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Why We Read from a Scroll (1) Deuteronomy 31 and Moses

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Why We Read from a Scroll (1) Deuteronomy 31 and Moses Why We Read from A Scroll (1) Deuteronomy 31 And Moses instructed them as follows: Every seventh year… on the festival of Sukkot when all Israel comes to appear before Adonai your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Teaching (“Torah” i.e. Deuteronomy or less) aloud in the presence of all Israel. Gather the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere the Adonai your God and to faithfully observe every word of this Teaching. Aaron Demsky: “This reading was not meant for priests, scribes or other initiated literati alone, as we would have expected in antiquity, but rather for the widest possible audience, without regard to status, gender or age. This fits with the public nature of the theophany [revelation] at Horeb [aka. Sinai], which forms the basis of God’s covenant with Israel… this passage [is] the earliest instantiation in the Ancient Near East of the innovative idea of setting a specific time for inclusive religious public education.” (2 Kings 22:8; m. Sotah 7:8 “Agrippa’s Hakhel”; Nehemiah 8) (2) Nehemiah 8 (5th Century) On the first day of the seventh month, the people came together in the open area in front of the Water Gate. Then they asked Ezra, who was a teacher of the Torah of Moses, to read to them from this Torah that Adonai had given his people. Ezra the priest came with the Torah and stood before the crowd of men, women, and the children who were old enough to understand. From early morning till noon, he read the Torah of Moses to them, and they listened carefully. Ezra stood on a high wooden platform that had been built for this occasion. [Many assistants] were standing to his left. Ezra was up on the high platform, where he could be seen by everyone, and when he opened the scroll, they all stood up. Ezra blessed the great god Adonai, and the people shouted, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed with their faces to the ground and worshiped Adonai. After this, [Ezra’s assistants] went among the people, translating and explaining what Ezra had read. Aaron Demsky: “The public reading here resonates with the description of hakhel with its emphasis on torah being read to the entire nation, And yet, the text does not explicitly say that it was being .(הקהל) albeit in noun form, as that of the verb hakhel ,ק.ה.ל even using the same root done in accordance with Deut 31. In addition, the description of the audience is slightly different… the audience would certainly have included newcomers from Babylon who spoke Aramaic but could not understand the Hebrew of the Torah. In order to overcome this language barrier, he appointed groups of Levites as teachers… who would translate and explain the Torah reading.” (3) Mishnah Megillah 2:1-2 (2nd Century) One who reads the Megillah out of order has not fulfilled his obligation. If he read it by heart, or if he read it in Aramaic translation or in any language that he does not understand, he has not fulfilled his obligation… He does not fulfill his obligation unless he reads from a Megillah that is written in modern [Ashurit] Hebrew script, upon parchment and with ink. (4) Mishnah Megillah 4:2 (2nd Century) This is the principle: Any day on which there is an additional offering sacrificed in the Temple and that is not a Festival, i.e., the New Moon and the intermediate days of a Festival, four people read from the Torah; on a Festival, five people read; on Yom Kippur, six people read; and on Shabbat, seven people read. One may not decrease the number of readers, but one may add to them. (5) Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 60b (6th-8th Century) Matters that were written may not be expressed from memory [al peh] and matters that were memorized [al peh] may not be recorded in writing. (6) Maimonides, Code of Jewish Law, Laws of Prayer 12:1, 8 (12th Century) Moses, our teacher, established the rule for Israel that they should read the Law publicly on Sabbaths and also on the second and fifth days of the week, during the morning service, so that three days shall not elapse without hearing the Law. The reader may, at times, skip from passage to passage when both [passages] are on the same theme, but he must take care not to recite by heart, it being forbidden to recite even a single word without referring to the text. (7) Shulchan Arukh, Rabbi Moses Cairo, Orach Chayim 139:3 (16th Century) ... A blind person does not read [the Torah] because it is prohibited to read by heart even one letter [of the Torah scroll] Gloss [Rabbi Moses Isserles]: And the Maharil wrote that nowadays yes, the blind reads, since we have the Torah scroll read to us. Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, Mishnah Berurah, 139:12 (Early 20th Century) Nowadays a blind person reads - and the reason is that our custom is that the Torah reader reads, and the reader reads from the scroll, and so we are not particular regarding [the abilities of] the reader, since [we hold by the principle] "the status of listener is the same as the one who reads." (8) Shulchan Arukh, Ashkenazic Gloss of Rabbi Moses Isserles, Orach Chaim 143:2 (16th Century) Concerning our printed Torah texts, even those that contain all Five Books, one may not recite the blessing [for public Torah reading] using them. [However,] in a place where there is a Torah scroll but no reader who can chant it with cantillation from memory, I have seen those who have the custom for the reader to read from a printed vocalized Torah text and the one who takes the Aliyah repeats after him, [reading] from the kosher Torah scroll. (9) Responsa of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe 3:19 (Mid-20th Century) As for the matter of the reader who does not know by heart the cantillations, and places a Chumash on the table and sees each word in the Chumash and claims that afterwards he looks in the Sefer Torah and reads from the Sefer torah, he should not be allowed to do this because he should not be believed for this. And he himself can't possibly know this because it is easy to make a mistake in this, with it appearing to him as if he is reading from the Torah while in truth he is reading from his memory of what he saw in the Chumash. It is better to hear [the reading] from a second reader who really reads it from the Torah even though he does not know the cantillations, as long as he properly splits up the verses such that the ends of the verses are recognizable… It is also good to be stringent with regard to comma if possible. And you can have another man stand at the platform and look in the Chumash and tell him [the reader] the ends of the verses and the comma, as is done in many places when there is no proficient reader. With this there will be peace in their borders and peace on all of Israel. .
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