Halakhah Study Group 020

1:
As we have already seen, before the honoree reads from the Torah (or, nowadays, has it read on his behalf) he must recite blessings. The previous shiur included instructions concerning the invocation "Barekhu" and its response. We now note that this invocation is followed by a special blessing to be recited before the reading of the Torah. Its text is as follows:

It is only after the honoree has recited this blessing that the actual reading of the Torah commences. (We have previously mentioned on a couple of occasions that originally it was only the first honoree who recited this blessing and that later it was instituted that all honorees recite it. This is not relevant to our present discussion.

2:
This blessing over the Torah is also recited in another part of one's daily devotions. The sages instituted a daily minimal study which consists of a passage from the Written Torah [Numbers 6:24-26], a passage from Mishnah [Peah 1:1] and a passage from the Gemara [Shabbat 127a], which is a baraitaelaborating on the preceding. This minimal study is introduced by three blessings. The first may be freely translated

Praised be God, Lord of the Universe, who has hallowed us with his commandments one of which is the command to study Torah.

The second blessing, also freely translated, reads:

God our Lord, make it pleasant for us and all your people, the House of Israel, to utter the words of your Torah, so that we and our descendents may all be knowledgeable in your Torah and may study it altruistically. Praised be God, the Giver of Torah.

The third blessing is the one which we have already quoted in the previous paragraph. For these blessings see Siddur Va'ani Tefillati, page 19 and Siddur Sim Shalom, page 63.

3:
From the historical point of view, in all probability these three blessings reflect varying customs that were prevalent very early on in various communities; when standardization became the vogue it was decided to have all three recited rather than choose just one of them.

4:
The sages insist that no words of Torah (in its broadest sense) should be uttered by the observant Jew before reciting these blessings [Shulĥan Arukh, OraĤ Ĥayyim 46:9]. For this reason they were instituted to be recited privately at home and before leaving for public worship immediately after the series of blessings to be recited upon arising in the morning. However, sometimes even the most punctilious worshipper may arise late and have to hurry off to join public worship (which is the preferred form of worship). Since it is meritorious to recite the Shema and the Amidah together with the congregation he or she will skip all other parts of the service to join in these sections of public worship. The blessing immediately preceding the Shema is called Ahavah Rabbah. It, too, is a blessing commemorating Torah and expressing gratitude to God for having chosen Israel to be the recipient of his Torah. Therefore

(Karo, a Sefaradi Jew, quotes the Sefaradi name for this blessing; the Ashkenazi tradition is Ahavah Rabbah as already noted.) Since our tardy worshipper has now already recited the blessing Ahavah Rabbah he or she is not required to recite the Torah Blessing later on.

5:
If a worshipper, for whatever reason, was reciting the Torah Blessing prior to his minimal daily Torah study and he was immediately summoned to read from the Torah, logic would suggest that he need not recite the Torah blessing before the Torah reading since he has just done so. Paragraph 8 of section 139 corrects this line of thought: the blessing must be recited again since it was instituted at this stage to be recited publicly in order to honour the Torah, and his previous recitation of this same blessing has been private and for another purpose.

6:
However, the opposite is also true. If our tardy worshipper recites the Torah blessing upon being called to read from the Torah and only subsequently fulfills his duty of minimal Torah study he need not recite the Torah blessings there because he is 'excused' by the blessing he recited at the Torah reading – using the same logic mentioned previously concerning Ahavah Rabbah.

In answer to a query from Josh Greenfield I wrote (in HSG 018) I think that Josh is probably right about the influence that printed prayerbooks and Ĥumashim have had over our synagogal habits…Josh is wrong in his second question: the minimum of three verses for each Aliyyah is not a 'suggestion' but a requirement, derived directly from the Gemara in Megillah 21b.

Josh Greenfield now writes yet again:

I think this is one of those rare instances where you misunderstood my suggestion completely – I was not suggesting one could read an aliyah of less than 2 verses, but rather that one could start less than three verses from the end of a parashah (as long as you continued to read through the beginning of the next parashah so as to have at least three verses). The only reason not to start less than three verses from the end of a parashah was so people wouldn't think you could have an aliyah of less then three verses. My suggestion was that people would never think that now, since
the aliyah breakdowns are standardized (and none are less than three verses).

I respond:

Despite the fact that there is a certain amount of standardization (though there certainly are discrepancies between the various modern editions) the divisions marked in the Ĥumashim are, from the halakhic point of view, only suggestions and the Torah reader is free to end each aliyyah wherever the fancy takes him (or her). Therefore the regulation stands since the 'standardization' is not halakhic, but mere convenience which can be ignored. (And if this practice were encouraged more I think that people would be more knowledgeable in such matters, as I hinted in my original response.)