Halakhah Study Group 035

נושא: HSG

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

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בית הכנסת שאין בהם מי שיודע לקרות אלא אחד, יברך ויקרא קצת פסוקים ויברך לאחריהם וחוזר לברך תחלה וקורא קצת פסוקים ומברך לאחריהם; וכן יעשה כמה פעמים כמספר העולים של אותו היום:

In a synagogue where there is only one person who knows how to read, he should recite the blessings, read a few verses and recite the blessings after them; this he should do several times according to the number of honorees for that day.

1:
The paragraph that is the subject of today's shiur is very simple. The origins of its provisions obviously go back to the earlier stage in the development of Torah Reading when each honoree read his own aliyyah. If, in any given community, there was only one person who was Hebrew literate enough so that he (or she) could read from the Torah, that same person should repeat the honour of reading from the Torah until the number of honorees appropriate to that day has been completed.

2:
We have already noted on several occasions what is apparent from the contents of this paragraph: ideally, someone who cannot read the Hebrew text of the Torah may not be offered (and may not accept) the honour of reading from it. Thus, if there was only one such person in the congregation, he (or she) must enjoy all the honours for that day. But they do not recite the blessings that preceed the aliyyah, read the whole portion assigned for that occasion, and then recite the blessings that come after the aliyyah; they must repeat the process several times until all the honours for that day have been exhausted – three if it were a weekday, seven if it were a shabbat, and so forth.

3:
We saw already in Section 139 [HSG 016] that this requirement, which has its origins in the Tosefta – a quasi-Mishnaic work from the Tannaïtic period, is still the uncompromising view of Rabbi Yosef Karo, the compiler of the Shulĥan Arukh. He wrote:

We should protest that a person who does not know how to read should not ascend to the Sefer Torah. If we need such an illiterate person to ascend, because he is a Kohen or a Levi and there is no other such present, if he is able to say and to read the words from the text after the cantor he may ascend, otherwise he may not.

According to Karo, writing on the brink of modern times 450 years ago, the absolute minimum of Hebrew literacy that can be accepted in such situations is an ability to mouth the words being read by the Torah Reader.

4:
However, we also saw [in HSG 016] that in Ashkenazi circles these requirements were relaxed during the middle ages. I wrote:

[This] is another example of where earlier authorities were much stricter than later authorities. It is understandable that in a congregation where the Torah Reading is executed by the honorees themselves that there would be no point in giving an honour to someone who cannot read Hebrew and cannot understand the text. As we move into the high Middle Ages we find that this situation no longer generally prevails. Because most people would not have been capable of reading accurately from the Torah it became the custom for a Torah Reader to read the lectionary 'on behalf' of the honorees. A very great authority, the Maharil [Rabbi Jacob Möllin, 1360-1427] stated that this rule should no longer be applied, and it is now accepted throughout the Jewish world that a person may accept a Torah honour even though they cannot read the text. (Having said that, I should perhaps point out that where an honoree is capable of doing so he or she should silently mouth the words of their passage together with the Torah Reader as they are read out loud.)

5:
It follows that in our modern congregations this requirement of the Shulĥan Arukh – the requirement of minimal Hebrew literacy – is now obsolete.

In Torah 033 Josh Peri wrote:

You refer to a supposedly "juicy and down-to-earth expression ". My imagination went to the Hebrew root often used by the late author Dan Ben-Amotz and by the prophet Hosea. It isn't that one. The root shin-gimel-lamed does not deserve the honor you give it relative to the word lay.

I responded, but now Yiftah Shapir writes further:

Joshua referred to a verb often used by the prophet Hosea. Hosea makes ample use of the verb Zayn Nun Heh (some dictionaries would say that the words are derived from Zayin Vav Nun), but its general meaning has to do not with sex but with straying away from the right course.

I guess when Joshua spoke about Dan Ben Amotz he was referring to yet another root – the root Zayin Yod Nun. The original meaning of this root is "weapon" and often used in the combination "Kley Zayin". In another form Zayin Vav Nun it has to do with food (Mazon).

This root received its juicy down to earth meaning in Israel in the 20th century and not earlier than that. (A few years ago one of Israel weekly news magazines tried to track down this usage.. If I remember correctly they found its root among the students of the early classes of the Gimnasia Herzliyya in Tel Aviv – so we are speaking about the 1920's at the earliest – and by the 1940's it was generally accepted by the younger generation for that juicy usage.)

Today it is very common in Hebrew parlance. However, I remember in my childhood there was a very odd situation: on the one hand it was considered very rude to use this verb – (and putting it as the title of a book – as Ben Amotz did was a real act of rebellion); on the other hand – older people (the age group of my grandfather) did not realize that the root actually took a different meaning than they knew. Thus the serious daily newspapers ran headlines about "Merotz ha-Ziyun Ba-Ezor" (the arms race in the region) while the younger people
(age group of my parents – the generation of the Palmach) laughed out loud. At any rate It has very little to do with biblical Hebrew.

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