Rituals & Prayer Melodies

The honor of reciting the blessings over the Torah is called an aliyah, which means “going up”; it refers to the fact that the person so honored ascends or goes up to the bimah where the Torah is read. The word also connotes that participating in this ritual represents a spiritual ascent. 

Upon being called for an aliyah, you come up to the bimah. Everyone who comes up for an aliyah must wear a tallit and a head covering, both men and women. The Torah reader will show you the beginning of the reading in the Torah. Take the tzitzit on the corner of your tallit, touch it to the Torah, and kiss it. Then, taking the Torah handles (atzei hayim) in your hands, you chant the first blessing over the Torah. The words of the blessing will be found on the podium in front of you in both Hebrew and English transliteration, so you need not memorize them. Download PDF of Aliyah Blessings here.

After the first blessing, the Torah reader will read a portion from the Torah. Keep holding the right handle or etz hayim. When the Reader completes the reading, touch the Torah with your tzitzit again, take hold of the left handle or etz hayim, roll the two sides of the scroll together, and recite the second blessing.

After you complete the second blessing, another person is called up to the Torah. Remain at the bimah until the person who receives the aliyah after you completes the second blessing. Now is the proper time to step away from the bimah and return to your seat.

Yasher Koach! (May you be strengthened!)

HAGBAH – TORAH LIFTING GUIDELINES

The Ritual Committee has recently discussed this ritual activity and wants to make you aware of its desires re: setting some basic standards for the way Hagbah is done at Kol Shofar, specifically:

1) Scrolls should be opened on the table first, to at least most of one column, but no more than three columns.

2) Once scrolls are up in the air, they should be left the way they are, without any further adjustment.

The reasons for setting these standards are:
a) We want to keep the physical stress to the scrolls induced by this activity to a minimum.

b) Dropping a Torah scroll, while a rare occurrence, has extremely serious consequences for observant members of the congregation who are present – specifically, some people would feel obliged to do a 40-day (daylight) fast.  Having had some “near misses” in the past, we want to do our best to assure that this will not happen in the future.

c) The raising of the Torah scroll is intended to call people’s attention to the Torah itself, and the traditional view is that exposing three panels are sufficient to accomplish this. To hold the Torah open wider can begin to look instead like a public display of the lifter’s prowess, calling people’s attention and admiration to the skills of the lifter instead of the scroll, and is therefore antithetical to the whole purpose of raising the Torah.

Thank you in advance for complying with these procedures. If you have any questions or comments, please direct them to either Ron Brown or Gail Dorph, the co-chairs of the Ritual Committee.

Click for Rabbi Chai Levy’s thoughts on ‘How to Prepare and Deliver a Drash’