Tefillah 078

12:
With the completetion of Ashré [Psalm 145] the time come to return the Sefer Torah to the Ark. Just as it is customary to take the Sefer Torah out of the Ark with no little ceremonial, so it is customary to return it to the Ark with ceremony.

13:
The cantor takes the Sefer Torah in his arms and recites the first part of Psalm 148:13:

The congregation then responds by completing the verse that the cantor began and adding the next verse as well:

Perhaps it is not entirely out of place here to note that the first word of the congregation's response is often – too often – misread because of mistaken associations. The Hebrew word is hodo, "His [God's] majesty"; it is not to be read as hodu, which means "give thanks" or "render homage". When the word is mispronounced it also makes nonsense of the Hebrew sentence.

(And, if we are speaking of egregious mispronunciations, let me also point out that when we sing the "Thirteen Attributes" – when the Torah scrolls are taken from the Ark on a festival – it is almost sacriligious nonsense to sing Adonai, Adonai … Eretz appayim etc. The correct pronunciation is, of course, erekh appayim.)

14:
The Torah scroll is now taken in procession from the bimah where it was read to the Ark where it is housed. (The correct position of the bimah is in the centre of the synagogue and not, as is the case in some Conservative synagogues, right in front of the Ark.) It is customary for all those who were concerned with the Torah scroll to follow behind in procession. This is usually the person who raised the scroll (hagbahah), the person who dressed it (gelillah) and the person who recited the haftarah. But, strictly speaking, everyone should leave their seat as the Torah scroll passes in order to show it honour: it is the holiest material object that Jews possess.

15:
While the Torah scroll is being carried in procession to the Ark it is the almost universal custom to chant Psalm 29. This psalm was chosen, in all probability, because it is intimately connected with the giving of the Torah – that Torah from which we have just read – on Mount Sinai. (In the ancient ritual of Eretz-Israel Psalm 29 was the special psalm for the festival of Shavu'ot, because of the connection with the giving of the Torah which is celebrated on that festival.) According to rabbinic interpretation, when the psalmist describes the wondrous effects of the Divine voice he is describing what happened throughout the world as God gave Israel the Torah:

We should, perhaps, identify the connection between the Giving of the Torah at Sinai and the "waters", the "mighty waters"; and the culmination of the psalm [verse 10]:

The flood referenced here is not Noah's flood; the flood at the end of the psalm and the mighty waters at the beginning of the psalm are identical. Rambam, in his philosophical magnum opus the Guide for the Perplexed, notes [Part 3, Chapter 9] that

I hope this clarifies the connection between Psalm 29 and the procession of the Torah scroll.

16:
As the Torah is replaced in the Ark the ceremonial verses that are chanted are also quite uniform throughout our people. The first verse [Numbers 10:36] us the complement of the previous verse which was chanted when the Torah was removed from the Ark. The two verses together read:

There now follow three verses, verses 8-10, from Psalm 132. This psalm is concerned with the activities of King David in connection with finding a permanent home for the Ark:

There now follow three verses from the hagiographa, verses which extol the virtues of Torah and its observance:

The ceremony now closes with Lamentations 5:21:

17:
This concludes our description of what happens after the Reading of the Torah. God willing, in our next shiur we shall begin to discuss the Additional Service, Musaf.