Halakhah Study Group 011

1:
Section 136 consists of only one paragraph, which is entitled: "Those who are called to the Sefer Torah on Shabbat". (As the text of the section makes clear its provisions apply not only to Shabbat but to festivals as well: Pesaĥ, Shavu'ot, Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot – these being the only festivals of full halakhic status because of their biblical origin.)

2:
Section 135 was predominately concerned with the issue of who is to be called first to read from the Torah, and the decision was according to the Mishnah [Gittin 5:8] that a Kohen reads first and after him a Levi – in order to preserve the peace. Further on in the Gemara on this mishnah [Gittin 60a] we read of a question that some people from the Galilee sent to Rabbi Ĥelbo:

The question is clearly prompted by natural psychology. Once you have established that there is an order of precedence ("for the sake of peace") you create a situation in which there can be a squabble for the places that come after the 'reserved' places. On days when only three or four people are called to read the problem is not acute, but on Sabbaths and Festivals, when five, six or seven people are called to the Torah, the issue can still be problematic. How does one keep the peace from the third place onwards if everyone is jockeying for position? The Gemara notes that Rabbi Ĥelbo had no answer for the people of the Galilee, so he went and asked Rabbi Yitzĥak Blacksmith, and our present section in the Shulĥan Arukh is an almost verbatim copy of what Rabbi Yitzĥak told Rabbi Ĥelbo. (Indeed, the only discernable difference between the two sources is that Rabbi Yitzĥak ends the list with "any person" which Rabbi Yosef Karo changed to "the rest of the people" – hardly a significant difference.)

3:
We can assume that there would not have been an unseemly squabble between the Torah scholars and their progeny, so by the time the fifth or sixth slot had been reached the honour was hardly great enough to squabble over.

4:
Obviously, Rabbi Yitzĥak's response was suitable for his time when there were great Amoraĥim available who were universally recognized scholars of unimpeachable brilliance. But it did set the general tenor that as far as precedence for Torah Reading is concerned pride of place should be given to Torah scholarship and then to those who labour for the religious community. In Conservative congregations nowadays I would imagine that this custom is almost unheard of. Perhaps we should ask ourselves how this custom came to die out (though it is still observed in some very Orthodox congregations).

5:
To be honest, the answer is not at all clear, and I can only hazard a guess – hopefully an informed guess. At a certain stage during the middle ages it became the custom to raise money for the congregation by selling the honour to be called to the Torah to the highest bidder: if it was so important to your ego that you be given pride of place at least let the congregation benefit from it! Since the money thus obtained was going to charity – a most worthy cause! – this was held to override even the honour due to Torah scholars. This custom (which certainly solves the problems of communal precedence rather neatly) continued well after emancipation in the western world. But at a certain stage the bargaining that was inevitably associated with the sale of honours became distasteful to westernized ideas of religious decorum. In most western congregations the custom died out, even though people were still expected to contribute to the communal coffers if they did receive an Aliyyah to the Torah. By this time, however, the original custom of giving precedence to Torah scholarship had been all but forgotten

6:
As far as Conservative congregations are concerned perhaps it is sufficient to note that in his "Guide to Jewish Religious Practice" Rabbi Isaac Klein z"l does not refer to the matter of precedence at all.

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