Unusual Minhagim of Hagbaha (Lifting the Torah) by Rabbi Anthony Manning

Okay, good morning everybody. Welcome. Thank you for coming out this morning. If I could please remind you to turn off your phones. Um and also if I could thank our sponsors. The sheer in 4 2024 have been sponsored by Brand Abas Branded and Zedic Ben Kalman Livrocha. Um very grateful for that anonymous sponsorship. So we are actually going to have I think quite a lot of fun today. Um Minhagim are always fun. But let me tell you in terms of preparing the sheer in Minhagim, sheer in about Minhagim are difficult to prepare. Because when it comes to clear-cut halachic issues, even if there's a debate, they're not always clear-cut as one expects or one maybe hopes. Um at least there's a clear structure. You start with this and you move on to this and this opinion and that opinion. When it comes to Minhagim, there's a lot of um unclarity as to where these things come from cuz Minhagim by definition start from the bottom up. The people start doing stuff and then we have to kind of start scratching around working out why they do it that way and they don't do it that way. So there's a lot of detective work that needs to be done. Actually, this sheer today took me about twice as long as a normal sheer to prepare. Um and even having said that, a lot of the detective work was done before me. Uh there was a there's a fantastic article that I strongly recommend that I used and I referenced on the sheet. Um by someone I don't know personally, Rabbi Dr. Zvi Ron. Uh who lives in Naveh Daniel. I don't know some of you may know him. I haven't had a the opportunity to meet him, but I saw it just now he wrote some interesting books as well. He wrote an article on Hagbah which served as a kind of template which I then, you know, used in order to expand and bring in different sources. So he did some of the sleuth work, but we are also going to do some as well. So let's talk about Hagbah. I've never given a sheer on Hagbah before, but everyone in this room, I hope, has experienced Hagbah. The first difficult thing I had to work out is how to spell Hagbah in English. So I settled on Hagbaha, but there's too many H's, too many A's to to make it look quite right. But it's one of the most visible minhagim when you go to shul and they lift up the safer Torah and everybody looks at it and as you know, certainly in Ashkenazi shuls, and we are going to talk a lot about Sefardi minhagim as well, in Ashkenazim shuls we do one of the strangest things, which if any non-Jews were there they'd be saying like what on earth are you doing that for? Nobody would be able to tell them the answer, which is we stick our little finger up in the air, which I must say I don't do that. I don't do that, but okay, but a lots of people stick their little finger up in the air and they say an interesting statement. They say Al Pi Hashem Biad Moshe. Fine, and then they move on. There are a number of problem Oh, some people kiss their little fingers. Okay, maybe great. So that's another I say kiss their little fingers. Well, see the kissing angle is actually quite important. There are at least three unusual things going on with this minhag. Halachically unusual things or just unusual things. The first one is why on earth have the Ashkenazim decided to do Hagbah at the end of the laining when it's quite clear we'll see right now that the sources require it to be done at the beginning. That's not the kind of change you can just make overnight. How did that happen and why did that happen? Number one. Number two, we do something when we say that phrase, we do something that we really shouldn't be doing. Which is we quote one pasuk, V'zot HaTorah V'zot HaTorah She'sam Moshe Lifnei Bnei Yisrael. Okay, and then we take a half a pasuk from somewhere else and we'll have to work out where else it's from, Al Pi Hashem Biad Moshe. We're not meant to be quoting half pasukim. You don't say that either. So we'll see. So we do that and then we point with our little finger, which is very peculiar as well. So let's have a look at some of these sources. Um we'll see that there are some beautiful sources in Tanakh and there's that important Talmudic source, but let's start with Nehemiah. Nehemiah perek chet is the major re-dedication on Rosh Hashanah and then Sukkot that the people experienced when they come back at shivat Zion. Ezra and Nehemiah have brought them back. The people are feeling very despondent. They don't really know what to do. They've lost touch. They've lost connection with with the Torah. And let's pick it up in number one. There's a lot of good Rosh Hashanah inyanim here, but we're not focusing on those today. We're focusing on something I don't normally pull out from this. Number number one. The asfu kol am ke-ish echad. All the people gather together. Ke-ish echad, you see already there strains of Har Sinai coming out. Ke-ish echad, okay? El rosh avash el lifnei shaar hamayim. They came to Yerushalayim shaar hamayim. Vayomru le-Ezra ha-sofer la-vi et sefer ha-Torah Moshe. They said they asked Ezra to bring out the sefer Torah of Moshe asher tziva Hashem et Yisrael which God has commanded to the Jewish people. We'll see that phrase coming up a few times or similar phrases. Vayehi Ezra ha-kohen et ha-Torah. So, Ezra brought the Torah lifnei ha-kahal me-ish ve-ad ishah and it stresses that the men and the women were there. Makes a very big stress on that. Vakol mevin lishmoa. Anyone who could understand what was going on beyom echad lechodesh shvi'i on the first of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah. Vayikra bo lifnei ha-chatzav and he read there on the street asher lifnei ha-shaar hamayim min ha-or ad machatzit ha-yom. A very long laining from first light all the way through to midday and the people were like enraptured listening to the Torah. Neged ha-anashim veha-nashim. By the way, there are those that want to claim that this is a like a proof that women have to be there for the laining. Yeah, cuz the women were there for the laining. The men and the women all together va-ameivinim all the people understood. Va-oznei kol ha-am el sefer Torah. Everybody's listening to the sefer Torah. And here you see some quite familiar practices. Vaya'amod Ezra ha-sofer al migdal eitz. He stood on a migdal eitz. So, I brought you inside that even Ezra he says "Could mute migdal like a tower a bema. They built a bema. I shall also the double. They built it specially for that. The Yoma that slow and he had all these people standing around him. He had a a group of people on his right. On his left, they had another group of the uh Okay, they they were they were all gathered around him. So, you don't just laying on your own. You have people standing on the bema with you. Interesting. But the most interesting point is what I put in source two, which is where it pulls out what he does at the end. So, what does this mean? Ezra opens up the safer Torah in front of everybody's eyes. Because he was standing above everybody. When he opened it up they all stood up. Now, what is going on there? Actually, let's read the next possible as well. The Ezra then makes a brocha. Everybody answered amen amen. They lifted their hands in the air. It was a real kind of hallelujah moment. They all bowed down. They all bowed down. They all bowed down. Very exciting. So, these last two where he opens the safer Torah, everybody stands up. And then, you know, he gives them a brocha. What is that? So, Rashi, the Matzo does David, the Malbim they bring the that the people were all talking because you've got all these Jewish people all standing there talking. And when they saw that he opened the safer to read so they stopped talking and they stood up and they got ready to listen. That's the that they gave. However, it does sound very like and the dot mikra actually gives this suggestion that he opens up the the safer in the eyes of all the people and they stood up and they bowed down etc. etc. It sounds like he's doing hagba. Okay, it may be. So, that chat is a very possible chat and in fact, masechet soferim which we keep coming back to again and again today is the is the is the location in the talmud that deals with this mitzvah. I don't know if it's a mitzvah but definitely this minhag. What is masechet soferim? So, masechet soferim is one of what they call the minor tractates. They're not there's nothing really minor about them. It's just that they're quite small. Um they appear in a standard vilna shas at the end of masekin. They usually appear in the same volume as avodah zarah at the back. And there's masechet kallah, masechet derech eretz, masechet soferim, masechet smachot, a number of masechtot. The general um scholarly opinion this also appears in the rosh is that they were redacted a touch later than the rest of the talmud. So, let's say the talmud redacted around the 6th century, give or take, maybe a little later. So, this we're talking more like the 8th century, 750, something like that. The rosh brings that down. And masechet soferim says as follows. Now, looking number three, this is going to be our halachic source, but we'll see in the nehemiah is going to be our tanachic source. Number three. Miyad and and and the context here is and I brought you a a link in the footnotes for sefaria which has a good English translation. I don't know if it's good, but it has an English translation of masechet soferim in case you're interested. And masechet soferim here the the background to this is it talks about taking the safer out from the ark and it talks about a lot of the things we do, shema yisrael, and the chazan gadlu, and it bring and it comes to this. Number three. Miyad golel sefer torah ad shlosha dapim. So, then they roll the sefer torah out to three dapim. Now, the first thing we have to understand here is what we, certainly the ashkenazim, call glila, they didn't call glila. golel is the word they used for hagba because glila really is gila is shutting up the torah as opposed to galila which is rolling out the safer torah. So the word golel also I didn't read it on the sheet but the the gemara says that the golel is the biggest mitzvah. If you want to give a cover to someone you give it to the golel. So by the golel chazal mean the person who lifts the safer torah in the air because he rolls it out. Not to nowadays they usually give to a kid to do glila what we call glila. Glila is just a kind of logistic thing. Someone's got to just put it away and tie it up as opposed to hagba which they call galila as it were. Me ad golel safer torah ad shlosha dapim and we'll see in a minute is that a requirement you have to get to three? There seems to be two kinds of there were three kinds of hagbas that I've seen. Either people do it like three dapim normally or people just sort of half open it as like and then they then collapse onto a chair. And then there's always the macho guy that rolls to six like uh dapim and and does and does and does that. We'll see and and we'll get to that in a minute as well. So what's going on? So he does three dapim. We'll see if this is a maximum a minimum or just a recommended amount. Umagbeem and he lifts it up. Umare panei k'sivato and he shows the writing we'll see that's very important la'am to all the people omidim l'yemino u'lismolo to two people on the right on the left. U'machziro lefanav u'le'achor and he does a 360 so you should do a 360 it says to the right to the left to the front to the back. You show the writings to everybody. She mitzvah lechol hanashim v'hanashim and again it stresses he gets this this from Nehemiah that it's not just for the men the women have to be able to see hagba. Lirot otah k'sivah they have to be able to see the writing lichro'a and they have to be able to bow down. So everybody has to see and every everyone has to bow down. Does anyone bow down for hagba? Who bows down for hagba? Anyone? Nobody bows down. Okay we'll see the bowing soon. V'lomar and you say v'zos hatarah asher sam Moshe lifnei bnei Yisrael And then there's two girsa options. Either it says "And V'Od Omer" or it says "Or" or alternatively you say, "Torat Hashem Temimah Meshivat Nafesh Edot Hashem Ne'emanah Mechimat Pesi." Okay? And then some of the girsa's go on to the other psukim in Tehillim Yod Tet Daled Pikudei Hashem Misharei, etc. etc. Does anyone here say "Torat Hashem Temimah"? Probably not. I think some of the Sefardim do. Ah, you see by Simchas Torah when I say Simchas Torah you say it 150 times as you walk around. Okay, fine. But so you say so you do all those things. So you have lifting 360, bowing, and these psukim. That is the original Talmudic source. Okay? There's no Al Pi Hashem LiYad Moshe mentioned there. And there's a lot of things we don't necessarily do. When we don't Well, I actually bow, but we'll we'll see whether we should or shouldn't bow. There is another aggadic source I wanted just to mention to you. There is a pasuk coming up in Devarim soon in number four where it says "Arur Asher Lo Yakim Et Divrei HaTorah HaZot." Anyone who doesn't um uphold the Torah is cursed. Lasot Otam She Uphold it to keep it. V'Am Kol HaAm Amen. And then we know from the Gemara from the Mishna in fact this was a bracha and a klala. The the one side did baruch and one side did arur. But there's uh a curse or a bracha and a bracha on someone who is either mekayem or is lo mekayem the Torah. What does that mean? So the Yerushalmi number five says, "K'tiv Arur Asher Lo Yakim Et Divrei HaTorah HaZot. Ki Yesh Torah Nofelet." When do you see people having to hold up the Torah? The Torah doesn't fall down. The Torah's kept in a very safe place. Shimon Ben Yakim Omer Zeh HaChazan. This is the Chazan Shehu Omed who stand up who stands up. This is a reference to the Chazan who stands up. So the Ramban on the Torah, and I confess I'd never really noticed this piece of Ramban on the Torah before. If you look in number six, the Ramban on the Torah says as follows. I want to give you a midrashic explanation. This is the chazzan who doesn't uphold the Torah. Shall I who doesn't keep them up so that they they're not in a safe place. So, the first thing he says is this is a mitzvah for whoever's looking after the sefer Torah in the shul to make sure that they're in a good place, that they're stable, that they're locked up, that they're that they're chained up, that the people that you give it to are able to carry it. I've never understood why in some shuls they, you know, ask people to carry the safer Torah around and they can hardly carry themselves around. You know, they're limping and you know, this there's a mitzvah on the chazzan to make sure the safer Torah is in good condition. The lean era and I think says the Ramban this curse is for the chazzan, whoever is not upholding, uplifting the safer Torah Allah zebra to the congregation to make sure they can all see the writing. I think this is talking about someone who doesn't do a good hagbah. I make him at the Torah za. The commercial so from he brings the safer so from that's what we saw in safer him. And he says this is what we do in our shuls. Now, where did the Ramban live? He lived in Barcelona. Okay? He lived in northern Spain. He said we do this, we show everybody the writing, and we say the Zohar Torah. He gets it directly from Masachet Soferim. So, now I want to address this is all background. I want to address the first of our three conundrums. Should you do hagbah before or should you do hagbah afterwards? So, what do people do? Ashkenazim usually do it before, although in afterwards rather, although in Eretz Yisrael there are Ashkenazim specifically Chassidim who do it before. I remember when I lived in Har Nof, the Boston Boston Chassidim used to do Hagbah before. All the Sephardim do it before. I'm not aware of any Sephardim that do it after. I even read in a minhag that some people do it twice, before and after. Okay, maybe they're short of you know, they need more kibbudim to give to people, etc. But have a look at what the Shulchan Aruch says. Uh no, they can't because it's a fixed hinge. So you you you see what you see. That's actually a very interesting point. What do they what do they do with that three dapim issue? So they can't do that properly. Interesting. Look in number look in number seven. I'm not entirely sure that all Sephardim have that kind of box Sefer Torah. Do they all have that? Most of them do, but I'm I wonder whether some of them still have the the roll one. Let's have a look in number seven. Here's the Shulchan Aruch. Now was the Shulchan Aruch Sephardi or Ashkenazi? Sephardi. Big time. Okay? Was born in Spain, he was living in Portugal, he lived in Turkey, Eretz Yisrael. So he says as follows. Maran says Sefer Torah la'am ha'omdim limino u'lismolo u'makzirin lifneihem v'achareihem. Straight from meseches Sofrim. You have to show the writing to the people, left, right, front, and back. She'mitzvah akol anashim v'nashim, men and women have to see. Lirot et haksav v'lihkor, dilo im ein sefer Torah etc. And Toras Hashem temimah. Comes in the Ramah immediately and says, v'nahagu lasos kein achar shekaru baTorah. We do it afterwards. He doesn't explain why, he doesn't explain when. He says we do it afterwards. He's living in Krakow in the 1500s. Aval k'shemotzi'in oso omer hashliach tzibbur, but when he takes it out he says Gadlu v'hakol omerim Baruch Hu. And he brings all the other pesukim that we say when you take it around, etc. But he says we clearly do it afterwards. When did the Ashkenazim switch? Because it's clear that the Ashkenazim switched. The original minhag was before. And if you don't believe me, believe the Orech Hashulchan. Just look at number nine for a second. We'll go back to eight. The Orech Hashulchan says, "Aval, b'zman hashass, at the time of the Talmud, lo haya hagbaha acharei kriya." They never did hagbaha after the leining. "Ela kodem hakriya. V'chen minhag Sefarad gam hayom." It's very clear that the Sefardim have the original authentic minhag. The Ashkenazim actually used to also do it before. I brought you the Kol Bo. Look at number eight. Kol Bo is actually quite an interesting source. He He brings a quite amusing uh minhag. K'tzav maseches Soferim. Who was the Kol Bo? The Kol Bo is Rav Amram ben Yaakov of Narbonne. He was an Ashkenazi. He was from France. He was expelled from France at the in the early 1300s, in 1306, with all the French Jews. He was expelled uh and he went there to live on the island of Majorca. Nice holiday destination if you're English, but also a place to go if you're expelled from France. Uh so, hopefully, if anyone else is expelled from France, God forbid, they'll come here and not go to Majorca. Um have a look at number eight. It's written in maseches Soferim. "Um k'sheyihyeh a chazan al hamigdal, when the chazan's on the bimah, poteach hasefer umar achsav anashim v'anashim." V'az hayu kulam omrim "Amen." Everyone has to say "V'zot hatorah asher sam" etc. "Mikan minhag anashim." And here we get a custom of the women, "shedochak atzman." They all push each other out of the way "lirot hasefer, to see the sefer, v'einam yodim al mah." And they don't know why they're doing it. We just know the women know that they just push and shove, but they don't know why they're doing it. Okay, this is interesting. I don't know why he thinks they don't know why they're doing it. They're They're doing it to see the sefer. And by the way, if you go to a Sefardi shul, when they take the sefer out of the of the aron, a lot of the women are very animated, leaning out, reaching out, and kissing their hands, and reaching There's a There's a lot of minhagim that the women get very excited about this. "V'im yesh sham kohen," then when if there's a kohen, kohen rishon, you call him up for rishon. So, you see from here it's before. He goes straight into the aliyahs. So, the Ashkenazim, at least where he was from, were still doing it before in the 1300s. There are other sources. There is a There is a Maharic, I believe, or is it a Maharil? I brought it here. The Maharic, sorry. The Maharic brought in the footnote. Also Ashkenazi, French origin. He writes it's coming after. So, somehow or other it changed. There's actually a very subtle thing that I saw Rabbi Avraham Zvi Litowsky pointed out, which is the Shulchan Aruch brings this in number seven in uh Orach Chaim 134. Okay? Siman 134. Whereas the Tur that the Shulchan Aruch is based on brings it in Siman 147. I completely missed this until I saw him point it out. Why on earth would the Shulchan Aruch change the order from what he saw in the Tur? He always sticks to the Tur. It's based on the Tur. Because the Tur was Ashkenazi and the Shulchan Aruch was Sephardi. And the Tur puts hagbah at the end of the leining, interestingly, and the Shulchan Aruch switches it to the beginning of the leining. And in fact, if you don't believe me again, have a look on the top of page three. Look at the Mishnah Berurah. The Mishnah Berurah points this out. He realizes you'll be perplexed why on earth has the Shulchan Aruch shifted the order in an unusual way. And he says, "A mechaber He says Rabbi Yosef Karo kasav din zeh kodem hilchos keri'at haTorah." He puts this in before keri'at haTorah. "Shekein minhag haSefaradim hagbah kodem keri'ah." Because that's the minhag of the Sefardim. "Va'ayin leka meivi, but see immediately after Ba'Hagai in the Rama, sheminhag ein la'asot hagbah acher keri'ah." We do it after. Now, that's quite interesting because if you if you if you take that like as as an indication, it may be that even by the time of the Tur they were doing hagbah after. If he put it after, and and the Tur was basically ethnically Ashkenazi. He went to live He escaped with his father at the of the 1200s from the Rintfleisch massacre, he escaped to Spain and he lived in Spain, but he was an ethnic Ashkenazi living in Spain. He was good friends with the Rashba, etc. Um So, okay, so good. So, again, how did it shift? So, it depends on who you ask. If you ask the Ashkenazim, they'll tell you, "Well, we'll tell you why we do Hagba afterwards because that was always one of the options for the Minhag." You see, the Torah did it this way and the Torah brings in the name of the Rosh and in the name of Masseches Soferim and it sounds like the Ashkenazim will try to argue, and I saw this in Encyclopedia Talmudit, that maybe there was an alternative Girsa, an alternative textual variant in Masseches Soferim all along that suggested that you do it afterwards. Meaning, the Ashkenazim are going to be very indignant and say, "Well, we're just doing it how people always did it and like there was always a Minhag afterwards." Doesn't make as much sense because it's placed in Masseches Soferim in a place Okay, you can argue that this is what we just read in case you thought we were making it up or reading it from memory, we're showing you what we just read. They didn't have a Chumash. They Absolutely, they had to see. I know, you're right, it makes more sense before. So, the Ashkenazim will try and argue maybe that they did it the way that they always should have done it. The Sefardim have a different explanation for why the Ashkenazim changed. And Rav Chaim Benveniste, who is the Sha'arei Knesset Gedolah, he says, "Listen." And this is brought down by a number of Poskim, mostly Sefardim. He says, "This is what happened." He says, "The Ashkenazi people used to think it was more important to see the Sefer Torah being lifted than to listen to the Leining. So, they used to go to Shul, see them lift up the Torah, and then they used to leave and go to the Kiddush and just mess around outside and not come in for the Leining." And the Ashkenazim realized that their people weren't listening to the Leining, so they flipped it to the other side so that everybody would stay because all the people thought, "Well, the important thing is to see Hagba, so I may as well stay in until they do Hagbah. That's That's the Sephardi version of why the Ashkenazim changed, which is which which is very It's very Look, it's brought down in the Kaf HaChaim, it's brought down all sorts of places that the Ashkenazim basically didn't want to listen to the leining. Okay, fine. Um just go to the end of number 10. Uh the Mishna Berurah brings you an indication as to how much to open. Just look at the second line of number 10. VaHaMagbiha Sefer Torah Ma'al HaTeivah, uh the person who is uh lifting up the Sefer Torah will be LaHarot La'Am uh to to show the people Godol La'Ad Gimel Dapim. He He quotes there you're bringing out to three three ad ad. Yes, he's saying only until. But then he says VaEfshar DeDafka Nokhad Gimel um and it's possible that uh they specifically said three. Meaning that is not more than three because it's actually unstable more than three. He says, "But I actually don't agree." VaNireh Li Nireh Li, he says, "It seems to me that HaYoter Lifnei Koach HaMagbiha." It all depends on the koach of the magbiha. She'eivi Yachol LaHagbiha KeShehi Niglelet Harbeh. If he can do six, let him do six. If he can do three, let him do three. It's all good. Um actually, there are people who are quite makpid not to do more than three because you would often end up in trouble and you end up with a kind of collapse. There are shuls, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi, where you have to actually take a test before they allow you to do Hagbah. I remember in Munk's in Golders Green Beis HaMedrash, they would not give Hagbah to anybody unless they'd done a trial run with the gabbaim. And I remember I was given Hagbah. I had to go after hours, make an appointment with the gabbaim, they met me in shul. Every It was all empty. I had to go up and do a a Hagbah and they and they graded me, you know? They didn't quite hold up like scores, like 4.9 and uh whatever. But but but they they only allowed me to do Hagbah once I'd been uh approved as a Hagbah person. Other meforshim say they wanted to abolish Hagbah completely because it was just dangerous. People It was falling down and people were touching it with their hands, etc. Yeah. We a woman's a woman's opinion on that. Okay. This isn't It's not Yom Kippur. You don't have to do cheer. Okay. I've never had a asherem. Right. And by the way, hagba hagba has radically changed. And I'll tell you why it's changed. As someone pointed this out to me, if you remember back to the old days, I would call them the good old days, that sifrei Torah used to be exceptionally heavy. Exceptionally heavy. And it was actually very difficult to do hagba. Sifrei Torah became much lighter about 30 years ago. And now it's much easier. Why? Because the parchment that they usually use for sifrei Torah today is taken from embryos. It's extremely light. From cow embryos, if they shochet a mother cow and they and pray and she's pregnant, so they take the embryo and they use the skin for say sifrei Sorry for there's any vegans or vegetarians amongst us. And And they did They didn't used to do that. They didn't used to have the technology to do that and therefore the actual parchment used to be much much heavier cuz the the skin of a of an old cow is much heavier and thicker than the skin of a of a small embryo. So that is what I understand to be the case. If that's wrong, then I'm sure people will write in and tell me. Now, let's go on. What do we say? So we dealt with the before or after question. Second question, what do we say? So this pasuk number 11 V'zot HaTorah Asher Moshe Lifnei Bnei Yisrael, it's taken from the end of Moshe's first speech in Devarim. Just when he separates the arei miklat and it's he tells everyone where they need to go. It gives that pasuk. Um Torat Hashem Temimah, I mentioned, is a minhag brought in Maseches Soferim, although most people don't say it and that might be because according to some versions of Maseches Soferim, it says or or either you say V'zot HaBracha V'zot HaTorah or you say Torat Hashem Temimah and people have gone with V'zot HaTorah. That makes perfect sense. So not saying Torat Hashem Temimah is definitely not a problem. But, adding in Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe is strange. First of all, where's that from? And we have three or four different options. So, I brought you in 12 and 13. In this is a very Bamidbar statement. It's very interesting why. I don't know why. I didn't think about it and look into it more. It comes up four times in Bamidbar. Al Pi Hashem Y'Anu, it comes Eleh Pekudei Mishkan Kehati, that this is how Moshe counted the the tribe of Kehat in the Leviim. And at the end it says, Moshe and Aaron counted them Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe. So, too in number 13, the tribe of Merari, or the subtribe in Leviim Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe. It sounds unlikely that our pasuk V'Hagba is taken from how Moshe and Aaron counted the Leviim. That doesn't sound like a good candidate. But, the next candidate is an excellent one, number 14. Al Pi Hashem Y'Anu. This is from Balak. According to Hashem, they camped. V'Al Pi Hashem Yisau, and according to Hashem, they traveled. Et Mishmeret Hashem Shamaru, they kept everything that God told them in terms of where they went and how they went there. Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe. Now, that looks like a good candidate cuz don't forget we have a whole theme for the Sefer Torah that the Sefer Torah models the Aron Kodesh in the Midbar. When we open the Aron, we say V'Yeihi B'Nsoa Aron, which is what they said when the Aron left. And when we put it back, we say Uv'Ncho Yomar, which is what they said when the Aron rested. So, the Sefer Torah being taken around the shul, lifted up, taken around, is modeling that journey of the Aron. So, Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe. This is a good candidate. It could be number 15. Vayisu B'Rishona Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe. That is a little bit later in Balak. There's another reference in Yehoshua, where the tribes of Gad and Reuben and half tribe of Manasseh go back to Ever HaYarden after they fulfilled their oaths to fight for the Jewish people. And there again it says at the end they did all this Al Pi Hashem Bi Yad Moshe. But that seems like an unlikely candidate. Doesn't seem to have much to do with what's going on. I did find and I didn't see anyone else who brought this down that this idea of Al Pi Hashem Bi Yad Moshe is actually baked in a little bit to the whole Hagba idea because if you look in number 17 after the came in the way that we saw where the Jewish people had this first potential Hagba experience, it says they found written in the Torah as Hashem Bi Yad Moshe. It's in the Nehemia verses. They rediscovered Sukkot. So I think it's not coincidental that in those very verses where we find Hagba, there is this mention of Hashem Bi Yad Moshe. But nevertheless they are in the Ashkenazi very puzzled. Number 18. He says it's very strange. He says this is what's in all the he says this is what's in all the way. It's really problematic he says. How did the possible come? This is not a possible. The the is in the way. Sorry. The is in the way. He says in this possible Al Pi Hashem is in the Al Pi Hashem Bi Yad Moshe who and actually the editor of the here suggested the by midbar chapter 10 rather than by midbar chapter 9 which may or may not be a mistake. But it either way but about how the iron traveled round. The it's not there in the way. Where did people suddenly decide when and how and why did people suddenly decide to put this in? So I brought you a little bit I did a little bit of my own detective work. I brought you some in the way. I picked some of my shelf and I took scans of them. So, in the Siddur Kol Yaakov number 19, it just makes it out to be one big possuk, which is actually, I think, quite problematic. V'zot haTorah asher sam Moshe lifnei Bnei Yisrael al pi Hashem b'yad Moshe. And I bet there's a lot of people out there that think that's what the possuk is. And again, it reads it in just one possuk. In number 20, um this is from the Siddur Vilna. The Siddur Vilna was established based on the minhagim of the Gra, of the Vilna Gaon, and his talmidim, which by the way were not the minhagim of Vilna. The Gra and the talmidim had their own kind of uh slightly reclusive uh going to yeshiva, which was not the mainstream of Vilna. The mainstream of Vilna did mainstream Ashkenazi Litvish minhagim, but the Gra had his own thing like leining every day, etc., which was not done in mainstream Vilna. And in the Gra's siddur in number 20, it says V'zot haTorah asher sam Moshe lifnei Bnei Yisrael. That's good. Al pi Hashem yachnu, al pi Hashem shamru, al pi Hashem b'yad Moshe. Meaning they put the whole possuk in. Because Meaning they put the whole possuk in. Because who would quote part of a possuk? And apparently, this was the meaning of Rav Chaim of Volozhin. To put the whole possuk in. Now, it's not that this siddur was the siddur that the Vilna Gaon used. This siddur was created in the 20th late 20th century by someone putting together all the minhagim of the Vilna Gaon. So, we don't have any siddur evidence for this from the Vilna Gaon. But nevertheless, if you I don't know I the Gra's shul, I haven't checked. We go to the Gra's not the Gra's shul. We could go to the Gra in Har Nof. We could also go to the Churva. They have very pure Vilna Gaon minhagim. What do they say for hagba in the Churva? I wouldn't be surprised if you have a lot of people saying these whole psukim cuz they don't want to say half a possuk. Um interestingly, the uh I looked in Rav Eliyahu Munk. Rav Eliyahu Munk, who is the father of uh Lady Jakobovits, zichrono livracha, uh he wrote a book called the world of prayer. Which is very interesting book. It's you know I've got an old edition on my shelf and he says there in the world of prayer, he said it's funny that we read half a possuk, al pi Hashem biyad Moshe. He said and originally he thinks they always used to read the whole possuk. But then one of the siddurim by mistake missed it out and now everybody only reads the end of the possuk. I'm surprised to see him say that but he suggests that that is the minhag. But there we're not quite there yet. Go over the page to page five. I brought you the siddur of Yaakov Emden. Now Yaakov Emden can always be relied on to do something different to everybody else. Almost in every case. Yaakov a fascinating individual, definitely Ashkenazi, 17th century. You'll see in his siddur, which I think was his siddur that he put together or his talmidim, it says in number 21 here, "V'zos haTorah asher sam Moshe lifnei bnei Yisrael." And in brackets there's al pi Hashem biyad Moshe. He didn't say it or at least he said you don't need to say it and you mentioned that you don't say it. So there you see he didn't say that either. There is a theory that I saw brought down, the Rav Munk Rav Munk also suggests this, that actually at a certain point this was part of a polemic. Meaning the non-Jews were saying to the Jews that this may be the Torah that God Moshe gave is not the Torah asher sam Moshe lifnei bnei Yisrael but we don't think that was the Torah that God gave to Moshe. We don't accept your version of Judaism and of course Islam says that and Christianity doesn't quite say that etc. But we started putting in al pi Hashem biyad Moshe so that we can make the statement that it's not only the Torah that Moshe gave us but it's the Torah that Hashem gave us. That's a nice reason but why did they suddenly start doing that? It seems in the 1600s. The first siddur that we ever saw with this in was the Shlah. The Shlah has al pi Hashem biyad Moshe. The Shlah Aruch in the late 1500s. What what what changed that all of a sudden they need they felt the need if this reason is true to to have I mean they were having debates and polemics with the Christians all through the Middle Ages and no one it seems to me I can find change this. Um but that that's a theory you can do with a homework you can uh think what you uh can come up with as to why that might have changed. I did say and I have a I have a wonderful set at home that you cannot get anymore. In fact, I once went to a shul that they had these siddurim 20 30 years ago and I actually took one of these siddurim to the to the the gabbai whatever said, "Do you mind if I buy one of these siddurim and take it home cuz it's very precious?" And it's the Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld siddur. Solomon Schonfeld was very involved in the Kindertransport in England um and he his siddur has extensive quotes in the side as to where all of the sources are for all of the things we say. And he comes up with things that I've never seen in any other place. By the way, the Rinat Yisrael the just just cops out entirely. The Rinat Yisrael which puts the references in on Al Pi Shamai be Admoshe just misses it out. He says, "I'm not getting involved. Not sure where this come from." But Rabbi Schonfeld, look what he says. Look at number 22. And I brought you the English. Yay, I don't know if you're meant to say yay. I think you had a different uh uh had a different connotation in those days. This is the Torah which Moses said before the children of Israel. He quotes Devarim chapter 4. Excellent. According to the command of God by the hand of Mosheh. He quotes what? Ik. What's ik? The Sifrei Ikrim. He quotes the Sifrei Ikrim and says, "This is not because of a verse. This is because of a polemic." He comes the same reason. He quotes the Sifrei Ikrim that we're saying we're making an emunah as it were that this is how we do it. Okay, interesting. Maybe that is the reason, maybe it's not, but uh a lot of people do say it, a lot of people don't say it. And now you know maybe why they do and why they don't. The idea of having a half a verse is problematic. Why? Number 23, "Kol pesukah delo yifsikha Mosheh." A piskei Mosheh, sorry. Any pasuk that Mosheh didn't break up. Anan loy paskinan loy, we don't break up differently. Meaning, we break up the psukim the way he broke up the psukim. That's a Gemara in Megillah, happens it appears in a few other places. Is that a halacha? Is there a reason why that is actually ossur? So, it's not quoted in the Rambam, it's not quoted in the Shulchan Aruch. Uh that doesn't mean it's not halachic, but it's not perhaps mainstream halachic. Uh I found a um I think Ravron quoted it actually, a tshuvas that the Tzitz Eliezer writes to Rav Kapach. When Rav Kapach was preparing his commentary on the Rambam, of course Rav Kapach was the Rambam guru supremo, he wrote to Rav Waldenberg and asked him a shaila that when the Rambam brings the laws of kedasha and kadesh, which is premarital sexual relations, even though in the possuk it says "Lo tiye kadesha b'not Yisrael v'lo yiheye kadesh mibnei Yisrael", in the halacha the Rambam writes "Lo yiheye kadesh v'lo tiye kadesha". He flips it. And Rav Kapach was very perturbed and perplexed. Why would the Rambam just change it and not say it the way the possuk says it? He wrote to Rav Waldenberg, and Rav Waldenberg answered him, he says it's a good question. I think the reason is this, that he didn't want to quote he the Rambam wanted to say everything in the most abbreviated form he could. And he couldn't write "Lo yiheye kadesha v'lo yiheye kadesh" because then he'd have started a possuk and not finished it. And the Rambam said, you know, I'm not going to do that. And therefore he flipped it in a way that if you actually start quoting the end of a possuk, then you don't have to finish it because you didn't quote the beginning of a possuk. So, the Tzitz Eliezer wanted to suggest that the Rambam was actually quite careful about this. I heard, even though he doesn't bring it as a halacha, I heard from Rabbi Rosner, Rabbi Sholom Rosner, a beautiful thing. He must have quoted it or maybe he quoted it in someone else's in someone else's name. You know when they write a possuk and they don't put in the whole possuk and they put v'gomer. Gimmel vov, okay? Chupchik, which means finish it off. But when they quote from a non-possuk, they put v'chuli, uh etc. He said, "And there's a reason for that, because by possuk, v'gomer is not doesn't mean etc. It means, 'Now finish it off, because you're not meant to read just the first three words.' If you're quoting from a chazal, then there's no mitzvah to finish it off. So that's v'chuli, that's etc. But v'gomer means finish it off. I thought it's a beautiful idea. Um and if it's uh correct, so certainly it seems correct in terms of how people use it. Okay, fine. So you're not meant to quote a half possuk. And the Chayei Adam actually brings it in 24, that you're not meant to quote a half possuk. Um I'm not going to go through all the detail there. So why do we do it? Actually, all the all the the raid, as it were, all the discussion on this issue is not really on uh Al Pi Hashem B'Yad Moshe, though the Torah Temimah mentions it. It's on some other minhagim. And this is where we get into minhag versus halacha. Where else do we quote a half a possuk? So I brought you a number 25, and you maybe even never thought of that this. What do we do when the chazzan puts the sefer Torah back? Y'halelu Es Shem Hashem, ki nisgav sh'mo l'vado. The chazzan stops there, and then we all chime in, Hodu L'Aretz V'Shamayim. That's the end of the possuk. That's the end of the possuk. It It's Y'halelu Es Shem Hashem ki nisgav sh'mo l'vado Hodu L'Aretz V'Shamayim. Stop. Then it's V'Yare'u V'Yachilu Amol Kol Chasidav. So we we For some reason, the chazzan reads the first part of the possuk, we chime in with the second part, and then continue as if there's nothing wrong with the the rest of the next possuk. So why do we do that? Um perhaps the most famous case is Kiddush on Shabbos. Both Kiddushes on Shabbos present us with problems, cuz on Friday night, Kiddush starts Yom Hashishi. And Yom Hashishi is the last two words of Vayehi Erev Vayhi Boker, etc. Now you might turn around and say, "Well, I'm not starting a possuk, so I don't have to finish it. I'm like starting the end of a possuk, so it's okay. You could say that. But, there are people who want to actually go further back. So, some people say, okay, I'm going to say er vokea. Yom hashishi. But, that doesn't really help you very much because er vokea is also the middle of a possuk. There are some people and actually I say this as well, they read the whole possuk. Which is er vokea od. Er vokea er vokea yom hashishi. However, they say the first part of the possuk quietly. Do you say it quietly or say it loudly? So, they whisper or they say to themselves er er why? Because hazal say that er od is a reference to the creation of death. That for some reason it's a very beautiful interesting idea. Why is death a good thing for the world? Whatever, I'm not getting into that now. We don't want to mention death at the beginning of the kiddush and therefore we say that quietly etc. Well, that's one area where this comes up and of course shabbos morning er came shabbos that's also the end of a possuk. So, this seems to be a classic case where minag is trumping halacha. If I don't know if I should say the word trump, okay, okay, but whatever. But, I I didn't even know that. The minag is overriding halacha because it seems that you're not meant to do this and everybody does it. So, if everybody does it, it can't be wrong. Now, the rokeach comes in and says, you know something, if it's in the context of davening, it's not a problem. Davening is davening. Davening people say bits of this and bits of that and over there. And that's fine. That's probably the best answer, which is it's just not an issue. It's only an issue when you're reciting, when you're quoting, when you're teaching. When you're teaching sukkim, don't start in the wrong place because then people will get the wrong idea of what the possuk is. They don't have a as you said of their own etc. So, that might be the issue there. Okay, fine. So, now you know maybe a little bit about why we start at the beginning or not start at the beginning of the possuk. The last issue I want to talk about is to bow or not to bow. All of the sources that we've seen say it's about. None of them say it's a point. And in fact, the Ramah brings down in number 28 that the Mal Real, he quotes from the Mal Real, "Shu Hi Anoyg Ba'sha'at Hagba'at Ha'Torah." When they did Hagba in the Shul, Ashkenazi, "Lishtachavot." He did Hishtachavaya. That's a really deep bow. "Neged Ha'Ksav." Against the in front of the writing. He bow He bowed down below him and he says, "V'Zot Ha'Torah." So, why would people not bow down? Like I did a poll here, nobody here bows down. Why would that have fallen out of practice? They didn't have room. I don't know. But some people Some people must have had room. Oh. So, I think there may be a problem here. Look at number 29. Um the the uh there's a quote from uh Rabbi Yeshaya Detrani. Rabbi Yeshaya Detrani, uh who is an Italian Posek from the 13th century, says as following, the Ri Az, number 29. So, it's quoted here in a the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah, which is a bit later. Loshon Ri Az, and the Ri Az says as follows, number 29. "Chayavin La'amod Mifnei Sefer Torah." You have to stand up when there's a Sefer Torah in the room. "Im Lifnei Lomdeha Omdim." If you stand up in front of those who learn, you stand up for a Talmid Chacham, "Pneiha Lo Kol Shekein." All the more so, you have to stand up for a Sefer Torah. Which is interesting, because in Chazal, in the Gemara, it's kind of the other way around. The Gemara says, people stand up for a Sefer Torah, but they don't stand up for Talmidei Chachamim. Okay, maybe everyone had started standing up for Talmidei Chachamim. So, you certainly stand up for a Sefer Torah. "V'Nireh Ba'Eina." And I think he says, "Shelo Amru Ela La'amod." They only said you can stand "Mifnei Ha'Torah." In front of a Torah. "V'Lo Lishtachavot La." But don't bow down. "V'Lo Nimtza Ba'Chol Ha'Torah." We never find anywhere "Shemishtachavim Afilu La'Aron Kodesh." They never find when the people bow down in the Chumash, it's always to God. It's to "Kvod Hashem." You never bow down to anything other than "Kvod Shamayim." Even to the Sefer Torah. Even to the Aron Kodesh, because you can start to make a vote of anything. You can fetishize things, you can make them the icker, etc. And therefore, you don't bow down to anything, and therefore, people stop bowing down. The Chida says, "But I don't understand." Because it was explicit in Maseches Soferim that you do bow down. So, he says, "I'll tell you. I'll put the two together. In front of a closed safer Torah, you don't bow down. But in front of an open safer Torah, you do bow down. And when he says here in the Riyaz you don't bow down, he's talking to a closed safer Torah. But when you bow to an open safer Torah, you're really bowing because of the ketav, because of you the writing. You're bowing as it were to the dvar Hashem. You're not bowing to the Torah. Now, there's a very subtle difference between the Torah and the writing in the Torah, but this is maybe why there was a concern of bowing down and why it fell out of practice. There is another concern, and this gets into when you were doing the flip over. We'll see this night. Now, the Ashkenazim have more of a problem, because when the Ashkenazim do hagbah, there's a man standing, usually a man, standing between the safer Torah and the people bowing down, because there's the writing and the man is obscuring the writing. So, when people are bowing down, they're bowing down to the magbiah. They're bowing down to the guy who's it. Now, there are some people who can do it very high. And by the way, with Sefardim, it's less of a problem, because when you hold the Sefardi open, you But they hold it open. By definition, there's no one standing in front of it. But some of them, unfortunately, explained that that's a problem today, but it didn't used to be, cuz originally all the hagbah, all the hagbah minhagim were the crossover ones that we now do on Simchas Torah, where we we where the guy does this, and then he does this, and then he lifts it up, and it's a very heart-stopping moment for a second, and and and the safer Torah is facing out, the ketav is facing directly to the people. And he said that all the hagbahs used to be like that. And therefore, that's when they used to bow down. Sometimes they lift it up when they do hagbah. It depends on who it is. But if you flip it, then even if you're standing behind it, then it's the it's it's it's the side that is facing out. So, uh interestingly, we used to do that uh special Hagbah. Now, we only do it on Simchas Torah. And even then, there's always some grumpy people that say, "Oh, you shouldn't do it. It's dangerous. You're going to drop the safer Torah." It's not clear why we do it on uh the safer Torah. One reason on Simchas Torah, one reason is brought down is because Hafach bah bah Hafach bah the kulah bah, you keep going into the Torah again and again. So, Hafach, you do it the other way around. But apparently, we always used to do it that way. Okay? So, maybe that's a reason why people used to bow and they stopped bowing. But either way, people don't bow. There are people who do bow. I bow, and there are other people who bow. Um and there's nothing wrong with that. But why did they start pointing? And where on earth did they start pointing with their little finger? Does anyone point with the with the main finger? I've never seen anyone doing this. You do that? You do that? Point like this. Okay, so we'll see. Why would anybody point? So, there's a beautiful uh we don't see this maybe before the 18th century. The first mention of anyone pointing at a safer Torah during Hagbah uh is uh are two Sephardi poskim. Uh one was in Greece, in Rhodes, Rabbi Mordechai Crispin. And one was the uh the Haham Bashi of the Ottoman Empire of Hayyim Palachi, who was in Constantinople. But it's 18th and 19th century. That's the first time we ever see pointing. I'm on page seven, look at number 31. There is a beautiful Midrash that says pointing is normally rude. And by the way, in many cultures, pointing is rude. You know, you point at someone. Don't you know, don't tell me that. People get very offended when you point at them. Um and look at number 31. The Midrash picks up on this. Amar Reb Hanina, Reb Hanina says, "Berishona, it used to be kol mishehu mareh uknin shel melech be'etzba, anyone who pointed at a statue, even a statue of the king, of the Caesar, whatever, haya ne'erag, that was a capital offense. You don't point at the statue of Caesar, of the king. That's a terrible thing. However, veha tinokot, holchim, but the kids, the little kids go le bet midrash, to the bet midrash, um marem etz ha'etz karot be'etzba, and they point at Shema Shem in the Sefer Torah with their finger, and this is by the way, this is the etzba. This is called the etzba, this finger is called the etzba, okay? They pay they point to the Sefer Torah, am Elokim, and they base it on a pasuk, v'diglu alai ahava, v'diglu alai ahava, which is Shir Hashirim, like his banner of love is degel of love was over me. Flip the wording v'diglu and you get v'godlo. And the thumb or the finger towards me in love. Now, there's a whole big debate as to what is then what are the names for all the different fingers on the hand. Okay, we'll get to that, agudal, etzba, so here it seems to be saying this may be the agudal because it's the long it was actually not the longest, but it's the first one, we'll get back to that in a minute, but that may be a minhag it's brought this midrash that the children with love point, but there may be another reason as well. We have a almost Pavlovian reaction that when we see or say the word zeh, we point to something. Why is the where does that come from? Number 32, Gemara Menachot, this is quite a well-known Gemara. Tana d'bei Rabbi Yishmael, shlosha dvarim hayu kashin al Moshe, three things were very difficult to Moshe, ad she'era Hakadosh Baruch Hu b'etzba, until God showed him with his finger, as it were. V'eilu hein, and these are they, menorah, Rosh Chodesh, and shratzim. Menorah d'ksiv, v'zeh ma'aseh hamenorah. Rosh Chodesh d'ksiv, hachodesh hazeh lachem Rosh Chodashim. Shatzim, and the shratzim, v'zeh lachem et hatamei. And because of the word zeh, the word zeh is that God is showing Moshe, he's not just saying this is what you need to do, it's there, zeh, look, look, it's this. V'yeish omrim al hilchot shchita, maybe even hilchot shchita, v'zeh asher ta'aseh al hamizbe'ach. The word zeh gets people pointing. The end of Taanis, anyone's been to a a Siyum on Taanis, you'll know this Torah, it's quite famous, number 33, Amar Ulla, Amar Ulla Bira, sorry, that's name, Amar Ulla Bira, Amar Elazar, atid Hakadosh Baruch Hu la'asot machol l'tzaddikim b'olam haba, God is is going to make dancing with the tzaddikim. For who yoshev beneihem, God is going to sit in the middle b'Gan Eden in Gan Eden. For kol echad v'echad marbeh etzba, and everyone is going to point with his finger at God and going to be dancing and pointing with his finger she'ne'emar saying I'm going to be here hinei Eloheinu zeh, this is our God. Kivinu lo yoshi'einu zeh Hashem kivinu lo. Kinzeh zeh zeh against the idea of pointing with the finger the Yerushalmi brings the same midrash, quotes a different pasuk that we said today in Shir Hashirim. Ki zeh Eloheinu Eloheinu l'olam va'ed hu yanageinu al mut. Zeh, it's always zeh. And therefore when you say zeh, you point. And it could be this is the origin of the minhag. Think also I brought you number 35 Seder night. Ki higadeta l'vincha bayom hahu leimor ba'avur zeh asah Hashem li b'tzeis Mitzrayim. What do we do when we we point to the matzah. We lift up the matzah. We lift up the maror etc. Zeh zeh is always pointing. Think of the famous idea of the crossing of the Red Sea. Even the lowliest maid I had a had a a direct understanding of God. Why? Because it says zeh keilivi'anveihu. Zeh, pointing. So, this is a great option. The reason that we point is because we say zeh. But you're going to say to me now that's a problem because we don't say zeh. We say zot. So you're going to tell me oh come on, what's the difference? Zeh just happens to be masculine and zot or zo just happens to be feminine. So it should be the same. But the funny thing is that every single one of these drashot that Chazal bring is always on the word zeh and never on the word zot. So what do you want to make of that? So Rashi doesn't have very much to say about that because on in number 37 where it says dabru el benei Yisrael leimor zot hachaya asher tochlu, this is because chaya is feminine. Rashi immediately points out it says melamed shehachaya Moshe ochez bachaya, Moshe would hold the haya or also he would hold it up. It doesn't say he points to it but he says to the result of the okay fine. Can you say that points on that as well? Let's assume you can. It could be that the reason we point is because we say the result had to rush some more share live near Israel and we cannot resist pointing when we say the word there or maybe even the word that. There is a theory that is just what's called extended kissing. Which is that we when we we we want to kiss the safer Torah we run up to the safer Torah to kiss it. So when we can't kiss it we kind of like air kissing as it were. We're just kind of this is kissing from afar and therefore we put our hands out. Some people hold that sit sit. Does anyone hold that sit sit in the hand up to the safer Torah? No no you hold your sit sit because like again when you you kiss the safer Torah because you hold your. So that's again something of a a proof that it's extended kissing. They say with the Sephardi shows where again when the women have got all their hands out and they're they're also still got their hands out when they do hagba etc. Yes. Isn't there a thing about the Saturday having a negative Yeah I don't yes I don't know how that fits though. Maybe because that's rude pointing. Maybe because of the context. They're not saying this is amazing they're saying you're you're this Moshe is the one because again pointing can have a very negative connotation and usually we you know in in in in cultural terms we'll see in a minute that it does. There is another option of course which is the whole point is you're meant to be able to see the text. And this I think is probably the most persuasive option in some ways. I brought you the Magan Avraham number 39 he brings the Arizal. Kashira you have to you have to see the words. Actually you have to be able to read them. Magia Or Gadol and you get this great light. This the Arizal has this beautiful idea that as you said before we learn we have to expose the light of the Torah like the current or the the sort of beams coming out of the Torah to the people. The people have to have this cuz they're about to, if you like, walk into this experience of learning, like being with Moshe Rabbeinu with the beams coming out of his face. So, you have to be able to see the ktav, and you'll look and the and that's the point. And therefore, you're you need to be able to see it, and therefore, you're you're kind of putting up a line of sight to see the words. People can actually see it. And by the way, when they do hakafah, they point, right? With the with the yad, with the silver yad, they point usually to This is again for this reason. The Ben Ish Hai even says you should try and find a pasuk that you're looking at that has the same beginning letter as your name beginning letter. Okay? So, again, you're the people are going to start wearing binoculars in shul, you know, from now on. But this is This could be the reason why they're pointing. Yes. Why do people Okay, that's because of kavod to the sefer Torah. There's no reason why you can't kiss a closed sefer Torah, but in theory, you'd even more so want to kiss an open sefer Torah. Probably you can't touch it. Can't touch an open sefer Torah. So, I think it could well be because of the of the letters and reading the ktav, that's why we're pointing. But again, that's why is that Why did that just start in the 19th century? Because that was all all the way through from a seker sofer, they said you have to see the ktav. Let's Let's end off on page nine with a little finger. Now, if you are English, you call it a little finger. If you're American, you probably call it the pinky, but you probably don't know why. Cuz it's no more pink than any of your other fingers. But actually, the word pinky is from a Scottish word which is means small. Pinky means small. And anything which is small is called a pinky, and apparently, that is why the Americans call what we in, you know, in England rather grandly called conjunctivitis, they call it pinkeye. It's not because your eye's pink, it's because your eye squints, it closes up, and therefore, you've got a pinky eye, you've got a you've got a small little eye, and that is actually the origin. And it must be true because I read that on the internet. Must be true. It has to be true. So, um the point is that uh we put our little finger a lot of people put their finger up. Where did this first come? Well, Rav Chaim Palaggi, who talks about pointing, he says that after you point with your main finger, why? Because these pesukim that you're saying Toras Hashem temima meshivas nefesh are all five pesukim and Hashem is always the second word. So, it's Toras Hashem temima meshivas nefesh. Eidus Hashem ne'emanah meishivas petayim. And therefore, he says it's the second finger which is the key cuz that's the Hashem finger in these pesukim and these pesukim are the pesukim for hagbah. Okay, that's nice. I like that. The first time we ever see a mention of the little finger is in the Me'am Lo'ez, 41. It says "Benagula tzirah be'etzba hazeret." You point with the zeret finger, which is this little one here, "lavo u'chsav lenashkei" and then to kiss it. So, you say, "Oh, that's a nice source. The Me'am Lo'ez was written in Constantinople in the 1700s. Psh, that's very That's amazing." The answer is not so fast because the Me'am Lo'ez actually Rav Kuly in the 1700s of Yaakov Kuly only wrote the Me'am Lo'ez on Bereishis. Again, this is not my research. This was in Rabbi Ron's article. He only wrote the Me'am Lo'ez on Bereishis and Shemot. The rest was finished after he died by other people and talmidim. But they lost all the stuff on Devarim. And therefore, the the Me'am Lo'ez, you know, they said Me'am Lo'ez on on the Chumash, the Me'am Lo'ez on Devarim was actually written in the 1960s by a very big talmid chacham who translated the Me'am Lo'ez from Ladino, I think it was written originally, into Hebrew. But actually, it was Rav Shmuel Kreitzer in 1969 that wrote these words that the minhag is to point with the little finger and then to kiss it. So, I wouldn't call that an ancient source. He's just pointing out that this is No pun intended. That this is why people This is what people do. But we don't know why they do that. We've no There are a few ideas. Rav Scheinberg says maybe it's because of humility. Yeah, okay, that's nice. I mean, that's you know, but can only be you can only really a quiet person if you have humility. So, that's why you lift up the little finger. Um other people say the little finger is the first of the 10 Commandments if you start counting from the little finger. Okay, fine. I don't really like that very much. Um other people want to suggest that you're really making a kamitza because as if to say you're taking a portion from the Torah with your hand like the coin used to take from the korban and therefore just by default your little finger sticking up. Okay, I've never seen anyone doing this. I'm not sure. Um other people want to suggest These are all made up answers really, but that's nice. Other people want to say that there isn't a mitzvah that you do with little with your little finger. So, let's find one and we'll do it I guess. But I brought you the last source in the last minute, actually a real source, which it's not about Hagbah, but the Rabbeinu Bachya says that each of the fingers on your hand correspond to a sense, one of the senses. Because everything everything is used when when parts of the body have multiple uses, there must be a reason for that. Just look online two. We'll do it quite quickly, 42. "Kacha chamisha etzba'ot sheb'yad kol echad v'echad mehem nivra l'to'elet meyuchad." Every one of your fingers is created for a special purpose. "V'hu ki kol echad meha'etzba'ot hu mesharet l'chush echad mechamisha chushim." Each of your little fingers corresponds to one of your senses. "Sheba'adam shehem ikar adam." And your senses are what allows you to interfere interfere with the world. That's the main That's the you. "Uv'hem mitgalim koach koach hanefesh." And that's how your nefesh is expressed. "Harishon mesharet l'nuach peh." So, your thumb is used for cleaning out your mouth. I'm not suggesting this is polite. It's for cleaning out your mouth. "V'hu sheb'chush hatam." That's there for the taste. "Hasheni." What do people use their second finger for? "Hu l'to'elet chereim." They use it for cleaning out their nose. Okay. "Sheb'chush hare'ach." And that applies to the ear. "Hashelishi." Your third finger, which is your longest finger, "Hu l'chush hamishush." "L'mashash kol chelkei haguf." It's your sense of touch because you can reach other parts that parts that other fingers cannot reach. Well, if you cut who are off because and that's why it's long. The Harvi, your fourth finger is used to clean out your eye. Now, I've never looked and seen whether people clean out their eye with this finger, but it says that's what you use to clean your eye. The Hamishi and your fifth finger, your pinky finger, is perfectly suited to clean out your ears. It fits right into your ear. People do this with their ear. And if And I could sparkle designed it that way. So, it's a very interesting And therefore, some people want to say your pinky, your little finger, is basically Nasav Anishma. Nasav Anishma. And I just wanted to leave you because when else am I going to say this in a share that actually in Anglo-Saxon, the little finger was actually called either the ear cleaning finger or the ear finger or the ear scraper. That was the name for your little finger. So, you but Rabbeinu Bachya didn't make this up. It's part of the cultural reality of the Middle Ages and before that your little finger was something to do with your ears. So, now you have some at least suggested reasons. Now, you know why Minhagim are so interesting but complicated and messy. Um next week we'll have one more share on Minhagim. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do yet. Um but uh we'll And then after that it'll be a share three weeks we'll go into other things. Have a great week. Thank you for saying that so well.