetition of the message, followed by an affirmative “yes, yes” or an emphatic “no, no.”

Maybe we simple humans just need to hear things, especially divine messages, more than once.
After all, as we learned in this tractate, the megillah is read twice on Purim, and the Torah is read
three days of the week. All sacred texts are also read and studied over and over, year after year.

And, of course, we end each tractate with the following blessing: Hadran alakh massechet
megillah — We will return to you, Tractate Megillah.

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Rabbi Johnny Solomon writes:6

Today we completed our study of Massechet Megillah, and in our final daf (Megillah 32a) we are
taught about:

1) The need to see the text of the Sefer Torah prior to reciting a bracha on the Torah;

2) That Torah must be read with a ‫( נעימה‬pleasant tone) and ‫( זמרה‬song),

3) That it is improper for two Torah scholars who live in the same town not to engage in halachic
conversation;

4) That it is improper to grasp the Torah ‘naked’ (which is generally understood to mean ‘with
your bare hands), and

5) That Moshe instituted that questions and discussions be held on festivals about those respective
festivals.

On first glance, all these statements appear unrelated. However, I would like to explain how they
do connect with one another based on the explanation given to the second of these teachings by
Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein (see Tosefet Bracha on Bemidbar 13:28).

Specifically - asks Rabbi Epstein – why must the Torah be read with a ‫( נעימה‬pleasant tone) and
‫( זמרה‬song)? And why – as our daf suggests - does failing to do so suggest that the people received
‫‘ – ֻחִקּים ל ֹא טוִֹבים‬decrees that are not good’ (Yechezkel 20:25)?

He answers by explaining that when we read the Torah without a pleasant tone and without song,
it makes the Torah text one dimensional as if it is a series of dispassionate religious stories and
statements. Contrasting this, if the Torah is read with a pleasant tone and with song, it makes the
Torah into a back-and-forth conversation between the Torah and the individual reading it. Torah
without tone and song translates its laws and teachings into ‘decrees that are not good’, while
Torah with tone and song translates those laws and teachings into a living and breathing dialogue
between heaven and earth.

With this in mind, we can return to the other teachings found in our daf. For example, why must
we see the text of the Sefer Torah prior to reciting a bracha on the Torah? It is because before we
bless the Torah, we must first see that the Torah is written with various gaps in-between the text
which reflects how it was first communicated as a conversation between God and Moshe which
thereby reminds us that this is how each of us should engage with Torah.

And why is it improper for two Torah scholars who live in the same town not to engage in halachic
conversation? Because Torah is meant to be a conversation, not a mere meditation. And why is it

6
www.rabbijohnnysolomon.com

20
improper to grasp the Torah ‘naked’? Because ‘naked’ – in this sense – means absent of discussion
or interpretation.

And this is why Massechet Megillah ends by reminding us how Moshe Rabbeinu instituted that
questions and discussions be held on festivals about those respective festivals – because the
ultimate fulfilment of Torah is through our engagement with it.

Lesser-Known Laws of Torah Reading

Rabbi Hershel Schachter writes:7

I HOTZA'AH VEHAKHNASAH

1. It is preferable to take the Sefer Torah out of the Aron Hakodesh before the congregation
recites Berikh Shemeh.

2. On festivals when God's thirteen attributes of mercy-the Yud-Gimel Midot- are recited, it is
proper to begin softly each time from the beginning of the verse, Vaya'avor Hashem al panav
vayikra, before saying aloud Hashem Hashem. This way one avoids the prohibition of saying
only a fragment of a verse.

3. At the time of Hotza'ah, we recite the verse Vayehi Binso'a, and for Hakhnasa we say
Uvenuhoh Yomar. These verses are recorded in the Humash with reference to the traveling of the
Aron Hakodesh in the wilderness. Accordingly, Rav Chaim Volozhiner prescribes that during
Hagbahah after saying Vezot Hatorah. . . lifnei benei Yisrael, we should recite the verse Al pi
Hashem yahanu, . . . al pi Hashem beyad Moshe, which also deals with that same topic.

II PRIOR TO READING THE TORAH

4. It is not permissible to roll the Sefer to the proper place in such a way as to keep the Tzibbur
waiting. The Gaba'im must shtel (find the place) the Sefer in advance.

5. One may not shtel the Sefer on the first day of Yom Tov for the second day, or on Shabbat for
Yom Tov. Regarding preparing the Sefer on Yom Tov for leinen on Shabbat, there are three
opinions: Some forbid it even if one has made an Eruv tavshilin; others only allow it in the event
that an Eruv tavshilin was made; and Rabbi Akiva Eger, whose view is generally accepted,
permits it even if one has not made an Eruv tavshilin.

6. Out of respect for the Sefer Torah, one may not touch the Klaf with his bare hands. When the
parchment must be handled, the common practice is that one holds it with a Tallit separating
between his hands and the Klaf.

7 https://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/726345/rabbi-hershel-schachter/lesser-known-laws-of-torah-reading/

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7. This prohibition applies to Nevi'im and the Ketuvim as well, when they are written on Klaf.
Regarding NaKH, however, unlike Torah, if one has properly washed Netilat yadayim
beforehand (without a Berakhah), then he may hold the Klaf with his bare hands. This is
especially significant on Purim. Megillot have no wooden handles, and one is required to wash
his hands in advance to be allowed to handle the Klaf.

8. As an additional sign of respect, one may not turn his back to the Sefer Torah unless it is in a
different room. The Aron Hakodesh also constitutes a separate domain in this regard, since it is
4x4 tefahim, and ten tefahim tall.

9. There is a dispute among the Poskim as to whether a table of the above dimensions constitutes
a separate domain, and, consequently, whether one may turn his back to the Shulhan when the
Torah is resting upon it.

10. Some opinions go so far as to say that a person with his back to the Sefer Torah cannot fulfill
his obligation of participating in Keri'at Hatorah when the Torah is read.

III THE KOHEN ALIYAH

11. When there is no Kohen in the Minyan, there is no need to call a Levi first. One opinion even
forbids calling a Levi.

12. Our custom is never, under normal circumstances, to give a Kohen or a Levi any Aliyah after
the first two, except for Aharon or Maftir. On Simhat Torah or when a great need arises, we
allow the Kohen or the Levi to receive an Aliyah after the basic number of required Aliyot has
been completed (five on Yom Tov or seven on Shabbat). When the need is even greater, we
would even allow the Kohen to receive the fourth Aliyah. It is, however, important to make sure
that each time a Kohen gets an Aliyah, he is followed by a Levi and a Yisra'el (except of course,
when the Kohen is called to Aharon or Maftir).

13. Opinions differ as to whether it is at all possible to call a Yisra'el instead of a Kohen, when a
Kohen is present at the Minyan. Some authorities categorically forbid such procedure, even
when no Levi is present, and the Kohen involved will receive two Aliyot.

14. R. Moshe Feinstein in Iggerot Moshe permits the Kohen to give up his Aliyah under certain
circumstances. His reasoning is based on an overall view of the issue, as it developed.

15. On a Biblical level the Kohen may indeed forgo his privilege of receiving the first Aliyah.
The Sages of the Mishnah, however, instituted a rabbinic edict, insisting that the Kohen always
accept his Aliyah, lest he defer to some people and not to others, causing discord among
members of the Shul. According to the Talmud, this edict was only enacted with respect to
Shabbat and Yom Too, when Shul attendance, and hence potential friction, were greatest. With
regard to weekdays, there was no edict, and the Kohen retained his right to defer. Tosafot,
however, comments that in their day, weekday Minyanim, were as well attended as those of
Shabbat and Yom Tov, and therefore a Kohen should not be permitted to defer even during the

22
week.

16. In our own day, unfortunately, we have regressed to the situation at the time of the Gemara,
with our minyanim being significantly smaller during the week than on Shabbat. Consequently,
the Iggerot Moshe rules, the Kohen may once again forgo his Aliyah, provided the three
conditions are met: a) the Kohen must be sincerely willing to relinquish his Aliyah, as opposed
to merely having the Gabbai call out a perfunctory Bemehilat HaKohen; b) the Kohen should
step out of Shul until after the beginning of the Berakhot; and c) this should be done only on
weekdays never on Shabbat or Yom Tov.

17. Even for those who never permit the Kohen to be mohel, two exceptions exist: On a public
fast day, if the Kohen is not fasting, and cannot, therefore, be accorded an Aliyah according to
our custom, he is sent out of Shul while his Aliyah is assigned to a non-Kohen. Likewise, if the
Kohen is in the middle of Shema or Tefillah and may not take an Aliyah, a non-Kohen may be
called up even without sending out the Kohen.

IV CALLING TO THE TORAH: HOW AND HOW MANY

18. It is improper to call Ya'amod Kohen, or Ya'amod Hamishi. The correct way to call the Oleh
is by mentioning his name: Ya'amod ploni ben ploni.

19. In some communities, however, an exception is made regarding Shevi'i, when the Gabbai
simply calls out Ya'amod Shevi'i.

20. The common practice is to allow Hosafot (additional Aliyot) only on Shabbat, but not on
Yom Kippur or other festivals (with the exception of Simhat Torah). Even when Yom Kippur
falls on Shabbat, we do not allow Hosafot.

21. When other Yamin Tovim occur on Shabbat, Hosafot are allowed. Still, there are
communities where the practice is not to allow Hosafot even then.

22. Some recommend that no Hosafot be allowed when two Sidral are read.

23. Some authorities rule that today, when the practice is to have one Ba'al Keriah reading on
behalf of all the Olim, it is no longer permissible to add Hosafot. This view is not generally
accepted; however, in some communities there were rabbinic enactments (Takkanot) not to allow
more than three Hosafot, so that the total of all the Aliyot (aside from Maftir) would not exceed
ten.

V DINIM OF THE OLEH

24. It is forbidden to refuse an Aliyah. Likewise, one may not refuse the honors of Hotza'ah and
Hakhnasah, Hagbahah and Gelilah.

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25. The Mehaber rules that one who is called to the Torah should approach and ascend the
Bimah using the shortest route from his seat. If both possible routes are approximately
equidistant, the Oleh should ascend from the right side. The Vilna Gaon, however, disagrees,
prescribing the use of the right side in all instances.

26. It was a widespread custom in Europe that both the Oleh and the Ba'al Keriah would practice
Atifah, i.e., they would wear a special head covering. Such Atifah can be accomplished by
wearing the Tallit over one's head, or by wearing a hat, or a special higher yarmulkeh.

27. The Tana'im were concerned that when the Olim recite the Berakhot before their Aliyot, the
listeners might mistakenly think that the blessings were actually written in the Sefer Torah. For
this reason, according to Tosafot, the Oleh should open the Sefer to see where his Aliyah will
begin, and then close it to recite the opening Berakhah.

28. Other authorities maintain that the Oleh should not close the Sefer Torah before reciting the
Berakhah Shelefanekha. Instead, to demonstrate that he is not reading from the Sefer, some
recommend that he close his eyes or turn slightly to his left.

29. No such debate exists with regard to the Berakhah after the Aliyah, for it is agreed that the
Oleh must close the Sefer Torah, and only then may he recite the concluding blessing.

30. Although there is an opinion which forbids holding on to even the wooden handles, or Atzei
Hayyim of a Sefer Torah, with bare hands, this view has not been accepted by the Poskim.
Should one choose to personally adopt the stringent view and hold the Atzei
Hayyim only with a Tallit, he may do so only in an inconspicuous fashion.

31. In Talmudic times, one who got an Aliyah would have to read his own section. Today, in
order not to embarrass those who cannot lein properly, we have instituted the practice of having
a Ba'al Keriah who reads the portion on behalf of all those who get Aliyot. It is proper, however,
for each Oleh to read softly along with the Baal Keriah from the Sefer Torah. Nevertheless, one
who is blind, or otherwise unable to read along with the Baal Keriah, is still permitted to be
called to the Torah. The Mishnah Berurah stipulates, though, that such a person should not be
called to Parshat Zakhor or Parshat Parah.

32. Some are of the opinion that the only time we now permit the individual getting an Aliyah to
read his section is for the Tokhehah, when the Ba'al Keriah himself takes the Aliyah, without
being called up by name.

33. It is improper to follow the custom of some communities, whereby the Tokhehah is read
without anyone reciting the Berakhot on the Aliyah. The Ba'al Keriah should recite the
appropriate Berakhot before and after reading the section of the Tokhehah.

34. Many Poskim rule that one who gets the last Aliyah in a Sefer should not say Hazak Hazak
along with the congregation, for this would constitute a Hefsek between the reading and the
Berakhah following it.

24
35. Likewise, it is not proper to pause between Keriat Hatorah and the Kaddish following it.
Therefore, no Mi'Sheberakh or Birkhat hagomel should be recited between the concluding
Aliyah and the Kaddish. At Minhah on Shabbat afternoon, when the Kaddish following the
reading is not recited until right before the Amidah, some Poskim rule that it is not proper to say
any additional chapters of Tehillim (such as Mizmor Shir Leyom HaShabbat or Hallelukah Odeh
Hashem Bekhol Levav) during Gelilah for this would constitute a hefsek.

VI LAWS OF THE BA'AL KERIAH

36. Many Ba'alei Keriah pause briefly after the Oleh has recited the Berakhah, before beginning
to read. They then say Amen aloud and proceed with the Keriah. This practice is improper,
because an Amen must be said immediately following the conclusion of the Berakhah to which it
relates. An Amen recited before the conclusion of the last syllable of its Berakhah is called an
Amen Hatufah - a hastily grabbed Amen, and one recited only after a pause following its
Berakhah is termed an Amen Yetomah - an orphaned Amen, bereft of the Berakhah over which
it was said.

37. The Ba'al Keriah must regulate his reading according to the various subdivisions of the
Torah's text. Only by doing so does he fulfill the requirement of reading the Torah kikhtavah,
precisely as it is written. This requirement includes a number of Dinim:

38. The Ba'al Keriah may not pause in the middle of a verse, reading it as if it were two verses.
Likewise, he may not read two verses together, without pausing, as if they were a single verse.

39. He must pause between reading two Parshiyot (paragraphs) in the Torah even longer than
between two verses, and the pause for a Petuhah (an open space in the Torah which extends till
the end of the line) must be longer than that of a Setumah (an enclosed space of nine letters
length within a line.)

40. Kikhtavah applies as well to certain poetic sections of the Humash. Thus, the Talmud states
that the Shirah of Ha'azinu should be broken up into Aliyot just as it was divided into weekly
portions for the song of the Leviyim in the Beit Hamikdash. While the acronym denoting the
beginning of these Aliyot is acknowledged to be HaZIV LaKH, views differ as to exactly which
verses the acronym refers. The Mishnah Berurah advises that Ashkenazim and Sephardim should
each follow their own separate customs, and not be misled by Humashim used in Ashkenazic
Shuls which were printed with the Aliyot according to the Sephardic Minhag.

41. The Rema rules that these stops govern only the Shabbat morning reading, while other
Poskim feel that they must be adhered to on Monday, Thursday, and Shabbat Minhah as well.

42. Along these lines, kikhtavah also governs the reading of Shirat Hayam and prohibits us from
breaking up the Shirah into more than one Aliyah.

43. In addition, the forty-two "Journeys" of the Jews in the wilderness, as recorded in Parshai
Masai, must be read together, according to the Magen Avraham, disregarding the erroneous stop

25
for Sheni recorded in most Humashim. Some are careful not to break up the Masa'ot even on
Monday and Thursday mornings and at Shabbat Minhah.

44. The Ba'al Keriah must be careful to read every word from inside the Sefer, and not recite any
part of the Keriah from memory. Even when there is a Keri Ukhetiv, and the word is not read as
it is written, the Ba'al Keriah should still be reading from the Sefer. Only when the word to be
read is not written in the text at all (Keri Velo Ketiv, or when the Masorah substitutes an entirely
different pronunciation), may the Ba'al Keriah recite a word by heart.

45. It is preferable for the entire Keriah to be read properly, with the correct pronunciation of
each word, and the correct tune for each Trope. In fact, the Rambam maintains that even for a
slight error in Trope, the reading must be repeated. The accepted ruling is, however, that one
need repeat the reading only for an error in pronunciation which alters the meaning of the word.

46. If the Ba'al Keriah made a mistake in the middle of a verse, there are three opinions as to
whether he must reread the entire verse correctly from the beginning, only reread from the
corrected word on, or begin to read from the beginning of the phrase in which he made the
mistake. The third view, that of the Ba'al Hatanya, is the most commonly followed.
47. Therefore, whenever there is a doubt as to how to properly read part of a verse (as, for
example, in Parshat Zakhor - timheh et zekher Amalek, or zeikher Amalek; in Megillat Esther -
Ve'ish lo amad bifneihem or lifneihem; laharog ule'abed or velaharog ule'abed), the common
practice is that the Ba'al Keriah reads that phrase over again, with its variant reading, without
necessarily reading the entire verse twice.

48. There is a common misconception that in the event that the Ba'al Keriah made an error, and
has already read God's name in the verse, he should first complete the reading of the verse, and
then reread it correctly. The Poskim write explicitly that such an approach is highly illogical.
Rather, the Ba'al Keriah should stop immediately upon realizing his mistake, and reread the
verse correctly, starting from the phrase containing the error.

49. Optimally, it is not proper to divide the Sidrah among several Ba'alei Keriah, with each
reading only a part.

50. This regulation is even more important with regard to the reading of the Megillah. Some
opinions maintain that listeners do not fulfill their obligation even bedi'eved if they hear the
Megillah read by more than one person.

51. When the Ba'al Keriah himself is honored with an Aliyah, the Gabbai does not call Ya'amod
ploni ben ploni. He merely recites the Mi Sheberakh following the Aliyah just completed,
whereupon the Ba'al Keriah continues with Barekhu.

52. It is customary to read the Tokhehah softly. Nonetheless, the Ba'al Keriah should be careful
to read loudly enough to ensure that every person in Shul hears every word.

26
53. According to the Iggerat Moshe, it is improper for the Ba'al Keriah to keep a Humash next to
him to refer to, even though he will read afterwards from the Sefer Torah.

54. The Ba'al Keriah should not touch the Torah text with the tip of his pointer, even for the
purpose of keeping the place, lest he contribute to the wear and tear, and eventual fading of the
letters. For the same reason, the Oleh should not touch the actual words with his Talit before
beginning his Aliyah.

55. The Kaddish recited after Keriat Hatarah does not especially "belong" to the Ba'al Keriah.
Anyone who is a hiyuv (one who is obligated to say Kaddish that day), may insist on reciting this
Kaddish, as well.

VII Mi Sheberakh

56. While Mi Sheberakh is being recited, it is proper to cover the Sefer Torah with a special
cover, or mentileh. The mentileh should not be placed over the Sefer until after the Oleh has
completed the Berakhah following his Aliyah.

57. When one recites a Mi Sheberakh, it is improper to say ba'avur sheploni mevarekh atam.
Instead, one should pledge a gift to charity, and insert ba'avur sheploni nader tzedakah
ba'avuram.

VIII Dinim of Hagbahah and Gelilah

58. The one who lifts the Sefer Torah for Hagbahah should open it wide enough to show the
congregation at least three columns. He should first show the open Sefer Torah to those on his
right, and then to those on his left.

59. The one honored with rolling up the Torah (the galel) should arrange to have the connecting
stitch showing in the center on the outside. It is a common practice that one set the Bereishit side
of the Torah above the Devarim side.

60. He should bind the Torah with its special belt (or gartel) on the upper half of the Sefer. In
doing so, he should not start the tying between the magbiah and the Torah, pulling the gartel and
the Torah towards himself to complete the tying on his side. This might cause the Torah to slip
and fall, God forbid. Instead, he should begin on his side, extending the gartel around the Torah
and always pulling towards the magbiah, ultimately completing the tying between the magbiah
and the Sefer.

61. On Shabbat or Yom Too, it is not proper to make even a bow which will last for more than
twenty-four hours. In the event that this Sefer will not be used again within the next twenty-four
hours, the galel should wind the gartel around several times, and then tuck it in so that it will
hold together without any knot or bow.

IX More Than One Sidrah More Than One Sefer

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62. When the Keriah consists of two Sidrot, the common practice is to read half of the basic
seven obligatory Aliyot from each Sidrah, with Revi'i connecting the two Sidrat. This rule may
be overlooked when there is a need to include more than three and a half Aliyat in the first
Sidrah.

63. If the majority of the Minyan missed Keriat Hatorah one Shabbat, they should read both
Sidrot in Shul the next Shabbat, in the same manner as one would read two Sidrot which are
mehubarim.

64. On a day when we read from two Sifrei Torah, the second Torah should be placed on the
Shulhan next to the first before the Kaddish is recited.

65. On a day when we read from three Sifrei Torah, the Kaddish is recited after reading from the
second. The third Sefer should be placed on the Shulhan next to the second Sefer before the
Kaddish is said. It is generally assumed that the first Sefer need not be returned to the Shulhan
before the Kaddish.

X The Haftarah

66. In the event that the Haftarah is not being read from a parchment (Klaf), some authorities
maintain that one can only fulfill his obligation by reading along with the Ba'al Maftir.
According to these Poskim, if nine people have not recited the Haftarah along with the Ba'al
Maftir, the Mitzvah of Keriat Hahaftarah has not been fulfilled.

67. According to the Iggerot Moshe, it is not permissible for one to stand for the Keriah in a Shul
where the custom is to sit. Other Poskim dispute this point.

XI Lesser-Known Pronunciations and Practices

68. In Shirat Hayam, the Ba'al Keriah should pause between bemayim and adirim.

69. In Parshat Ki Tisa, the Ba'al Koreh should pause between vayikra beshem and Adonai.

70. He should also be careful to pause between venakeh and lo yenakeh, in the thirteen attributes
of mercy.

71. In Shirat Ha'azinu, the correct pronunciation is Eloah rather than Elohah.

72. In the Haftarah of Parshai Lekh Lekhu, according to the Radak, the correct pronunciation is
vekoyei hashem yahalifu ko'ah.

73. In the Haftorah of Shabbat Rosh Hodesh, the correct reading is miziz kevodah.

74. When Rosh Hodesh Av occurs on Shabbat, most authorities prescribe that Shimu, the second
of the three Haftarah of Puranuta, be read. Some communities do, however, have the custom of

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reciting the Haftarah of Hashamayim Kisi, as on any other Shabbat Rosh Hodesh.

75. According to many customs, the Haftarah of Shabbat Shuvah consists of verses from three
prophets: Hoshea, Micha and Yoel. The Gemarah stipulates however, that one must arrange such
various verses in the order in which they appear in TaNaKH. (Hoshea first, then Yoel, and
finally Micha).

76. In the Haftarah of Shavuot, the two names of Hashem are read Elohim Adonai.

77. The paragraph of Berakhot following the Haftarah which ends emet vatzedek is not the end
of the Berakhah and the congregation should not answer Amen! The reason ne'eman is written as
a separate paragraph is that the Minhag used to be for the congregation to say this part along with
the Ba'al Maftir until the word lo yashuv rekam.

78. According to Rabbi Soloveitchik, one should pause between midoarekha ohor and lo yashuv
rekam.

79. According to the Ba'al Hatanya, the word verahaman should be deleted from the concluding
line, with the amended version reading: Ki Kel melekh ne'eman atah.

80. There is a minority opinion among the Poskim that the Kaddish after U'venuhoh Yomar and
before Musaf is not the introduction to the Musaf Tefillah, but rather the conclusion of the verses
that preceded it. Therefore, when the Hazzan chants the Hineni prayer, and if the Rabbi preaches
a sermon before a Musaf, the Hazzan should repeat softly a minimum of three verses before
reciting the Kaddish aloud.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

Abbreviations: O.H. - Orah Hayyim; M.B. - Mishnah Berurah
1 Iggerol Moshe, O.H. vol. 4, p.129.
2 Sha'arei Efraim, chap. 10, section 5, and Pishei She'arim there note 9. One might perhaps suggest an additional reason for
beginning with Vaya'avor etc. The Tosafot to Rosh Hashanah 17b (beginning Shelosh) presents two views as to whether the
thirteen Divine attributes begin with Hashem Hashem; or one should read Vaya'avor Hashem al ponov, vayikro Hashem
(and God declared): Hashem kel rahum vehanun etc. According to the latter opinion the first Hashem is not the beginning of the
listing of the thirteen Divine attributes. According to that view, if one were to recite Hashem Hashem etc., the first mention of
God's name would constitute a violation of mentioning God's name in vain. Perhaps it is for this reason that some Poskin
recommend starting from Vayavor to avoid getting involved in this controversy.
3 See Bamidbar (9,23), and Shaarei Rahamim (10,15).
4 Yoma (70a). If by error the Sefer Torah removed from the Aron Hakodesh was not the one that was prepared for that day's
reading, the proper practice is that the Tzibbur be mochel on their kavod, and have the Sefer rolled to the proper place, rather than
return it to the Aron, and remove the Sefer that was rolled to the proper place. (See Iggerol Moshe O.H. vol. 2, no. 37).
5 Shaarei Teshuot to O.H., chap. 667 and Hidushai R. Akiva Eiger there.
6 Meg. (32a); M.B. (147, no. 2).
7 O.H. (147, 1) and M.B. there no. 4.
8 Yoreh De'ah (282, 1); Taz and Oruch Hashulhan (ibid); Shaarei Hayyim (notes on Shaarei Efraim) 10, 19.
9 See Peri l'v1egadim to O.H. (150, 2) in Mishbetzos; Pardes Mordechai (Williger), p. 134.
10 R. Soloveitchik based on Tosafol Sot. (39a), beginnning Kivan.
11 Git. (59b), and Rashi (ibid) beginning Nispardah. Rabbi Soloveitchik used to insist on following this opinion. See Jubilee
Volume honoring R. Soloveitchik, (Mosad Horav Kook, 1984) vol. I, p. 444 regarding this matter.
12 See M.B. (135, 36); Rema (ibid, section 10); M.B. (note 37).
13 Maharam Shick, O.H., no. 61.
14 O.H. vol. 2, no. 34; vol. 3 no. 20. See however M.B. (135, 9) quoting Peri Megadim and Oruh Hashulhan (ibid) sec. 10 who

29
assume that nowadays the Minhag is never to allow the Kohen to forgo his first Aliyah.
15 Cit. (59b), and Tosafol (ibid) beginning Aval.
16 See Edul Leyisrael, by R. Henkin, p. 164, who offers a suggestion regarding why in many communities they were not so
careful about the Kohen Aliyah.
17 Rema to O.H. (135, 5); M.B. there (no. 17).
18 Avnei Nezer Hoshen Mishpal no. 103. See also Shaarei Rahamim (no. 19) and Shaarei
Hayyim (no. 20) to Sha'arei Efraim (1, 26). See also Shaarei Rahamim (no, 21), that
several Poskim were very insistant on not calling up to the Torah with the title
Moreinu unless the Oleh was actually one who taught Torah publicly.
19 See M.B. (141, no. 21), In some communities Maflir is not calling up by name. See same M.B.
20 RemaO.H. (282, 1), and M.B. there (no. 6).
21 M, B. above. Rabbi Soloveitchik mentioned that the Minhag of many communities in Lithuania was not to allow any Hosafol
even when Yom Tov occured on a Shabbal. The rationale behind this apparently was that a Yom-Tov'dige leinen does not lend
itself to Hosafot, while a Shabbos' dige leinen did lend itself to Hosafot. Therefore, on Simhat Torah, when the Keriah consists of
Parshal Vezot Haberakhah, rather than a Yom-Tov'dige Keriah, we do allow Hosafot.
22 R. Soloveitchik in name of his father, R. Moshe Soloveitchik. This is to avoid getting involved in the dispute among the
Poskim, regarding how the two Sidrot should be divided (see M.B. 282, Sha'ar Halziyun, no. 7); The two Sidrot should each "be
honored" equally, by having each getting the same number of Aliyot (see section IX, no. 62). It is for this reason that we read
three and a half Aliyot from each Sidrah, connecting the two Sidrot with Revi'i. In the event that Hosafol are read, most Poskim
feel that Revi'i should still connect the two Sidrot. Our insistance on giving each Sidrah an equal number of Aliyot only applies to
the basic seven Aliyol. According to the view of the Levush, the Gabbai must decide in advance how many Hosafot he plans to
be giving and divide all of the Aliyot equally between the two Sidrot. If he plans to add thirteen Hosafot to the basic seven
Alillot, making a sum total of twenty Aliyot, he must have ten Olim read from the first Sidrah, and ten from the second Sidrah. In
order to avoid getting involved in this dispute, R. Moshe Soloveitchik recommended that no Hosofot be allowed when two Sidrol
are read.
23 See Binyan Shelomo by the Villner Dayan, (no. 20), and Edul Leyisrael, p. 164. See also note 11 of Shaarei Hayyim to
chapter 7 of the Sha'arei Efraim.
24 Ber. (55a) quoted by M.B. (139, no. 1). Rabbi Soloveitchik relates that his grandfather, R. Chaim Brisker, was of the opinion
that one holding a Sefer Torah may 'not give it away to someone else, unless that other person needs it, and asks for it. On Simhat
Torah evening R. Chaim, as rabbi of the town, would be honored with the first Hakafah. At the end of the Hakafah, he would not
volunteer on his own to give away the Torah he was holding to someone else; and the Baalei-baiim did not have the nerve to ask
him for his Sefer for the next Hakafah. It often occur, that R. Chaim would be holding the Sefer he was given for the first
Hakafah until the end of all the Hakafot.
See lggerot Moshe O.H. vol. 1, no. 38, that it is improper to have a special chair upon which to put the Sefer after completing the
Geiilah, See however, the end of that responsa, that according to some commentaries this practice existed in the days of the
Talmud.
25 O.H. (141, 7), The Gra in note 14 writes that this has no source anywhere, not in Toseita nor in the Talmud. See also Birkhal
Eliyahu (commentary on Biur HaGra) who quotes that the Halam Sofer had the same practice as the Gra.
26 See M.B. (91, nos. 6, 12), and (183, no. 11); Yehaneh Do'at (by Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef). vol. 4, no. 1.
27 Meg. (32a) and Tosfot beginning Golelo
28 M.B. (139, no. 17) and Biur Halakhah there beginning Veroeh. R. Soloveitchik's practice is not to close the Sefer while
reciting the Berakhah before the Aliyah. He recalls that many great rabbis in Europe had this practice as well. See Rema to O.H.
(139, 4) and M.B. (no. 19). The M.B. prefer's closing one's eyes to turning away from the Sefer.
29 Tosafol mentioned above in note 27.
30 M.B. (147, no. 2) quoting from Noda Biyehudah.
31 Tosafol Meg. (21b) beginning Tanna; M.B. (139, no. 13) and Sha'ar Halziyun there (no. 6). Regarding the Oleh'e reading
along with the Ba'al Keriah see O.H. (141, 2) that it is preferable that he read in such a whisper, that even he should not be able to
hear himself read. However, if he should read so loud that he should be able to hear himself read, this would also be acceptable.
See M.B. there (no. 13).
32 Rabbi Soloveitchik was opposed to the common practice of having a Bar Milzvah boy read the entire Sidrah including his
own Aliyah. He felt that this constituted a violation of the Minhag, not to allow anyone to lein his own Aliyah. From the Rema to
O.H. (139,3) this would not seem to be the Minhag in his times. In Even Ha'ezer (34, 1) a similar Minhag is recorded not to allow
any Haian to recite Birkhol Eirusin for himself, in order not to embarrass the Haianim who will not be able to recite the Berakhol
on their own. This is why the rabbi recites the Berakhot for all couples, and yet if the rabbi is single, when he gets married, the
Poskim allow him to recite Birkhol Eirusin for himself. The situation of the Baal Keriah taking an Aliyah and reading for himself
seems parallel to the rabbi reciting Birkhol Eirusin at his own wedding. Regarding the Tokhehah see Magen Avraham to O.H.
(428, no. 8). See Rema to O.H. (139, 3) that the Baal Keriah is not called up by name, since he is standing there already.
According to this custom of the Rema, when a Bar Mitzvah boy is reading the Sidrahand is honored with Maflir, he is not "called
up" by name, but merely recites the Berakhot over his Aliyah.
33 Iggerot Moshe, O.H. Vol. 2, no. 35.
34 See Shulhan Hakriah to O.H. (end of 139) Mishne Halakhol vol. 7, no. 22. In the Luach printed by Kollel Chabad of
Jerusalem, the Lubavicher Minhag is recorded, allowing the Oleh to recite Hazak Hazak along with the Tzibbur, assuming that it

30
does not constitute a Hefsek.
35 See Pishei She'arim to Sha'arei Efraim (10-46); Shaarei Rahamim there, end of note 57.
36 O.H. (124, 8).
37 FF. (nos. 38-50).
38 Meg. (22a). R. Soloveitchik explained that reading two Pesukim together as if they were one, would be a violation of the same
principle.
39 See Mekor Hayyim (by author of Havvot Ya'ir) to O.H. (61, 14) concerning pausing slightly at Etnahta in the middle of a
Pasuk, See also Shulhan Hakriah to O.H. (141, 8), about the same point.
40 R.H. (31a), M.B. to O.H. (428, 5), and Shaar Halziyun (no. 7). See Devar Avoraham (vol, 1, no. 36) w

The Meaning of the Shalshelet

ISMAR SCHORSCH writes:8

In 1981, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) published The Torah: A Modern
Commentary, admirably edited by Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut. The first of the denominational
commentaries, it combined an unflinchingly scholarly perspective with a reverence for traditional
readings. Conspicuously absent, from the Hebrew text, however, was the trope, the musical
notations by which the Torah is chanted in the synagogue. The omission reflected Reform practice:
in most Reform synagogues where the Torah is read, it is literally read and not chanted. But the
omission triggered a storm of criticism and the UAHC quickly put out a second edition that
included the trope.

This long-forgotten story is a tribute to the numinous power of our ancient system of cantillation.
Sacred texts are to be sung; only profane texts are spoken. Rabbi Yochanan, a third century
Palestinian Amora, went so far as to assert that anyone who studied Torah or Mishnah without
chanting the text conformed to the dark words of Ezekiel: “Moreover, I (God) gave them laws that
were not good and rules by which they could not live” (Ezekiel 20:25; BT Megillah 32a). Indeed,

8 https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/the-meaning-of-the-shalshelet/

31
there are Babylonian manuscripts in which the mishnaic passages are marked by trope as are some
of the early printed editions of the Mishnah itself (Sabbioneta).

Music does not only remove a text from the numbing effect of ordinariness; it also facilitates
memorization, and rabbinic culture was largely oral. Professor Yochanan Muffs of the JTS faculty,
one of the top Bible scholars in the world, loves to recount that when he was a youngster trying to
learn passages of the Tanakh by heart, he would sit at the piano and put them to music. Prior to the
invention of printing, Jews in the synagogue prayed and listened to the Torah reading without
benefit of written texts. Music served as a medium of transmission.

To be sure, different Jewish communities developed different renditions of the cantillation.

ForShabbat Lekh L’kha, JTS’s H.L. Miller Cantorial School in conjunction with the Milken
Archive of American Jewish Music, performed a service as it might have sounded in a colonial
Sephardic synagogue. The barely inflected Torah trope was far less melodious than the Eastern
European trope that we are used to in our Conservative synagogues.

When I arrived at Camp Ramah for my first summer in 1955, I was still chanting the Torah
andhaftorot (prophetic portions) according to the German cantillations of my father. That summer,
I was counselor for a bunk of unruly twelve-year olds. The most rambunctious was also the most
learned Jewishly. Intuitively, I decided to co-opt him by having him teach me his Eastern European
Torah trope. The ruse worked. I mastered a new trope, and he grew more manageable. To this day,
though, I am a divided soul. I continue to chant the haftarah according to the lovely German trope
of my childhood.

The Hebrew term for trope is te’amim, a plural form for accent marks. Like vowels, they appear
only in printed editions but never in the Torah scroll from which we read. A musical notation
accompanies every word of the Torah. The function of the te’amim goes far beyond music. The
location of the mark indicates the syllable to be accented. When one chants in public or studies
alone, it is important to get the pronunciation of the words correct. The te’amim also provide the
text with a system of punctuation, which sets off such units as a sentence, clause or phrase.
Somete’amim are joiners while others are separators. Finally, the most distinctive te’amim add
nuance and interpretation to the words to which they are attached.

Our parashah contains a wonderful example of this interpretive function. The particular mark is
called a shalshelet or chain. With its wiggle shape, it actually looks like a worm, always appearing
above the word it serves. Its extended sound, longer than any other mark, matches its form, that is,
it wavers going up and down the scale twice before finishing on a third ascent. The music connotes
emotional turmoil as it does in our instance.

Abraham, advanced in years and eager to arrange a marriage for his son Isaac, has sent the steward
of his household back to Mesopotamia to find a suitable mate. The narrative is full of tenderness.
The steward arrives and goes to the well at which women tend to congregate. Utterly alone, he
turns to the God of Abraham for help. Over the introductory word in the narrative, “vayomar” (and
he said) appears a shalshelet, conveying all the angst and trepidation felt by the steward in the face
of his impossible mission (Genesis 24:12). What an inspired choice to enliven the reading!

32
Not surprisingly, the shalshelet, which occurs but seven times in the entire Torah, punctuates the
book of Genesis. We met it last week in the rescue of Lot by the divine messengers from the
doomed cities of Sodam and Gomorrah. Despite their urging, Lot is paralyzed by ambivalence:
“Still he delayed. So, the men seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters.”
(19:16). A shalshelet is affixed to the rare verb for delaying, underlining Lot’s emotional state.

And we will meet it again in the failed seduction of Joseph in Egypt by Potiphar’s wife. He spurns
her advances: “After a time, his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said: ‘Lie with me’
but he refused” (Genesis39:7). The last word is unpacked with yet another shalshelet, suggesting
that Joseph’s resolve came only after inner struggle.

In sum, to read the parashah without the trope is akin to reading but a third of it. Both dilutions
do violence to the multifaceted intricacy of the text. The real value of Etz Hayim, the new
Conservative Torah commentary, is to give us a marvelous vehicle for home study. In the
synagogue, we should be touched by the music of Mount Sinai as well as its message. Let’s
mobilize the products of serious Jewish education in our midst, both young and old, to create an
ever-expanding pool of competent Torah readers.

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 The Shalshelet: The Musical Note with A Deep Message

Rabbi Avi Weiss writes:9

Words have the power to express ideas. But as expressive as words can be, they can sometimes be
limiting. Often music can give soul and meaning to ideas that words cannot.

This concept is also true with respect to the melody (trop) used to read the Torah. The tune actually
acts as a commentary on the text itself.

The highest and most prolonged trop is called the shalshelet. The word shalshelet is from the
word shalosh – three. The sound of this note curves upward and then down three successive times.
Commentators suggest that when a shalshelet appears, it indicates a feeling of hesitation by a
character in the text.

For example, when Mrs. Potiphar attempts to seduce Yosef (Joseph), Yosef refuses, va-
yemaen (Genesis 39:8). Although saying no, Yosef, at first, may have thought about giving into
temptation. The word va-yemaen has, as its trop, the shalshelet.

In last week’s portion, the angels instruct Lot and his family to leave Sedom. The Torah then tells
us that Lot lingered (va-yitmamah) (Genesis 19:16). Lot and his family were leaving their home.
This could not have been easy. Even as they left, they hesitated. In the end, Lot’s wife looks back
and is overtaken by the brimstone and fire, turning into a pillar of salt. Atop va-yitmamah is
the shalshelet.

In Chayei Sarah there is a less obvious shalshelet. Eliezer, Avraham’s (Abraham) steward, is at
the well, seeking a wife for his master’s son, Yitzchak (Isaac). The Torah states “And he said (va-
yomar) the woman who will give camels to drink is kind and hence suitable for Yitzchak” (Genesis

9
https://library.yctorah.org/2016/05/the-shalshelet-the-musical-note-with-a-deep-message/

34
24:12). Atop the word va-yomar is the shalshelet. One wonders why? What type of hesitation takes
place in this moment?

Perhaps, deep down Eliezer, did hesitate. In his heart of hearts, he may not have wanted to succeed.
Failure would mean Yitzchak would not marry, and Eliezer, being the closest aide to Avraham,
would be the next in line to carry on the covenant. Alternatively, as the midrash suggests, perhaps,
if he did not find a wife on this journey, Yitzchak would end up marrying Eliezer’s daughter. Either
way, lack of success on this mission, may have ended up personally benefiting Eliezer.

No wonder Eliezer’s name never appears in the entire chapter. When he identifies himself to
Yitzchak’s future father-in-law Lavan, Eliezer declares, “eved Avraham anochi, I am Avraham’s
servant.” (Genesis 24:34) It is extraordinary that Eliezer does not identify himself by name. But
this omission makes sense as Eliezer works selflessly for Avraham, even at the risk of his own
personal gain.

The Rambam notes that, in many areas, one who hesitates but, in the end, does the principled thing
is on a higher level than one who acts without hesitation. Therefore, Yosef’s hesitation doesn’t
mean he’s less righteous, but rather, very human. And certainly, the act of Eliezer falls into this
same category.

Most often, when people become involved in an endeavor they ask, “what’s in it for me?” Eliezer
may have asked this most human question, but the message of the shalshelet is clear. There are
times when we are called upon to complete tasks that may not be in our best self-interest, but we
must do them, nonetheless. In a world of selfishness this musical note teaches each one of us the
importance of selflessness.

Interestingly, the shalshelet looks like a crooked line that begins on the ground and reaches
upward. It is telling us that personal feelings are real and human. But it is also teaching us that
sometimes we should abandon those natural human inclinations and reach beyond ourselves. Then
we will be able to reach the heavens.

35
 \

Many a young bochur has labored over the taamei hamikra for his bar mitzvah parshah.
Following the trail through the sources uncovers some interesting findings.

ALL THE RIGHT NOTES: THE TWO TROPS FOR THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS

Dov Gertler writes:10

Many a young bochur has labored over the taamei hamikra for his bar mitzvah parshah, and those
whose parshah includes the Ten Commandments face an even harder task — learning the
special trop for those verses. But why do we have this extra set of taamim, only for these
occasions? And when did the taamim come into existence, anyway? Following the trail through
the sources uncovers some interesting findings.

The text in a typical Chumash is accompanied by special cantillation marks indicating how the
words should be read aloud during leining. They function much like musical notation and guide
the baal korei in the trop he should use. In addition, these marks serve as a sort of punctuation;
they delineate the beginnings and endings of pesukim, as well as providing pauses and emphasis.
The marks, known in Lashon Hakodesh as the taamei hamikra, follow a system of rules that
remains consistent throughout the Chumash. (Indeed, the system applies to all of Tanach, although
the taamim for the books outside of Chumash denote different musical notation.)

10 https://mishpacha.com/all-the-right-notes-the-two-trops-for-the-ten-commandments/

36
We find an interesting discrepancy, however, in the two passages where the Aseres Hadibros are
transmitted, the first time in parshas Yisro in Sefer Shemos and the second time in parshas
Va’escḥanan in Sefer Devarim. In these two places, a unique situation obtains: the passages are
marked with two different versions of the trop.[1] One version is like the trop found throughout the
rest of Chumash, but the other version appears only here.

The two versions of the trop that appear in these two places have come to be called by special
names in the halachic literature. The version that stays consistent with the trop in the rest of the
Chumash is called taam tachton. Meanwhile, the special version that appears only in the two
Aseres Hadibros passages is called taam elyon, so named for the preponderance of notes written
above the letters — unlike the standard trop, which distributes the marks fairly evenly above and
below the letters.

This raises a question. Are both versions of the trop original? That is, have the Aseres Hadibros
always been leined with two versions of the trop, or did one evolve later than the other?

To answer the overarching question, we must first understand the differences between the versions,
then identify the sources in halachah that attempt to trace the origins of those differences. Since
the taam tachton is basically the standard trop, its provenance is not really in question. The
presumed original would be the taam tachton.

The alternative notation of the taam elyon, however, diverges from the standard form in a number
of instances. It deviates not only in the frequency with which it places the notes above letters, but
also in the length of its pesukim. Reading the text according to the standard trop, nowhere in
Tanach do we find a pasuk made up of fewer than three words. In dividing pesukim of the Aseres
Hadibros according to the taam elyon, however, we encounter three such instances.[2]

The taam elyon also outmatches the standard trop on the opposite end of the spectrum. The
longest pasuk in the rest of Tanach, per the standard trop, is 43 words.[3] The taam elyon has
two pesukim that surpass that: one totals 55 words; the total of the other is subject to debate and is
either 50 or a full 59.[4]

In order to accurately assess date of origin of the taam elyon, these differences must be addressed
separately, because the simple division of pesukim and the specific notes of trop might have
developed independently of each other.

Melodies of the Torah

Before we can determine if the taam elyon originated at the same time as the standard trop, we
must first identify when the concept of taamim developed altogether, and when they were
implemented.

Chazal themselves discuss the origin of the trop in Nedarim37b.[5] Their reference to the subject
provides evidence that a system of cantillation already existed in their time. The catalyst for this
discussion in Nedarim is a seemingly unrelated debate about Torah educators’ compensation. We

37
are instructed to transmit Torah the same way Moshe originally transmitted it to the
congregation — i.e., without a fee. All agree that the prohibition against paying a Torah teacher
applies when he teaches midrash, but the same does not necessarily hold true for mikra. The
Gemara quotes a mishnah that indicates payment for the latter is indeed permitted.
This of course raises the next question: What aspect of teaching mikra would make payment for it
acceptable? According to Rav, one can receive payment for teaching mikra only when the students
are children, because then the compensation is specifically for the childcare the teacher provides.
By contrast, Rav Yochanan believes that one is exempt from the no-compensation rule when one
teaches mikra because payment is specifically for the service of teaching the trop on mikra rather
than the mikra itself. Rav Yochanan believes that studying the trop is inherently different from the
study of the words of mikra.

The basis for this disagreement originates from a fundamental difference in historical
understanding of the trop’s origin. If the trop was invented after the codification of Tanach, it
would not count as an original part of the study of mikra. Therefore, the study of trop would qualify
as something for which a teacher could be compensated. This is the approach taken by Rav
Yochanan, which is why he allows the exemption for a teacher to be compensated.

Rav, however, considers trop an integral part of mikra, and therefore cannot accept Rav
Yochanan’s reasoning. Rav posits an origin date for trop that is far earlier than codification of
Tanach. As evidence for this, he quotes Nechemiah 8:8,[6] which depicts a moment during Ezra’s
lifetime with the congregation reading the Torah using all its linguistic accoutrements: “Vayikr’u
basefer b’Toras ha’Elokim, meforash; v’sum seichel, vayavinu bamikra.”

Rav interprets the last words of the pasuk, “vayavinu bamikra,” as referring to the taamim of
the trop. This interpretation would offer evidence of the creation of trop sometime before or during
Ezra’s life, either of which would date its existence to before the codification of Tanach. If so,
the trop qualifies as d’Oraisa, akin to mikra, which subsumes it under the group of studies for
which compensation is prohibited. (This is why Rav must give the alternative approach of child
rearing as the basis for compensation in this case.)

Rav Yochanan, on the other hand, interprets that same phrase, “vayavinu bamikra,” as a reference
to the mesorah. With this interpretation, the statement no longer acts as evidence for the existence
of the trop before codification. One can assume, like Rav Yochanan, that the trop emerged at a
later point in history, thereby invalidating its d’Oraisa status.[7]

As a rule in the Gemara, when Rav and Rav Yochanan disagree, the halachah follows the opinion
of Rav Yochanan.[8]

It would therefore seem appropriate to conclude from the gemara in Nedarim that the trop was
instituted after Ezra’s time. Although this does not provide a specific date of origin, it does narrow
down the possibilities to between Ezra’s lifetime and when this gemara was written — i.e., before
the Amoraim — because if Rav Yochanan and Rav can debate it, it must already have existed.
There may be another indicator of this approach in the Gemara in Yoma52b.

38
Chazal there bring five examples of pesukim she’ein lahem hechra, i.e., pesukim with
indeterminate punctuation that obscures meaning of the text. As mentioned above, the purpose
of trop, in addition to marking the tune, is to serve as punctuation that clarifies text.[9] Without it,
interpreting pesukim would be a complicated task riddled with ambiguity.
Rav Eliyahu Habochur therefore uses this gemara’s apparent difficulty with these five pesukim as
evidence that the trop had not yet been canonized when this gemara was written. Unlike the
explanation from our previous gemara in Nedarim, this conclusion would imply that trop was
instituted somewhat later than the early Amoraim, which is when the conversation in
this gemara took place. As a result, some Rishonim and Acharonim[10] take the opinion that
the trop was a somewhat later invention.

Of the Rishonim who take the stance of this later invention of trop, there is some discussion of
authorship. Ultimately, most agree that the trop was invented by, or during the era of, the Anshei
Haknesses Hagedolah. The Tosafos Rid[11] says as much explicitly, while Ben Asher[12] alludes to
the involvement of neviim in the process, a group that died out before the dissolution of the Anshei
Haknesses Hagedolah.

Other Rishonim and Acharonim refer on numerous occasions to an otherwise anonymous person
called only the baal hataamim.[13] While an exact date for this person (if it is indeed a reference to
a specific individual) is unclear, these authorities obviously assumed that trop was a later addition
to the text. It would, after all, be an odd choice in phrasing to refer to a “baal hataamim” if they
believed the trop had been given over to Moshe at Har Sinai. It would seem that all who utilize
this phrase assume the trop to have been a later addition to the text.

One early Acharon who takes a unique approach is the aforementioned Rav Eliyahu
Habochur.[14] He posits that the trop was instituted by the Tiberian Masoretes. This opinion is
unprecedented, likely because the Masoretes lived concurrently with the Geonim (in the sixth
through tenth centuries CE), an era a few hundred years after the Amoraim lived. Stranger still is
that Ben Asher, who was himself one of the Tiberian Masoretes (and therefore one of the highest
authorities on the subject), indicates otherwise.

At least one source in Chazal, the Zohar, takes a vastly different approach by placing the origins
much earlier than canonization of Tanach. In fact, the Zohar states explicitly that the trop was
taught directly to Moshe at Sinai.[15] Many of the Rishonim adopt this opinion, among them Rav
Eliezer from Metz,[16] Rav Moshe of Coucy,[17] Machzor Vitri,[18] the Kuzari,19] Sefer
Chassidim,[20] and Sefer Hapardes.[21] Among the Acharonim subscribing to this view are
Radvaz,[22] Chida,[23] and Minchas Shai.[24]

This would, of course, call into question the ambiguity in Yoma of pesukim she’ein lahem
hechra.[25] However, those who adopt the Zohar’s approach explain the ambiguity differently: it is
due not to the trop not yet existing but instead to a failure in the mesorah to accurately transmit
the trop in those specific instances.[26]

An alternative explanation is to remove trop from the equation altogether. Instead, the ambiguity
was because for other pesukim the Gemara relied on hints within the words themselves as to proper
interpretation, while these five pesukim offer no such hints.[27]

39
Breaks in the Mesorah

In addition to tracing the inception of cantillation, it is equally important to delve into the origin
of the pasuk divisions. This would be necessary in any study of the history of trop as a whole, but
it becomes especially significant in the discussion of taam tachton and taam elyon, because the
differences of cantillation in taam elyon seem to stem from a desire to change pasuk divisions.

Unlike the tachton, the elyon seems to operate with a specific purpose in mind, namely, to
construct separate pesukim for each dibrah. While in tachton the sixth, seventh, and
eighth dibros are contained in a single pasuk, the elyon breaks them into three separate two-
word pesukim. In addition to isolating dibros from each other, the elyon also seeks to prevent
breaks within one dibrah. It is for this reason that the second and fourth pesukim are so long; they
comprise the entirety of their respective dibros.

All the differences in the trop stem from the varying length of the pesukim; the connective notes
that allow for longer pesukim tend to be those that appear above words, which is why these notes
are so common to the elyon. This places special importance on determining the origin
of pasuk division with regards to the tachton-elyon analysis.

Dating the division of pesukim is much simpler than dating the cantillation. Earlier in the
same pasuk[28] whose phrase “vayavinu bamikra” prompts the debate about cantillation, the
Gemara[29] discusses another phrase. It interprets “v’sum seichel” as referring to the division
of pesukim; none of the Amoraim challenge this interpretation, which suggests a unanimous
opinion that the pesukim existed in the times of Ezra.[30]

We can conclude an even more specific time range from Megillah 22a. There the Gemara teaches
that our division of pesukim cannot deviate from those that Moshe set, “kol pasuk d’lo paskei
Moshe anan lo paskinan.” While the Gemara does not specify whether Moshe authored the
divisions himself or whether they were given to him at Sinai, the wording of this rule makes it
clear that the canonization of pasuk divisions occurred during Moshe’s lifetime.

This last remaining vaguery — whether the pasuk breaks were given to Moshe at Matan Torah, or
whether he made them up — may be resolved if we take a look at two of the
textual derashos Chazal employ: hekesh and semichus.

While both these vehicles derive information from the juxtaposition of two concepts, there is a
telling difference between them. When the juxtaposed concepts appear in a single pasuk, the
hermeneutical principle is a hekesh, but when the two ideas are presented in two different pesukim,
the construct is called semichus.[31] This is not just a question of terminology, as there appears to
be an effect on the strength of the derashah.

While neither appears on the famous list of 13 derashos that many recite daily, a hekesh is agreed
upon by all to be a valid derashah. Semichus, on the other hand, has its dissenters, with the

40
Gemara[32] naming Rav Yehuda as one of those who do not learn from semichus, unless
the semichus is entirely unnecessary for any other purpose.[33] In fact, even those who disagree
with Rav Yehuda seem to recognize the relative insignificance of the juxtaposing of
two pesukim in Torah. To further drive home the point that a semichus is not a mere outgrowth of
a hekesh, the Gemara in Berachos21b feels it necessary to bring another pasuk to teach us this
concept.

This differentiation seems to make sense only if we assume the pasuk breaks to have been given
at Sinai, thereby affecting the ability to use a hekesh, when the words or concepts appear in two
separate pesukim. Even if we assume that it was Moshe who introduced the pasuk breaks, it seems
somewhat difficult to use this innovation as a differentiator between two derashos. After all, if the
Torah did not contain breaks between pesukim when given, who are we to discriminate
functionally between two different limudim?

As a result of the aforementioned arguments, most of the Rishonim appear to agree that
the pasuk breaks were given at Sinai. The exception is the Meiri, who seems to hold that
the pesukim were institutionalized by the Zekeinim, a view at clear odds with many of the earlier
sources. In light of the seemingly overwhelming proof, we might be forced to reassess our
understanding of the Meiri.

With the gemara in Megillah in tow, we might think that any doubts we had about the taam
elyon have been settled as well. After all, it is forbidden to reformat the pesukim after they were
established, so who other than Moshe could have given us this new breakdown of pesukim? It is
therefore important to make note of the many exceptions to this rule we encounter each day. There
are numerous examples of pesukim that we parse in davening,[34] many of which are discussed by
the Acharonim. Among the explanations given by the Acharonim, we find those who allow for
splitting pesukim, so long as the intent is to quickly continue with the second half.[35] This would
allow for the possibility that the taam elyon was created later, and yet, given that the intent is to
flow from one pasuk to the next, there is no issue of “kol pasuk d’lo paskei Moshe anan lo
paskinan.”

Origin of Tachton-Elyon Split

We can now return to the two sets of trop for the Aseres Hadibros. When did these alternate
readings come to exist? More specifically: can we trace these two trops back to the time that the
rest of the trop was canonized?

While we can trace the minhag back to the times of the Rishonim, the trail seems to go dark in the
mid-13th century.[36] In early manuscripts, though, we see clear indication of this minhag. Already
in the Leningrad Codex, sometime in the early 11th century, both sets of notes are present for the
Aseres Hadibros. While this proves the existence of both trops at the turn of the millennium, there
might possibly be an even earlier hint of the taam elyon, the divergent trop. At the end of
each parshah of the Torah is a small note about the pasuk count in that parshah. These notes were
early additions to the Chumash, though their origin is the subject of some debate. The number
of pesukim in parshas Yisro is recorded as 72, the count assuming the pesukim of the taam elyon.
The taam tacḥton yields an additional three pesukim and would have pushed the count to 75.

41
A third source that may go back significantly earlier is a manuscript of a targum now referred to
as the Targum Neofiti, so named for the collection to which it belonged. While the manuscript
itself was written in the early 16th century, many attempt to trace this targum back to the period
just after the Churban Bayis. This targum clearly breaks the pesukim up in the fashion of the taam
elyon, while retaining the pasuk breaks we have throughout the rest of Torah. What makes this
manuscript difficult to rely on is its comparatively mysterious origin.[37] This, in addition to
questions about its usage, as well as the possibility that the text was emended, raise questions on
its authenticity as a testament to the early origin of the taam elyon.

The Leningrad codex, and possibly the masoretic notes, are interesting in another respect as well,
in that they all have the taam elyon for parshas Va’eschanan as well as for parshas Yisro.[38] This
is significant, as there is some question as to whether the taam elyon should be used only on
Shavuos, or could it be used in reading the Aseres Hadibros during the remainder of the year as
well. Given that only Yisro is read on Shavuos, just the existence of a manuscript that
contains taam elyon in Va’eschanan seems to indicate the existence of this minhag even prior to
its earliest mention in seforim.

If we adopt the view of Eliyahu Habochur, we have traced the existence of the taam elyon back to
nearly to the point of origin for the remainder of the trop. The last of the Masoretes was Ben Asher,
who lived in the latter half of the tenth century. At the dawn of the 11th century, we see our first
copy of the taam elyon. It would therefore seem that if the two trops did not originate
simultaneously; at the very least they began in the same period of Jewish history, that of the
Masoretes. All the other views of the trops’ origin leave us with a significant gap, one which may
be cut down pending a definitive dating of the Targum Neofiti.

Some of the various masoretic notes, specifically those counting the pesukim, seem to indicate that
the while the two versions were created in the same time period, they came about in different
locales. There were many groups of Masoretes working simultaneously to create a mesorah for
Tanach. In Tiberius a group of Masoretes culminating with Ben Asher was working on
the seforim of Eretz Yisrael. At the same time, in Babylon, the project was being undertaken using
the seforim that had been used in the region for hundreds of years.[39] There is evidence that
suggests that the elyon may have arisen in Babylon, while the tachton was the work of the Tiberian
Masoretes.

Nevertheless, little other than place of origin changes due to these assumptions. The mesorah in
Babylon, while differing slightly from that of Tiberias, for the most part retained the
same pesukim. This is evidenced by some of the fragments recently found in the Cairo Genizah,
which, while based on the Babylonian Masoretes, contained similar pesukim. In addition, the
works of Chazal, specifically those authored in Babylon, were based on the Babylonian mesorah.
If the mesorah differs significantly in the breakdown of the pesukim, one would expect to find
some cases of a hekesh and semichus switched, something which seems not to occur in our
Gemaras.

These two proofs seem to point to a mostly similar mesorah, at least with regards to the pesukim.
And yet the Babylonian Masoretes deviated from this path for the Aseres Hadibros. Clearly, this

42
was an innovation for the Aseres Hadibros rather than an indicator of a greater difference between
the various mesoros. Therefore, it would seem to have developed from a desire to ensure all
the dibros receive their own pasuk.
Footnotes
[1]
The idea of variant opinions about the trop is not itself a unique phenomenon. There are a few isolated instances elsewhere in
Tanach where doubt arose about the proper notes of individual words, as the transmission of the trop was not perfect and at times
came with multiple opinions. What makes the duality of taam in Aseres Hadibros unique is its existence as an entire self-contained
section with two distinct and fully developed sets of notes. The comprehensive nature of the taamim supports the expectation that
their creation was a product of deliberate effort rather than an accident of transmission.
[2]
Lo tirzach, lo tin’af, lo tignov. See Biur Halachah 494 s.v. mibachodesh who notes this irregularity.
[3]
Esther 8:9.
[4]
There is some debate as to the breakup of pesukim in the taam elyon. If “anochi” is a separate pasuk, then the second
longest pasuk in the taam elyon is 50 words. If anochi runs into the subsequent pasuk, it becomes the longest with 59 words.
[5]
Similar statements in Megillah3a, Yerushalmi Megillah4:1, and Bereishis Rabbah chapter 36.
[6]
Often when the Gemara quotes a pasuk in Nechemiah, Rashi comments that the pasuk is in Sefer Ezra. Rashi in Nedarim omits
this annotation, lending credence to the view that the commentary on Nedarim was not composed by Rashi. In Megillah, Rashi
does make this comment.
[7]
This argument is delineated explicitly in Tosafos 37b, s.v. ve-amri; the Ran 37a, s.v. v’rav; and Meiri 37b, s.v. af al pi.
[8]
See Beitzah4a.
[9]
See Tosafos, Chagigah6b, s.v. lifsukei, who indicate that the trop is meant as more than a tool for punctuation. Even with
certainty about the correct trop, there may still be uncertainty as to the proper punctuation of a pasuk.
[10]
Sefer Ratzuf Ahavah 60b (Shlomo Algazi 1610-1683), quoting Tosfei haRosh. Our Tosafos haRosh in Yoma lacks the explicit
phrase. Meiri, Nedarim37b, s.v. af al pi; Maharal, Netzach Yisrael, chapter 45 and 66; and Chavos Yair 140 are among those who
adopt this approach.
[11]
Megillah3a, s.v. vayavinu.
[12]
Dikdukei Taamim, chapter 16. Though it is somewhat difficult to conclude with conviction as due to the poetic nature of the
writing, some liberties may have been taken.
[13]
See Ibn Ezra, Bereishis 3:22, s.v. k’echad; Akeidas Yitzchak, sha’ar 21, chapter 8. Also found in the Maharal, Menachem
Azarya M’panu ma’amar me’ah kesitah, and Rav Shlomo Alkavetz in Shoresh Yishai, pg. 17.
[14]
Eliyahu ben Asher HaLevi (1469-1549), often referred to as Elia Levita. See introduction to sefer Tuv Taam. See also in the
introduction to Sefer Masores Hamesorah, where more of the approach is explained.
[15]
Vayakhel 61a. See also Megillah32a, which may support this approach.
[16]
Sefer Yereim, chapter 255.
[17]
Semag Lo Taaseh 155.
[18]
Pg. 462, commentary on Avos1:1.
[19]
Maamar 3, chapter 31.
[20]
Chapter 302. Notable, though, is that Sefer Chassidim’s opinion is unique in asserting that the melodies of the trop were also
given over at Sinai.
[21]
Sha’ar 28.
[22]
Teshuvos 3:643.
[23]
Sheim Hagedolim Maareches Haseforim entry on sefer Tuv Taam, responding to opinion of Rav Eliyahu Habochur.
[24]
Rav Yedidya Norzi (1560-1626) in the introduction. Additional Acharonim who adopted this view include the Ketzos
Hachoshen 333:7; Chasam Sofer 6:86; Chayei Adam 31:31.
[25]
Tosafos Rid, Megillah3a, s.v. vayavinu, who points out that the question exists also for those who claim the trop was canonized
by the Anshei Knesses Hagedolah.
[26]
See Maharsha, Yoma52b, Rashi s.v. vaya’alu. This also seems to be the approach adopted by the Machzor Vitri, pg.462.
[27]
See Ritva, Yoma ibid., s.v. chamesh. The fact that such pesukim have a trop would seem to indicate that it was given at Sinai.
Otherwise, lacking any evidence from the pasuk, who would be capable of establishing a trop, and consequently a translation?
[28]
Nechemiah 8:8.
[29]
Nedarim37b.
[30]
There is some uncertainty raised by alternate versions of the interpretation of the pasuk in Nechemiah. While in the
Gemara Nedarim, “v’sum seichel” is interpreted as referring to pesukim, this is not so in the version brought by the Talmud
Yerushalmi, and Midrash Rabbah. In both instances v’sum seichel references the trop, while vayavinu mikra per some
interpretations refers to the pesukim, while in the view of others it refers to hechraim. Aside from the fact that the Babylonian
Talmud’s word would be taken as authoritative over the Yerushalmi and Midrash, these two sources do not necessarily conflict
with the view of the Bavli. While there is disagreement as to the interpretation of a phrase, nevertheless, it is entirely possible that
even according to the version contained in the Yerushalmi Ezra included pasuk breaks, the pasuk just felt no need to tell us an
aspect of the kriah that had been included since the time of Moshe. Therefore, we should be able to assume, with some degree of
certainty, that the pesukim were canonized in the times of Moshe.

43
[31]
Tosafos, Yevamos 4a, s.v. dichsiv, and Rav Shmuel Hanaggid in his introduction to the Talmud printed after Maseches
Berachos, both explicitly state that this is the difference.
[32]
Berachos21b, Yevamos 4a.
[33]
Based on explanation of Tosafos, Yevamos 4a.
[34]
To name a few: the pasuk recited by the congregation during hagba’ah is actually two half pesukim. We begin Kiddush Friday
night with the words “Vayehi erev,” which is the middle of a pasuk. Our daily Kedushah also begins with the words “Kadosh
kadosh kadosh,” again in the middle of a pasuk.
[35]
See Arugas Habosem, siman 22. Chasam Sofer, Yoreh Deiah, chapter 260, rejects this approach.
[36]
The earliest record seems to be in the Chizkuni (commentary on Chumash by Chizkiyah ben Manoach, written approximately
1240), Shemos 20:14, s.v. lo. The practice was also quoted in Leket Yosher (Yosef ben Moshe, written in the end of 16th century),
but this was over 200 years later.
[37]
There is some attempt to deduce from the language utilized in this targum that it was composed a short time after the Churban
Bayis. This is a precarious proof, as it is entirely possibly that snippets of earlier targumim were combined with some newer
additions at a much later date.
[38]
The Leningrad Codex has both versions of trop for parshas Va’eschanan, a reliable indicator that both trops were utilized even
for Va’eschanan. The Masoretes’ count of the pesukim only proves the existence of the taam elyon, as no count is provided for
the taam tachton version. It is possible that the count was done by a group of Babylonian Masoretes, negating the proof to this
alternate practice.
[39]
There are numerous places where it appears that Chazal had a slightly different written text than what appears in front of us.
Tosafos in numerous places comments on this phenomenon: Shabbos55b s.v. ma’aviram; Niddah33a s.v. v’hanoseh. Rav Akiva
Eiger in the Gilyon haShas Shabbos55b cites many more instances where the mesorah seems to differ from the seforim we
currently use.

What’s the Truth about . . . How Much to Open the Torah for
Hagbah?

RABBI DR. ARI Z. ZIVOTOFSKY WRITES:

During hagbah, when the Torah is lifted in shul, the more columns of text visible to the
assembled, the better.

44
Fact: According to many authorities, when the Torah is lifted, at least three columns of the Torah
scroll should be visible; this is not just the minimum requirement, but the ideal number of columns.

Background: In most Ashkenazi shuls, after the Torah reading is completed, two people are called
up, often not by name, to roll up the Torah scroll. While this may appear to be a mere
“housekeeping” task, hagbah (lifting up the Torah scroll and rolling it closed) and gelilah (helping
to close the Torah and then tying the scroll and replacing its cover and ornaments) may be the most
important honors pertaining to the public reading of the Torah. The Talmud (Megillah 32a) records
a statement of Rav Yehoshua ben Levi that is cited as halachah.11

Rav Yehoshua ben Levi says that after the Torah reading, the most distinguished member of the
congregation should receive the honor of rolling1 up the Torah scroll, and he will thereby receive
the spiritual reward of all those who participated in the reading. In earlier times, gelilah was either
given to the most prominent shul members12 or the most important rav of the city
(Shu”t Maharsham 1:198). Alternatively, it was auctioned to the highest bidder (SA, OC 147:1).
In contemporary times, however, the custom is to offer the honor to ordinary members of the
congregation (MB 147:7).

The earliest detailed description of hagbah is found in the post-Talmudic Masechet Sofrim, where
it states (14:14):

“Then he rolls open the sefer Torah until three columns [are visible], and lifts it up and shows
the text to the people standing to his right and left, and then he turns it to the front and back,
because it is a mitzvah for all of the men and women to see the text, and bow, and say, ‘And this
is the Torah which Moshe placed before the Children of Israel’ (Devarim 4:44) and ‘The Torah
of God is perfect, restoring the soul’” (Tehillim 19:8).

There are various customs regarding the timing of hagbah (Me’am Loez, Devarim 27:26).
In Masechet Sofrim, hagbah precedes the actual reading of the Torah (see Gra, OC 134,
s.v., v’nahagu) and to this day, most Sephardim raise the Torah just after removing it from
the aron (Ben Ish Chai, year 2, Toldot:16).

Ashkenazim, as stated by the Rema (Darkei Moshe 147:4; Shulchan Aruch, OC 134:2; Aruch
Hashulchan, OC 134:3), for the most part, perform hagbah after the Torah reading,2 although
the Kaf Hachaim says that Ashkenazim in the Land of Israel performed it before the Torah
reading.3 Today, there are some Chassidim who follow the Sephardic practice.

The Ashkenazi custom of performing hagbah after the Torah reading seems to be a departure from
the original practice. The change is due to the fact that ignorant people thought that seeing the
Torah text was more important than hearing it and would therefore leave the shul after hagbah. To
ensure that people stayed, hagbah was moved to after the Torah reading.13

The importance of seeing the Torah text is evident from a story in Nechemiah, which may be a
source for the custom of hagbah. The Jews had returned from the Babylonian exile and were

11
Rambam, Hilchot Tefillah 12:18; Shulchan Aruch, OC 147:1
12
Gra, OC 147 s.v., gadol; Machatzit Hashekel, OC 147:3; MB 147:6
13
Kaf Hachaim 134:17, quoting Knesset Hagedolah; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch Hashalem [Toledano], Dinei Hotza’at Sefer Torah 6

45
experiencing a religious revival, highlighted by a lengthy public Torah reading by Ezra. After the
reading was completed, the verse states: “Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for
he was above all the people,4 and when he opened it, all the people stood” (Nechemiah 8:5).

In order to ensure that everyone sees the actual text in the Torah scroll, Masechet Sofrim states that
the Torah should be raised and shown in all directions “because it is a mitzvah for all of the men
and women5 to see the writing.” The Shulchan Aruch (OC 134:2) includes this requirement of
showing the text to everyone; the Mishnah Berurah (134:9) explains that one should slowly turn
to show the script to the entire congregation, similar to how he instructs (OC 128:61)
the kohanim to turn during duchening.

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Halichot Shlomo 12:28, note 40, p. 153) says that if there are
people on all sides of the bimah, the one who performs hagbah should turn to the right and make
a full circle, but if there are people only on the two sides, he can just turn right and then left rather
than make a complete circle.

Similarly, Shevet HaLevi (9:26; c.f., Mishneh Halachot 11:103), emphasizes that the point is to
ensure that all of the congregants see the Torah script. The Kaf Hachaim (134:13; c.f., MB 134:11)
notes that in Yerushalayim, the custom was to walk around the entire shul with the Torah scroll
open so that everyone could see the text.

In order to prevent the magbia from obscuring the view of the Torah text, some early authorities
suggest that hagbah be done with the text facing the congregants. However, the Ashkenazi practice
today6 is to have it face the magbia.14

Various rules have been instituted with regard to the practice of hagbah.

The gemara (Megillah 32a) says: “Rav Shefatiah said in the name of Rav Yochanan that the one
who rolls the Torah [golel] must position it on the seam [i.e., the seam between two pages of the
Torah should be in the middle of the open section].”

Rashi understands that this is simply the most appropriate way to tighten the Torah scroll; most
later commentators maintain, as the Shulchan Aruch does (OC 147:3), that this is to ensure that no
damage occurs to the scroll. If the magbia ensures the scroll has a seam in the middle of the open
section, in case the scroll does tear, God forbid, the tear will most likely be along the seam.

The early nineteenth-century Sha’arei Ephraim (10:17) observes that people were becoming lax
about this rule and speculated that it is because the magbia no longer pulls the Torah rollers as
tightly as it was once done. Thus, he reasons, there is less of a concern about damaging the scroll.
Another possible reason for the laxity is because the ruling was instituted when the klaf, Torah
parchment, was more fragile and could easily tear, which is less likely to happen today.15

How much of the scroll should be opened?7 Dr. Ron Wolfson’s The Seven Questions You’re Asked
in Heaven states, “It is considered preferable for the lifter to show the worshippers as many

14
Bach, OC 134; Rema, OC 147:4; Encyclopedia Talmudit 8:168
15
Josef Lewy, Minhag Yisrael Torah, 1997, 147:3 quoting Divrei Yechezkel Hachadash

46
columns of the Torah script as possible.”8 Is this accurate, or is there a specific number of
columns?

Masechet Sofrim states: “Then he rolls open the sefer Torah until9 three columns [are revealed],”
which implies “until three” and no more. Similarly, the eleventh century Machzor Vitry (p. 527)
says: “The sefer Torah is unrolled until three columns and then lifted,” indicating specifically
three.

The guideline regarding the number of columns does not appear in the Shulchan Aruch, but
the Magen Avraham (OC 134:3) includes it and suggests that the statement is referring to the
precise number of columns that need to be shown, rather than a minimum or suggested amount.

The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried; 23:25) states one should open the scroll to
three columns, implying that that is the required amount. Based on the Magen
Avraham and Sofrim, HaShomer Emet10 (7:1) states that the scroll should be opened to three
columns. Rav Eliezer Papo (d. 1827), famous as the author of the Pele Yoetz, wrote in his halachic
work Chesed L’alafim (135:4) that the Torah should be unrolled to reveal three columns, no less
and no more.

Shu”t B’tzel Hachachmah (Rav Betzalel Stern, d. 1988; 5:54) explains in great detail exactly how
the magbia should turn while holding the Torah and then states that the scroll should be opened to
three columns, implying precisely three.

The significant exception is the Mishnah Berurah (134:8), who maintains that three may be the
minimum, and the maximum depends upon the physical strength of the magbia.11

This concept of “three columns” with regard to a Torah scroll is mentioned in other contexts as
well. In the Geonic era, Sefer Halachot Gedolot (siman 75, pp. 682-683) mentions that when
reading from a Torah scroll, one should open it to three columns and no more. Even if two people
are reading from the same scroll and it would be more convenient to open it wider, they should
open it to three columns.

Unrelated to hagbah,12 the gemara states (Baba Metzia 29b) that if someone is watching another
individual’s scroll (not necessarily a Torah scroll), either because he found it or he was asked to
watch it, he must care for it by regularly rolling it so that it does not rot and when opening it, he
should not reveal more than three columns (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 267:20; 292:20).
This halachah implies that opening a scroll no wider than three columns is the most prudent way
to treat a scroll.

There is also a hashkafic aspect that should be mentioned. Hagbah is a practice clearly intended
to honor a sefer Torah. Not infrequently, the older brother of a bar mitzvah boy is honored
with hagbah. Often, he proceeds to open the Torah to five, six or more columns. This strongman
performance invariably shifts the attention of the congregation from the Torah scroll itself to
the magbia, who is showered with praise for his show of strength. Indeed, the book The Seven
Questions You’re Asked in Heaven acknowledges that “a good hagbah can show three, four, even
five columns. Six columns? You’ll get an admiring yasher koach—literally ‘may you be
strengthened,’ or more colloquially, ‘way to go!’” However, after such a display, the Torah reading
is no longer the focus.

47
According to the Ramban, the final curse of the Tochachah in Devarim (27:26) refers to an
improperly performed hagbah: “Cursed be he who does not uphold [asher lo yakim] the words of
this Torah . . .”13 Among the various opinions in the Yerushalmi (Sotah 7:4) about this verse is
that of Rav Shimon ben Yakim, who says the pasuk refers to the chazzan. Ramban explains
that chazzan here means a magbia who does not properly show the Torah to all assembled, as
required in Masechet Sofrim.

Hagbah is a custom that centers on the Torah itself. It is about showing the Torah proper respect
and honor and impressing upon all those assembled the tremendous and enduring spiritual
significance Torah has in our lives.

Notes
1. Although the Talmud (Megillah 32a) only refers to one role, the “golel,” today the Ashkenazic custom is to honor two people;
one performs hagbah, the other performs gelilah. Of the two, the magbia is usually considered the main functionary and has the
more important function (MB 147:5, 19; Chayei Adam 31:13). The custom is to even permit the honoring of a child with gelilah in
order to train him in mitzvot (MB 147:7). However, the Aruch Hashulchan (OC 147:9) views the golel as having the more
important function.

2. As pointed out by the Mishnah Berurah (134:8), Rav Yaakov ben Asher in the Tur (an Ashkenazi) included hagbah after the
Torah reading in siman 147, while Rav Yosef Karo (a Sephardi), refusing to tamper with the order of the Tur, left the halachot there
but added a section about hagbah before the Torah reading in siman 134.

3. The Jews of Cochin, India has a unique custom. They have a second bimah on the balcony in front of the ezrat nashim where
the Torah is read. Hagbah is done twice, first down below in the men’s section and then again near the women’s section.

4. He was standing on a platform. See Nechemiah 8:4.

5. The inclusion of women implies that synagogues were constructed in such a way that the women could see the Torah being
raised and that women were present for the reading of the Torah. The Shulchan Aruch (OC 134:2) includes the requirement that
women see the Torah text. Hashomer Emet (7:2) emphasizes that women must be able to view the text by citing two earlier sources:
Rav Simchat Yehuda on Masechet Sofrim and Magen Avraham (OC 282:6), who says that possibly women are obligated in hearing
the Torah reading (and hence in seeing the lifted Torah) because it is similar to Hakhel, which women must attend.

6. The exception is on Simchat Torah, when there is a custom in some communities to do hagbah on some of the sifrei Torah with
the text facing out. See Avraham Yaari, Toldot Chag Simchat Torah (Jerusalem, 1989), 75-77.

7. The Italian Jewish communities have a special silver bar called a sharbit that fits over the two wooden atzei chayim, Torah
rollers. The bar holds the Torah open to a fixed amount, usually revealing three or four columns. Furthermore, to prevent someone
from accidentally dropping the Torah, there are generally two people performing hagbah, one on each side.

8. (Woodstock, 2009), 48.

9. There is an alternate version in some manuscripts and in the Aruch Hashulchan (OC 134:3) that has “al” (on) instead of “ad”
(until).

10. A work on the laws of Torah reading by Rav Avraham Chaim Adaidi, nineteenth-century Libya and Israel.

11. The Mishnah Berurah (147:7) cautions that a weak person should never be honored with hagbah. In Spanish/Portuguese
congregations, hagbah was entrusted only to a select group known as levantadores (Spanish for “raise up,” it referred to “master
lifters” of the scroll), thus honoring them and minimizing the risk of someone mishandling the Torah (Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd
ed. [2008], vol. 8, s.v., Hagbah p. 207). The fear of dropping the Torah or mishandling the parchment led some Italian communities
in the eighteenth century to abolish hagbah altogether, a practice defended by the Chida (L’David Emet, 5746, p. 13).

12. This idea is based on a devar Torah that was written and distributed by Rabbi Dov Hakohen Tropper of New York, in memory
of his son Pinchas, who passed away at the tender age of eight.

48
13. Yalkut Yosef (OC 134, note 13) suggests that the Ramban believed this was an asmachta, a hint found in the Hebrew Bible for
rabbinical prohibitions or any other halachah, and not a true Biblical reference.

The Tune of Torah

Orrin Tilevitz writes:16

Danish comedian Victor Borge has a routine in which he vocalizes the punctuation of an English
sentence. Periods, commas, colons, semicolons, dashes and the rest are transformed into a series
of slurps and expectorations, so that while listening to Borge, one has little doubt precisely where
and what the punctuation is. Of course, the sight of saliva flying across the stage and the general
attendant hysteria tend to obliterate the meaning of the text.

Biblical cantillations, also called trop or, in Hebrew, ta'antet hamikrah, serve much the same
function as Borge's punctuation. They are the vocalized punctuation which takes the place of the
commas, periods, colons, semicolons and dashes in an English sentence, and further delineate
phrases which in English would lack punctuation. However, unlike Borge's antics, the trop is sung
and, at least if, sung properly, makes the text more comprehensible to the listener.

The trop is represented in a printed Biblical text by squiggly lines above and below each word.
(Neither the trop nor, for that matter, vowels appear in the Torah scroll itself.) The system

16 The Jewish Review Volume 1, Issue 3 (March 1988 | Adar, 5748)

http://thejewishreview.org/articles/printerfriendly.cfm?id=70&route=printerfriendly

49
of trop is standard (with a handful of variant readings) in all editions of the Bible and is very
ancient. However, the precise group of musical notes which a given trop represents depends on
the tradition of the particular community. For example, the Lithuanian, Yemenite, Moroccan,
German and Syrian Jewish communities each have their own method for vocalizing the trap. So,
the Torah reading will sound different in synagogues of different communities - though
the trop which the Torah reader is? singing? is in each case the same.

Even within a given community, trop for different books of the Bible is vocalized differently. For
example, the Torah, the Prophets, the book of Esther, the book of Lamentations, and the books
of Ruth, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes have different vocalizations - melodies, almost - so that
when one goes into a synagogue, one can tell from the sound of the music what's being read. Also,
the vocalization of the Torah reading for the High Holidays is different from that for the rest of
year, to call attention to the importance of these days.

The trop is used to set a mood in other ways too: The vocalization of the book of Lamentations is
in a minor key and quite mournful, while the vocalization of the book of Esther has quite a different
mood. However, in the fourth chapter of the book of Esther, a passage describes how the Jews rent
their garments and fasted when they found out what Haman planned for them. This passage is read,
at least in synagogues of the Eastern European tradition, with the vocalization, not of Esther, but
of Lamentations.

Whatever its vocalization, trop is first and foremost a system of punctuation and, like all
punctuation, it is frequently essential to the meaning of the text. Compare the following sentences:

“The boy walked home quickly, crossing the street at the light.”

and

“The boy walked home, quickly crossing the street at the light.”

In the first sentence, the boy walked home quickly to avoid being mugged, while in the second he
may have walked home slowly and merely crossed the street quickly to avoid being run over. A
misplaced trop is no different: in fact, the Shulchan Aruch teaches that, just as one is obligated to
correct a Torah reader who mispronounces a word so as to change its meaning, the same rule
applies to a mistake in the vocalization of the trop which changes the meaning of a passage.

The question of the precise placement of a trop and the resulting shift in meaning figures
prominently in a dispute reported in the Talmud. A passage in Tractate Yoma 52a states that there
are five verses in the Torah which are ambiguous because it is uncertain where
the etnachtah belongs. (An etnachtah's function is somewhere between a semicolon and a period.)
One of these verses is Deuteronomy XXXI:16, which says (according to the trop printed in our
texts): “God said to Moses, 'you will lie with your fathers, and this people will rise and worship
idols....” etc. If, however, the etnachtah were to appear one word later, the verse would mean:
“God said to Moses, 'you will lie with your father and rise; this people will worship idols...'”

50
As reported in Tractate Sanhedrin 80a, Rabban Gamliel explained to a group of heretics that this
verse, with the alternative placement of the etnachtah, was the Biblical source for the Jewish
concept of the resurrection of the dead in the end of days, because the verse was to be read as
saying that Moses would die and then rise.

They replied that actually the verse was to be read to mean that Moses would die and then the
people would rise and worship idols. In any event, a famous 18th century treatise on the Torah
reading called Shaa'rei Ephraim rules that in each of the five verses where the placement of
the etnachtah is uncertain, the verse should be read without an etnachtah at all, to defer to all
opinions.

Trop as punctuation also figures in the reading of the Ten Commandments.

In both Exodus XX and Deuteronomy V, the Ten Commandments are graced with two sets
of trop, the ta'am ha'elyon or “upper trop”, and the ta'am hatachton or “lower trop”.

Here is why. Trop usually punctuates a single verse; the final trop in a verse is, suitably,
a sof passuk, literally “the end of the verse”. Accordingly, the ta'am hatach ton punctuates
separately each verse of the Ten Commandments, so that one can study them verse by verse. But
some commandments contain more than one verse and others take up only part of a verse.

On Mt. Sinai, each commandment was given separately, except for the first two which were given
simultaneously. When we read the Ten Commandments in the synagogue, we are in a sense
reenacting the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. And so, the ta'am ha'elyon, which we use to read
the Ten Commandments in the synagogue, punctuates them commandment by commandment
(except, again, for the first two, which are punctuated as a single commandment) just as they were
given on Mt. Sinai.

At times, the punctuation represented by the trap can have a deeper meaning.
The shalshelet, literally a “chain”, is vocalized in the Eastern European (and I suspect, in all)
traditions as an extended stream of notes. It appears in only four places in the Torah, each time
indicating that someone did something very, very deliberately.

In Genesis XIX:16, the angels are trying to convince Lot to leave Sodom before it is destroyed but
(Rashi explains) Lot wants first to spend time gathering his money. The word “he tarried” bears
a shalshelet; immediately afterwards, the verse tells us that the angels took Lot by the hand and
bodily dragged him out of Sodom.

In Genesis XXIV:12, Abraham has sent his faithful servant, Eliezer, to find a suitable bride for
Isaac. Without much earthly guidance, Eliezer decides to pray. The word “he said” is graced with
a shalshelet; apparently, Eliezer prayed long and hard and, as we know, his prayer was answered.

In Genesis XXXIX:8, Joseph, whom his brothers had sold into slavery, has
become Potiphar's servant. Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph who, for whatever reason, will
have none of it. Understandably, the word “he refused” bears a shalshelet.

51
Finally, Leviticus VIII:23 deals with the consecration of Aaron and his sons as priests: Hen?
ceforth, they, not Moses, will perform all the sacrifices. The consecration ceremony is Moses's last
opportunity to offer sacrifices to God, and he his making the most of it.

And so, at Moses's last sacrificial offering, the word “he sacrificed” bears a shalshelet.17

Conversely, at least in one case, the meaning of a word may dictate which variant trop is correct.

In Genesis XXXII:11, Jacob has just found out that his brother, Esau, is after him. Jacob prays, “I
am unworthy of (lit., “I am too small for”) all the kindness You have bestowed upon Your servant.”
In most editions of the Hebrew Bible, the word “unworthy” bears an azlahgeresh, a trop which, at
least in the Eastern European tradition, is vocalized as a series of notes rising in pitch, and thus is
a seemingly inappropriate trop for a word which means “I am too small”. In some editions,
however, the word bears a revi'i, which is vocalized as a descending series of notes, and thus seems
more in tune with the meaning of the word.

Acquiring a working knowledge of the trop and how they are vocalized can be a bit tricky. A table
of the trop and their names usually appears in the back of the Chumash, the printed version of the
five books of Moses. Many editions also have the trap vocalized in musical notation. However,
since generally only German Jews have been methodical enough to commit their vocalization of
the trop to musical notation, the music that is printed probably represents the German Jewish
tradition, and so will sound alien outside a German synagogue. Alternatively, if your synagogue
has a regular Torah reader with a relatively musical ear, you might try comparing what you hear
with the printed trop. If he vocalizes a given trop consistently in the same way, it is probably
authentic, although consistency is not always the same thing as accuracy. Commercial tapes may
be available, too.

However, you learn about trop, understanding why they appear where they do and being able to
recognize the different vocalizations for the different books of Bible and the different times of the
year will add much to your appreciation of the services.

As King David said (Psalms CXIX:66).

“Tuv ta'am vada'at lamdeni, ki bemitzvotechah he'emanti”, which may be loosely translated as

“Teach me beautiful trop (ta'am) so that I may appreciate Your commandments”.

17
I owe this last explanation to Rabbi Yehudali Kurzrock of the Young Israel of Kensington

52
R. Nathan Lopes Cardozo writes:18

18
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/parashat-vaetchanan-sweetening-the-divine-word

53
It may perhaps be argued that this Midrash, like no other text, encapsulates the essence of Judaism
and its dialectic nature. The tension between Jewish Law and the near hopelessness of man to live
by it, survive it and simultaneously obey it with great fervor is at the very core of Judaism’s
complexity.

The Divine Word is deadly and causes paralysis. The Word, wrought by fire in the upper world,
is unmanageable and wreaks havoc once it descends. Its demands are not of this world; they belong
to the angels. The Word therefore comes to naught once it enters the human sphere, since there is
no one to receive it. All have died before the Word is able to pronounce its second word. How then
can it delight the living soul?

The answer is: sweetness. It has to have grace and therefore must be put to music. The problem
with the Word is that it carries the possibility of literal-mindedness[5] and takes the word for what
it is, robbing it of its inner spiritual meaning. The language of faith employs only a few words in
its own spirit. Most of its terms are borrowed from the world in which the Word creates physical
images in the mind of man. But the Divine Word needs to be heard, not seen. To hear is to perceive
what is beyond the utterance of the mouth. To live with the Word is to discover the ineffable and
act on it through the direction of the Law. The mitzvot are founded on the appreciation of the
unimaginable, but they become poison when performed only for the sake of the deed.

When one learns Torah without spiritual sweetness symbolized in a melody, which takes the words
far beyond their literary meaning, the biblical text turns into a deadly poison. Similarly, to observe
a commandment without sweetness is like consuming a medicine in which the healing components
have gone bad. They are not only neutralized but have become mortally dangerous.

54
The function of music is to connect the Word with Heaven. It is not so much the music that man
plays on an instrument or sings, but the music of his soul, which is externalized through the use of
an instrument or song. It leads man to the edge of the infinite and allows him to gaze, just for a
few moments, into the Other. Music is the art of word exegesis. While a word on its own is dead,
it is resurrected when touched by music. Music is the refutation of human finality. As such, it is
the sweetness that God added to His Word when the Word alone was wreaking havoc. It is able to
revive man when he dies as he is confronted with the bare Word at Sinai. Life without music is
death—poignantly bitter when one realizes that one has never really lived.

There is little meaning in living by Halacha if one does not hear its grace. It is not a life of
Halachic observance that we need, but a life of experiencing Halacha as a daily living music
recital. Observance alone does not propel man to a level of existence where he realizes that there
is more to life than the mind can grasp.
Jewish education has often been founded on the Word before it turned to God to be sweetened. As
a result, there are many casualties, and a large part of our nation has been paralyzed.

It is the great task of Jewish educators and thinkers to send the Word back to God and ask Him to
teach them how to sweeten it.

[1] Devarim 5:22.

[2] Shir HaShirim 5:6.
[3] Tehillim 19:8.

55
 Cantillation: Chanting, or Leyning, the Bible

Today the Bible is chanted in synagogues with an intricate musical system, but
the practice began with one man projecting in a marketplace.

M A R S H A B . E D E L M A N W R I T E S : 19

Cantillation (from the Latin cantare, meaning “to sing”) is the practice of chanting from the
biblical books in the Jewish canon. It is often referred to by the Yiddish word leyn. The practice
goes back to the time of Ezra, when the Jewish people returned from their Babylonian exile
following the destruction of the first Temple (about 510 B.C.E.).

Realizing that the people had stopped observing the laws of the Torah, Ezra took it upon himself
to read portions of the Law every time he could assemble an audience. Sabbaths and festivals
provided obvious opportunities; so, too, did market days, when large groups would gather to buy,
sell, and catch up on local news. Market days were Mondays and Thursdays, and so, to this day,
the Torah is read publicly at least three times each week.

Of course, Ezra did not have the benefit of modern acoustics, microphones, or even the undivided
attention of his congregation. Ezra stood in the marketplace surrounded by squawking chickens,
braying animals, and unruly children, and competed with the sounds of life. Exaggerating the
highs, lows, and cadences of normal speech, Ezra projected the holy texts in a style caught
somewhere between speaking and full-blown singing.

Formalizing the Practice

Ezra did not read the Torah in the manner common today. In fact, it is assumed that he
differentiated only the beginnings, middles, and ends of verses. The notion of chanting the Bible
was an evolving one that gradually became accepted and musically more elaborate. By the second
century, Rabbi Akiva (ca. 50-135 C.E.) demanded that the Torah be studied–by means of chant–
on a daily basis (B. Sanhedrin 99a ).

Rav (third century) is quoted in several Talmudic discussions as understanding Nehemiah 8:8 (in
which Ezra’s public reading is described) as referring to punctuation by means of melodic
cadences. Johanan (d. 279 C.E.) of the Tiberias Academy is credited with fixing the notion that it
is not only customary, but required, that the reader use the proper musical chant. He states
categorically, “Whosoever reads [the Torah] without melody and studies [Mishnah] without song,
to him may be applied the verse ( Ezekiel 20:25 ): ‘Moreover I gave them laws that were not good,
and rules by which they could not live”‘ (B. Megillah 32a ).

We must note that the biblical texts available to Ezra, to the Rabbis of the Talmud, and even
through the sixth century, were like the Torah scrolls in use today: devoid of any vowels,

19
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/cantillation-chanting-the-bible/

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punctuation, and grammatical indicators. Ezra and those who followed him depended upon an oral
tradition for their understanding of the proper pronunciation and accentuation of the sacred texts.
As chanting became more widely practiced, a system of hand signals common in the ancient Near
East began to be employed. This system, called “chironomy,” required an assistant to the reader
to use gestures of the hand and fingers to visually illustrate the proper musical rendition of the text.

The Masoretes

Much later, in the second half of the first millennium, a group of largely anonymous Masoretes
(“conservators of the tradition”) redacted the oral tradition inherited from Moses. These scholars
notated the missing vowels, punctuation, and grammatical organization into the text using a set of
28 symbols called “neumes” (te’amim). Later the neumes were also used to provide musical
direction to the reader. Simple (and sometimes more complex) melodic patterns were attached to
each symbol to provide for a fully detailed rendition of the biblical text.

As the system became more elaborate, chironomy became of increasing importance, since readers
were now compelled to provide more sophisticated musical renditions based upon varying
combinations of these neumes. Moreover, while the neumes appeared in various versions of the
Bible acceptable for study purposes, it remained customary to chant publicly from a non-
punctuated scroll. Chironomy remained commonplace in the time of the Masoretes and through
the 11th century and has enjoyed some renewed interest in our time.

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Joshua Gettinger writes:20
Joshua Gettinger writes, "is deep ancient wisdom. Chant is the voice of that wisdom, perhaps its
most primal voice.... Torah teaches survival strategies for the world of today, no less than for the
world of its origins. It reaches out to the human spirit on many levels and through the use of all
human faculties, in word but also in music.

Chant adds layers of liveliness and emotional richness to text.... It is as if the music of the chant
can blow away the layers of dust - millennia of interpretation and preconceptions - to gain access
to the plain text and bring it to life, so that listeners in every age can hear it with fresh ears, with
their own ears."

Dr. Gettinger, a rural family physician by trade, advocates for a dramatic, artistic presentation of
Torah, aimed at making the weekly experience of Torah both pleasurable and powerful. He
suggests that Chant, both music and grammar, can be a legitimate interpretive tool, providing
insight into meaning, and enriching understanding. In the second part of the book, he explores a
hidden story in the heart of Leviticus, a reading changed by paying attention to its music. This
guide will introduce the novice and general synagogue goer to the art of chant, while providing
the skilled reader with fascinating new perspectives.

The question of where the rules of Masoretic pronunciation are written down is complicated. But
some can be deduced from the nekudot and te'amimin your texts. A good example is sheva
(nach/silent v na/voiced). Modern grammarians don't count the voiced sheva as a "sylllable"....
But the Masoretes did! Have you ever wondered why sometimes the trope on consecutive words
is darga tevir and sometimes mercha tevir?

OK, so you probably haven't. The rule is this:

20
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Scripture-Reflections-Torah-Reader/dp/098167934X

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59
 The Ladder of Prayers

The Ba'al Shem Tov was once praying with his Hasidim. That day he prayed with great
concentration, not only word by word, but letter by letter, so that the others finished long before
he did. At first, they waited for him, but before long they lost patience, and one by one they left.

Later the Baal Shem Tov came to them and said:

"While I was praying, I ascended the ladder of your prayers all the way into Paradise. As I
ascended, I heard a song of indescribable beauty. At last, I reached the palace of the Messiah,
in the highest heavens, known as the Bird's Nest. The Messiah was standing by his window,
peering out at a tree of great beauty. I followed his gaze and saw that his eyes were fixed on a
golden dove, whose nest was in the top branches of that tree. That is when I realized that the
song pervading all of Paradise was coming from that golden dove. And I understood that the
Messiah could not bear to be without that dove and its song for as much as a moment. Then it

60
occurred to me that if I could capture the dove, and bring it back to this world, the Messiah
would be sure to follow.

"So, I ascended higher, until I was within arm's reach of the golden dove. But just as I reached
for it, the ladder of prayers collapsed."21

Kabbalistic Music
The Kabbalistic perspective transcends Eastern and Western arts

21
Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 490.

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DovBer Pinson writes:22

Generally, it is maintained that there are two distinct styles of music. Let us term these, for
convenience's sake, as "Western music", music which originates from Western society, and "Non-
Western", music which is derived from all other cultures, particularly those of the East and Africa.
Western music is usually recognizable as "goal-oriented music". This means to say, music that is
narrative in structure, consisting of a series of progressive "events", so to speak. The listener feels
the progression of the music, and it evokes a sense of movement within him. It feels like the music
has a destination, and it takes the listener on its journey.

Non-Western music is characterized by a prolongation of a single note, or a select group of sounds

which continues in a set pattern throughout the entire melody. This type of music arouses a more
contemplative state, evoking within the listener a sense of timelessness and inner space.

Appropriately, these moods of music reflect the essential theology of these two civilizations. In
the West, the predominant belief is that Creation began at a period of time, as time is linear,
culminating in a future: Creation, Revelation and finally Redemption. Reflecting this reality, the
music the West produces follows this pattern. It begins, reaches a high point and climaxes. By
contrast, in the East, where time is viewed to be cyclical, with no "beginning", "middle" or "end",
its music, too, is cyclical and repetitive.

The Kabbala and Jewish mystical teachings, on some level, meld these two together. Yes, Creation
began at some point in time, and time itself was created; nonetheless, Creation is continuous,
moment to moment anew. Nothing is merely in the past, nor hoped for purely the future.
Everything is within the eternal present. As such, the music that the Jewish mystics produced,
especially the songs of Chassidim known as "nigunim", are reflective of both these musical
spectrums.

22
https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380577/jewish/Kabbalistic-Music.htm

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There are some nigunim that are structured and progressive. These tunes are to the Western ear
"sophisticated" tunes, consisting of a beginning, a body and a climax. There are other nigunim that
contain repetitions of single, individual sounds with little or no words. And some contain both.

While Neitzsche suggested that the "fire magic of music" is to be found in its anti-rationality, and
what he sought in music was its "ecstatic irrationality", the Jewish mystic looks to unveil within
music its transcendence. Perhaps not the transcendence within the music itself, as some would
argue that music is nothing more than "sonorous air" or, as Leibniz had it, "unconscious
arithmetic"; rather the reaction to the music, the transcendence reached as one reacts to the music.

A wordless tune (as is much of Jewish mystical song, particularly Chassidic) is the way two
individuals can communicate on a transcendent soul level. Any breakdown in the verbal
communication mode can be repaired by creating a conduit that transcends words. When a person
feels alienated from his Source, or for that matter, from his fellow man, a wordless tune which
exists on a realm that defies distinctions, separations, and disharmony, is the most fitting remedy,
causing a unity of souls.23

23
from www.iyyun.com - The Iyyun Institute

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 The Hasidic Nigun. Ethos and Melos of a Folk Liturgy

Hanoch Avenary writes:24

24
Journal of the International Folk Music Council, 1964, Vol. 16 (1964), pp. 60-63 Cambridge University Press

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 The Music of the Spheres
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the music of the spheres, the idea that the
revolution of the planets generates a celestial harmony of profound beauty

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00c1fct

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 The Music of the Spheres

Dana Samuel writes:25

The Music of the Spheres

In ancient Greece, Pythagoras and his followers thought that celestial bodies made music. This
diagram attempts to represent such theories about the earth’s relationship to other planets—an
idea, based in physical truths and metaphysical beliefs, that the divine and poetic order of the
universe could be known.

Pythagoras had already discovered the workings of musical pitch by way of vibration. In his book
Fermat’s Enigma, author Simon Singh quotes fourth-century scholar Iamblichus to describe this
account:

“Once, he was engrossed in the thought of whether he could devise a mechanical aid for the sense
of hearing which would prove both certain and ingenious. Such an aid would be similar to the
compasses, rules and optical instruments designed for the sense of sight. Likewise, the sense of
touch had scales and the concepts of weights and measures. By some divine stroke of luck, he
happened to walk past the forge of a blacksmith and listened to the hammers pounding iron and
producing a variegated harmony of reverberations between them, except for one combination of
sounds.” (14)

25
https://www.sensorystudies.org/picture-gallery/spheres_image/

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Pythagoras reportedly examined the hammers and concluded that the hammers that were
harmonious with one another shared a relationship in their respective weights—they were simple
fractions such as one half or one quarter. Thus, he rationalized that 1:2 ratios produced an “octave”
— the same note with a higher pitch. Other ratios produced different harmonies. This can be
evidenced in string instruments, where strings of different lengths (ratios) produce different tones.

String instruments also make visible the vibrations that become sound. The human ear hears
sounds when objects are in motion. Pluck a guitar string and watch the resulting vibrations and
accompanying sound. Moving the string creates corresponding ripples of movement reverberating
through its length, and through the air. These vibrations—sound waves—travel to the middle and
inner ear, where the same frequencies of vibration are transmitted then amplified.

Pythagoras, extrapolating these effects, reasoned that, because objects produced sound when in
motion, planets moving in orbit should also produce a sound. In the geocentric diagram above,
there are eight steps from the earth to the “highest skies” (summum caelum). Between the earth
and the moon, there is one full tone (tonus); between the moon and Mercury, one half tone; and
between Venus and the sun, one and a half tones. He measured distance based on relative speed:
faster moving planets were closer to the earth, and slower-moving planets farther away. These
ratios corresponded to tonal musical intervals in the Pythagorean scale. (Plato, criticizing such
theories, noted that “The error which pervades astronomy also pervades harmonics. The musicians
put their ears in the place of their minds…” downplaying aural culture in his view.)

So, objects in motion vibrate and produce sound, and planets are very large bodies in motion,
therefore they must also produce a sound. Given that their relative distances were concordant with
musical intervals, Pythagoras surmised that the resulting sound must be a harmony—a “music of
the spheres.” However, in this theory, the resulting sound should be so remarkably loud that
humans should hear it on earth, and yet they do not seem to. Why was this sound inaudible?
Pythagoras and his followers surmised that, because it was continually sounding, humans had no
point of comparison—no real sense of silence or difference—and therefore could not distinguish
it from our known idea of silence.

While knowledge, for the ancient Greeks and throughout history, has been associated with the
visible, physical world, Pythagoras introduces another level of understanding based on the audible
and the inaudible. Theorist Douglas Kahn notes that this mythic notion of panaurality, or “all
sound,” is itself a pervasive idea, suggesting the longevity of such allegory. (202)

In the 17th century, Johannes Kepler picked up the idea, setting about to prove it in his Harmonices
Mundi. Now working from a heliocentric, Copernican model of the universe, Kepler used Platonic
geometry to determine the distances between planets and to further refine the harmonics of the
universe, resulting in his “Third Law” determining the elliptical – not circular – motion of planets.
Arthur Koestler quotes Kepler’s writing, showing that his theories came closer, mathematically,
to proving planetary concord, despite the music’s literal inaudibility. Nevertheless, Kepler
maintained their metaphorical and metaphysical sounding:

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The heavenly motions are nothing but a continuous song for several voices (perceived by the
intellect, not by the ear); a music which… progresses towards certain pre-designed, quasi six-
voiced clausuras, and thereby sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time. (245)

Douglas Kahn’s insistence on the pervasiveness of allegory finds resonance in a contemporary

cosmological view. Within particle physics, since the 1970s, string theory has been an actively
researched model for understanding the universe. Rather than visualizing the smallest particles of
matter as miniscule points, string theory posits that quarks and electrons may be visualized as sub-
microscopic “strings” that vibrate, much like on a musical instrument. The tone at which a string
vibrates determines its physical form. At present, they remain invisible and are thought to exist in
other manifold as-yet-invisible dimensions. Many theoretical physicists, including Stephen
Hawking believe that string theory could be a “theory of everything,” a fundamental way of
describing the makeup of the universe. Auditory culture is thereby extended to the smallest
particles and the largest galaxies. Pythagoras was known for saying, “There is geometry in the
humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres,” thus also linking the visual
and the aural.

References

Brown, Andrew. “The Music of the Spheres,” Andrew Brown’s Blog. The Guardian. Thursday November 5, 2009. Web.

Calter, Paul. “Pythagoras & the Music of the Spheres” Math 5: Geometry in Art and Architecture Online. Dartmouth College.
1998. Web.

Greene, Brian. Making Sense of String Theory. Ted Talks. February 2005. Video.

James, Jamie. The Music of the Spheres: Music, Science and the Natural Order of the Universe. New York: Springer Verlag,
1995. Print.

Kahn, Douglas. Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001. Print.

Koestler, Arthur. The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe. New York: MacMillan, 1959. Print.

Singh, Simon. Fermat’s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World’s Greatest Mathematical Problem. New York: Walker and
Company, 1997. Print.

Stanley, Thomas. The History of Philosophy, in Eight Parts. London: Humphrey Moseley, and Thomas Dring, 1656. Print.

image: from Thomas Stanley’s The History of Philosophy, c. 1656.

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 Pythagoras & the Music of the Spheres
Kate Wakeling writes:26

Philosopher, lute player and ‘father of numbers’, Pythagoras of Samos remains something of a
mystery. None of his writings survive today and his accomplishments are available to us only
through the work of historians and his many devout followers. But we do know Pythagoras was,
in a sense, the very first mathematical physicist: without recourse to mystic theories, he
endeavoured to explain the cosmos through his wave theory of the string in a system that came to
be known as musica universalis or the ‘music of the spheres’.

26
https://www.auroraorchestra.com/2019/05/28/pythagoras-the-music-of-the-spheres/

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A colourful (if almost certainly apocryphal) tale says that Pythagoras’ grand theory was sparked
by his happening upon four blacksmith’s hammers. According to the second-century Enchiridion
Harmonices by Syrian mathematician Nicomachus of Gerasa, Pythagoras discovered the
principles of consonance and dissonance on comparing the tones sounded by these four hammers
and investigating each hammer’s relative weight.

The sounds of the first and second hammers seemed to be ‘singing the same note’ – an octave –
and when Pythagoras observed that their weights of 12lb and 6lb formed an exact ratio of 2:1, he
sensed there was a pattern afoot. The third hammer he heard sounded a perfect fourth with the
lowest of the hammers, while the fourth hammer sounded a perfect fifth, and their corresponding
weights of 9lb and 8lb (which formed ratios of 4:3 and 3:2 when placed alongside the large 12lb
hammer) extended the pattern further.

Pythagoras returned home to test out his theory using strings, exploring these same ratios of 2:1,
4:3 and 3:2, but now comparing the length of strings and the tone they produced when made to
vibrate. He found his theory worked perfectly: the principles of musical harmony were based on
the mathematical foundations of the natural world.

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But Pythagoras did not stop here. He was certain that such a theory must extend beyond the earth
and into the heavens:

‘If earthly objects such as strings or pieces of metal make sounds when put in motion, so too
must the Moon, the planets, the Sun and even the highest stars. As these heavenly objects are
forever in motion, orbiting the Earth, surely they must be forever producing sound.’

Pythagoras concluded that each of the planets, through their orbits, must produce a particular note
according to its distance from an immovable centre (Earth). Just as differing the length of a string
adjusts its pitch when the string vibrates, so these varying distances must produce different tones:
the ‘music of spheres’, no less.

‘The Intervals and Harmonies of the Spheres’ from Thomas Stanley’s The
History of Philosophy (1655)

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Pythagoras’ theory rippled on through the ages. Philo of Alexandria declared that it was surely the
‘music of the spheres’ that Moses heard as he received the Tablets on Mount Sinai, while Saint
Augustine claimed that men could only hear these sounds at the point of death, when the secrets
of the cosmos were suddenly unlocked.

Music was included in the Quadrivium, the medieval curriculum that included arithmetic,
geometry, music, and astronomy, along with the Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), and the
seventeenth-century astronomer, astrologer and mathematician Johannes Kepler remained
convinced that ‘that the geometrical things have provided the Creator with the model for
decorating the whole world’.

Drawing closely on Pythagoras’ work, Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi (1619) attempted to explain
the proportions of the natural world – particularly its astronomical and astrological aspects – in
relation to music.

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Pythagoras’ theory is of course now wholly discredited, but space exploration has nonetheless
uncovered a number of ‘sounds’ in space – all essentially inaudible but with scope to be
‘converted’ into familiar noises: plasma waves ripple between Saturn and its icy moon Enceladus,
the gas giant Jupiter cracks and booms constantly with lightning bolts and thunder, and in 1967
‘pulsing’ radio signals were detected from a star and first thought to resemble an extra-terrestrial
beacon (leading the source to be nicknamed LGM-1 for ‘little green men’) before its discoverers
happened upon a similar signal from another part of the sky. And for some, powerful links between
theories of sound and the cosmos remain. If, as the Nobel Physics Laureate George Smoot III has
said: ‘the universe is, at some level, music, then it seems only natural that we should study it with
musical tools of thinking.’

An image of Jupiter’s storms, assembled from three separate images acquired

by Nasa’s Juno spacecraft

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 The Music of the Spheres
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts writes:27

The following is a notation—a way of marking down things heard, felt, sensed.

There is said to be a universal hum. An imperceptible vibration producing a sound ten thousand
times lower than can be registered by the human ear. It can be measured on the ocean’s floor, but
its source is not exactly known perhaps the hush of oceanic waves, perhaps the turbulence in the
atmosphere, or the far bluster of planetary storms.

It is not seen; it is not felt. Its repercussions are unknown.

There is said to be another hum. Some can hear it, indeed are hounded by it. For many years
dismissed, its existence is now acknowledged. It is called the “worldwide hum” or “earth audio
resonance.” Sometimes this emanation takes the name of a locality where its effect is pervasive,
as if a seasonal wind. An incessant whir or drone, it has been described as an “unusual unidentified
low-frequency sound” like a “motor idling down the street.” It is louder at night than day; louder
inside than out. The ones who hear it cannot escape; it goes where they go. Those who have
attempted to measure it say the sound resonates at several percentages below typical hearing. It is
possibly an internally generated acoustic phenomenon, or possibly a natural resonance passing
through minerals, reaching the earth. Perhaps this is what Pythagoras—citing knowledge he
claimed was given to him by Egyptian priests—described when he named “the music of the
spheres,” those inaudible notes sounded by the movement of celestial bodies. But Aristotle
rebutted the idea of unsounding music:

Excessive noises, we know, shatter the solid bodies even of inanimate things: the noise of thunder,
for instance, splits rocks and the strongest of bodies. But if the moving bodies are so great, and the
sound which penetrates to us is proportionate to their size, that sound must needs reach us in an
intensity many times that of thunder, and the force of its action must be immense.1

Whether the movements of the heavens made noise, what we saw when looking skyward entered
language in unexpected ways. The philosopher Hannah Arendt reminds us that

the word revolution was originally an astronomical term … designating the regular lawfully
revolving motion of the stars, which since it was known to be beyond the influence of man and
hence irresistible was certainly characterized neither by newness nor by violence.2

Those who can hear it, call it the sound of quiet. A sound that is no longer with the great many of
us. It has been noted that at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, the sounds of the battlefield could
be heard in the depths of England.

27
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/105/302721/the-music-of-the-spheres/

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There is a nonuniversal hum. It is a hum that has gone unheard, barely noted.

The two girls

had gone to the headquarters to help distribute the Panther newspaper. After they were inside, she
said, a man put a gun to her head and told the two to go downstairs. There, she said, they saw Mr.
Napier, tied and gagged on a cot, humming, while on a nearby bed Miss Gwen Dolores Morton
lay tied and humming.

The two children also were tied and told to hum.

Then, the 12‐year‐old witness testified, “I heard one shot, and I didn't hear Sam anymore.”

“After the shot,” she continued softly, almost inaudibly, “we were told to go into the backyard. I
fell outside, then started smelling smoke. The fire got really hot.”

There is the hum notated in the New York Times, reporting on the trial for the five men accused of
the 1971 killing of Sam Napier, the circulation manager of the party’s newspaper.

I have not spoken the names of these two girls, though their names are part of the public record.
They were aged twelve and thirteen on the Saturday morning they went to collect papers for the
weekly distribution. “Circulate to educate” being Napier’s motto for the enterprise, each Panther
was required to study the paper before they were allowed to sell it. The edition published that
Saturday, April 17, 1971, announced a special supplement direct from the pen of Huey P. Newton:
“On the defection of Eldridge Cleaver from the Black Panther Party and on the defection of the
Black Panther Party from the black community.” It was upon these defections that the men who
bound and gagged and shot Sam Napier and bound Miss Gwen Dolores Morton and bound the
girls and told them to hum were also speaking. They spoke in the voice of the internecine violence
dividing the Cleaver faction from the Newton faction. In his essay on the defection of Eldridge
Cleaver from the Black Panther Party and on the defection of the Black Panther party from the
black community, Newton sometimes spoke of physics, wherein “the internal struggle of opposites
based upon their unity causes matter to have motion as a part of the process of development.”

Let’s keep them close for a while. Understanding how their names have not been kept. Much is
made of unknown names. Less of those whose names are known but who cannot be celebrated
because what they know says too much about what is celebrated. The felt senses do not enter
history. But if we attend to them, they might influence how we tell it, and what we tell, and what
we need from it. Not heroes, not enemies. We needed those girls. And their hum. A sound that
defines a field, barely detectable, a minor detail of a child’s witness testimony. One strains to hear
it and them. Their two voices. What song did they hum? Did they start off with two different
melodies that eventually joined? Did their song repeat? Was it a song popular in the day, or a
child’s tune? Was it something that had been hummed to them as children to soothe them by a
mother or father or grandmother who had loved them and whose song returned in that moment of
extremity?

She continued softly, almost inaudibly.

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History remembers these girls not at all. And Sam Napier is memorialized as having been “killed
by fascists.” It is a murky description for what they didn’t then know was called COINTELPRO.
Also applied liberally in those conflicts between the Cleaverites and the Newtonites, each calling
the other fascists. But the divisions were lost over time, the name-calling inaudible, undetectable.
The effect is to understand that the perpetrators were not only the people who entered the room,
and bound and gagged and shot the man, and bound and gagged and left the young woman and
told the two children to hum, but these men were potentially acting under the influence of forces
then offstage, then unnamed, perhaps sensed, but not able to be detected by all.

Humming stimulates the muscles at the back of the throat that connect the vagus nerve. The sound
vibrates against the edge of oneself, against lips, cheeks, throat, cranium, heart. You hear the sound
from within. The nerve sends neurotransmitters and electrical signals, lowering activity in the part
of the brain that governs flight, fight, and freeze.

There is a field. Some say this is where memory resides, not in the body, nor hovering above the
place where an action originally unfolded. Yet it goes where we go. To enter the field is to be in
the midst of that which is imperceptible, incessant, without known origin, without end. But it can
be changed. Does the hum still sound?

Notes
1 Aristotle, “On the Heavens,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 1, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton University Press,
1984), 479.
2 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (Penguin Books, 1970), 42.

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 A JEWISH SUFI ON THE INFLUENCE OF MUSIC

Paul Fenton writes:28

28
https://jewish-
music.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/03%20A%20Jewish%20Sufi%20on%20the%20Influence%20of%20Music%20pp%20124-
130%20-%20Paul%20Fenton%20incl%20title%20page%20abreves.pdf

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