TORAH IN MUSEUM CASE OR IN ARK

QUESTION:

The congregation was given one of the Torah scrolls from Czechoslovakia. This Torah was repaired by the Commission in Great Britain. Some members of our congregation would like to have this Torah kept in a display case with other ceremonial objects. Others would like to keep it in the Ark. Which is preferable? (Asked by Rabbi Albert Lewis, Grand Rapids, Michigan)

ANSWER:

ACCORDING to Jewish law and custom, the Torah must be held in great honor; hence the important question involved here is: Which of the two settings would be of greater honor for the Torah? There is a rule (Megillah 26b, Yore Deah 282:10) that when a Sefer Torah is no longer usable, it must be disposed of in an especially honorable way. It must be placed in an earthenware urn and buried in the cemetery beside an honored scholar. In other words, it is the mood of tradition that if a Torah is no longer to be used because it is unfit, then, like the no-longer used body of a person who has died, it must be honorably buried. Therefore, it would seem to me that if this Torah is posul, then it should be decently put away and not openly displayed.

However, if the term in your letter “repaired by the Commission” means that the Torah has been corrected and is no longer posul, then there are other objections to its being displayed in the ceremonial case. Among all the sacred objects in Jewish worship, the Torah is by far the most sacred. The other ceremonial objects are only “auxiliary to holiness” (tashmishey kedusha or tashmishey mitzva, Orah Hayyim 154). Even the Ark itself is called “holy Ark” only because it contains the Torah (Orah Hayyim 154:1). There are questions even as to whether printed Bibles or Talmud volumes may be kept in the Ark together with the Torahs. If you put the Torah in a museum case with menorahs, Pesach dishes, pewter Purim plates, etc., you are demeaning its unique status by declaring it to be one more ceremonial object among others.

There is also another objection to putting it in the display case. The law requires (Berachoth 25b, Yore Deah 282:8) that if the Sefer Torah is kept in a room in some private house, then people’s demeanor in that room must be especially careful and circumspect. Now, this museum case may be (as it is in many congregations) in the entrance lobby. How can we be sure that people in a crowd, coming and going, will keep a dignified demeanor and be careful with their speech? We might well say that putting the Torah in a case in a building lobby puts an unfair restriction upon the speech and demeanor of members of the congregation.

Besides the decorum to be observed in a room where a Torah is kept, and besides the respectful disposal of a Torah when it is no longer usable, the chief manifestation of respect for the Torah is during the ceremony of the public reading of the Scriptures in the services. If, then, the Torah is kept in the Ark and is being taken out on occasion for public reading, there can be no greater honor given to a Torah than that. First of all, even if people are walking around the building during parts of the service, they are required to come in to the synagogue to see the Torah taken out (cf. Maharil, Hilchos Kerias Ha-Torah). When the Torah is taken out, everyone present, and that means the entire available congregation, must stand while the Torah is being carried from the Ark to the reading desk and later when it is carried back from the reading desk to the Ark. The reason for standing is worth noting. The Talmud, in Kiddushin 33b, discusses the verse in Leviticus 19:3: “Stand up in respect of a gray-haired man.” And the Talmud says, “This is the basis of the law that when a scholar comes by, you must stand up in respect for him. How much more must we stand up in respect for the Torah.”

And as for exhibiting the Torah, this is provided for at the beginning of the Torah Reading by the Sephardim and at the close of the reading by the Ashkenazim. The mitzvah of hagbeh, raising the open Torah to show to the people, is a most honored one (Orah Hayyim 134:12).

It is clear that putting the Torah in a display case would merely equate it with other ceremonial objects, whereas it should be considered the most sacred of all religious objects. Also, it would require special decorum in the lobby of the Temple. But putting it in the Ark and having it read gives the Torah the continual honor of the presence of all the congregation, of their respectful rising, and the honored display in the ceremony of hagbeh. Clearly, then, since we presume that this is a corrected Torah which can be used in the reading, the Ark is the honorable and proper place for it.

There is a proverb given in the Zohar (III, 134a) that everything depends on fortune, even the Torah in the Ark. An Ark may contain a half dozen Torahs. One of them, no better than the rest, will have the “good fortune” of being read every Sabbath. Another, equally good, will be read only as the extra Torah, on a holiday. Still another, as good a Torah as the others, will only be carried around once a year in procession on Simchas Torah. So one might say of this Torah about which you ask that once it had the good fortune of being a beloved object in a historic congregation. Children kissed it as it was carried in procession. Men were honored to be called up to recite a blessing over the reading from it. The congregation that had cherished it has long since been martyred and has now disappeared. Let its “fortune” now be restored, and let it be read in reverence during your congregation’s worship.

The collection of scrolls from which your scroll comes was in the care of my late classmate, Rabbi Harold Reinhart, and was kept in his synagogue in Kensington (London). He showed me the collection a number of years ago, and I observed that quite a number of these scrolls were very large and obviously very heavy. If this scroll which you have received from this collection is too large and heavy to be conveniently handled for the public reading on Sabbath and holidays, then at least give this scroll a permanent place in your Ark. Whenever the Ark will be open for the Torah reading, the congregation will rise in respect for all the scrolls in the Ark and this scroll, now permanently rescued from captivity, will thus be honored among them.