SEDER K’RIAT HATORAH L’SHABBAT : READING THE TORAH ON SHABBAT (1) SEDER HOTSA’AT HATORAH : REMOVING THE TORAH FROM THE ARK
Rabbi Richard Sarason
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The high point of the Shabbat morning service each week is the public reading from the Torah scroll. This activity is, in fact, the oldest continuous element of Jewish public worship known to us; it is attested in texts and inscriptions from the Second Commonwealth period, both in the Land of Israel and in the Mediterranean diaspora (particularly in Hellenistic Egypt). The precise details of public Torah reading, translation, and interpretation have differed from place to place and have changed over time.
In the traditional liturgy of rabbinic Judaism, the public Torah reading is preceded by an elaborate, dramatic ceremony of removing the scroll from the ark while declaiming or singing thematically relevant verses from Scripture. The Torah traditionally is paraded through the congregation (called a hakafah , “encircling”), so that each person may symbolically receive or acknowledge it, through bowing or touching the mantle of the scroll with one’s tallit- fringes. 1 At the end of this procession, the Torah scroll is returned to the reading desk on the bimah , where it is undressed and unwrapped for reading. Earlier Reform practice, in accord with nineteenth-century ideals of decorum, dispensed with the hakafah through the congregation and kept all activity, greatly simplified, on the bimah . More recent Reform practice has restored this practice as a way of physically engaging the congregation and of bringing Torah “out into the pews.”
Most, but not all, of the texts that are recited or sung as the ark is opened and the Torah removed and processed through the congregation are biblical verses. There is variation among the regional medieval rites as to which, and how many, texts are recited and in what order. There is also “ritual” variation: Sefardim, for example, display the open scroll of the Torah portion to the congregation before it is read, rather than after (as is the Ashkenazic custom). In all rites, the ritual is more elaborate on Shabbat mornings than on Monday and Thursday mornings and Shabbat afternoons, when the Torah is also read (the reading then is brief; it is limited to the beginning verses of the next week’s Torah portion). North American Reform liturgy has generally been based on Ashkenazic practice, but has sometimes incorporated texts from Sefardic practice (as we shall see below).
The Ashkenazic Shabbat morning Torah ritual begins with the singing of Eyn kamocha (“There is none like You”), a series of biblical verses (Psalm 86:8; Psalm 145:13; fragments of Psalm 10:16 and Psalm 93:1; Exodus 15:18; and Psalm 29:11) that acknowledge God’s sole rulership and power. These have routinely appeared in Reform prayer books, and Mishkan T’filah (p. 362) is no exception in that regard. 2 This is followed by a rabbinic prayer for the restoration of Zion, beginning with the words Av harachamim (“Compassionate Father”). This prayer was often omitted in Reform prayer books because of its topic, but was restored in Gates of Prayer 3 and appears as well in Mishkan T’filah.
Now the ark is opened. Before the open ark, Numbers 10:35 is recited, enacting what the narrative tells us that Moses would say when the Ark of the Covenant was about to move in front of the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness: “Arise, O God, and let your enemies be scattered!” This verse has consistently been omitted from Reform rites on account of its warlike and vengeful posture. It is followed by Isaiah 2:3, Ki mitsiyyon (“From out of Zion”) and the rabbinic benediction Baruch sh’natan torah (“Praised be the One Who gave Torah”). The Isaiah verse was sometimes omitted from earlier Reform prayer books on account of its “localism/Zionism,” but was restored in GOP . Mishkan T’filah inserts Psalm 24:9-10, Se’u sh’arim , between Ki mitsiyyon (p. 364) and Baruch sh’natan (p. 366). This placement generated some confusion when the prayer book was newly in use, since it interrupts a traditional textual and musical sequence, although the text itself is a familiar one. The singing or recitation of Se’u sh’arim before the Torah is removed from the ark is an old Reform custom, found as early as the first Reform congregational prayer book (Hamburg, 1819). It derives from the Sefardi rite (as did many of the “deviant” practices and texts in the Hamburg Temple Prayer Book). Its liturgical use at this juncture in the Sefardi rite is based on a rabbinic interpretation that these words were recited by Solomon when he brought the Ark of the Covenant into the Holy of Holies in the newly-built Temple in Jerusalem (Midrash on Psalms, 24:10). Notice again how many of the biblical texts recited when the ark is opened and the Torah is removed refer to the movement of the Ark of the Covenant and to the Temple in Jerusalem, from which God’s word goes forth: this is how the liturgy would have us imagine what we are doing, and how the past and the present are linked through ritual and myth.
Before the Torah is removed from the ark, many of the traditional prayer books include an Aramaic prayer from the Zohar, B’rich sh’mei d’mara alma (“Praised be the name of the Master of the universe”; Zohar , Vayakhel , 206a); the Zohar deems this moment, when the ark is open and the Torah scrolls are visible, to be propitious for personal prayer. As a late, mystical addition to the liturgy, this prayer has not been included in most Reform prayer books (although it did appear in earlier drafts of MT ).
The scroll is then removed from the ark, and the ark is closed. Holding the Torah scroll, the prayer leader faces the congregation and proclaims, Shema Yisra’el! (Deuteronomy 6:4). In Ashkenazic practice, this verse is then repeated by the congregation, responding to the prayer leader. The leader continues, beginning with the last word of the Shema verse ( echad ), Echad eloheinu, gadol adoneinu, kadosh sh’mo! (“Our God is one, our Lord in great, His name is holy!”). In Ashkenazic practice, this affirmation too is repeated by the congregation. The leader then turns again toward the ark and, bowing, recites Psalm 34:4, Gadlu ladonai iti (“Exalt Adonai together with me”). The congregation responds by singing or reciting 1 Chronicles 29:11, L’cha Adonai (“Yours, O God is the greatness”), the praise ascribed there to David at the end of his reign, and Psalm 99:5,9, Rom’mu Adonai eloheinu (“Exalt the Lord our God”) as the Torah scroll processes through the congregation. This liturgy is found in its entirety in Mishkan T’filah (p. 366; Ps. 99:9, Rom’mu , omitted from many previous Reform liturgies, is given as the first “ hakafah selection” at the top of p. 367).
Now the procession ends and the scroll is returned to the bimah , where it is undressed and unwrapped. After this dramatic congregational “close encounter” with the Torah scroll, as it is revealed once again, the Torah reading is about to begin. . .
1 Ruth Langer has done an extensive historical and comparative study of the rituals accompanying the removal of the Torah from, and its return to, the ark. She concludes that these rituals symbolically re-enact the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the primal act of revelation. In this light, the public reading of the Torah is experienced as a re-enactment of its original proclamation. See Ruth Langer, “Celebrating the Presence of the Torah: The History and Meaning of Reading Torah, “ in Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed., My People’s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries. Vol. 4: Seder K’riat HaTorah (The Torah Service) (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2000), 19-27; and “From Study of Scripture to a Reenactment of Sinai: The Emergence of the Synagogue Torah Service,” in Worship 72:1 (January, 1998), 43-66.
2 MT generally prefers not to give directions, acknowledging the variation in practice among local Reform congregations, but here the direction to open the ark and to remove the Torah is given before Eyn kamocha , rather than later (as in traditional practice).
3 In the gender-sensitive version of this prayer book (1994), the language was changed to El harahamim (“Compassionate God”). MT retains the original wording.
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