WHITE TORAH COVERS

The congregation has been using the customary red or scarlet velvet Torah coverings throughout the year, except that for holidays, confirmations, and bar mitzvahs they have been using the white Torah coverings. Is it permissible to have the Ark and the Torahs covered with white throughout the year? (From Rabbi Harold L. Gelfman, Macon, Georgia.)

I HAVE searched through most of the books of minhagim and I have not succeeded in discovering a single reference to a well-established custom that the Torahs should be covered with white during the High Holy Days. I know that this is the custom in many of our congregations, yet the very fact that the overwhelming majority of the books of minha-gim have no reference to this custom would indicate clearly that it is certainly not in any sense a requirement of the Halacha. This silence as to white coverings is rather remarkable when one considers that a number of other questions concerning the Torah coverings are discussed in the legal literature and are codified with considerable details in the Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 147. As for the curtain of the Ark, its status is not very firm in the Halacha except as a vague analogy to the curtain in the Temple in Jerusalem in front of the Holy of Holies. In fact, Maimonides, when he carefully discusses the appurtenances of the synagogue makes no mention at all of an Ark curtain. (See Yad Hilchoth, Tefillah XIV.) The same is true of the Tur and the Shulchan Aruch. (See Orah Hayyim 150.) Of course the Ark curtain has become customary, certainly since the sixteenth century, where it is mentioned in various responsa, but it has no legal status. For a full discussion, see Reform Responsa, p. 62 ff. Therefore, speaking from the point of view of the strict letter of the law, there is no ground for decision, prohibition, or permission with regard to the color of either the Ark curtain or the coverings (the mantles) of the Torah.

Since there is no strict legal basis for any decision, we must rely for our conclusion on whatever analogies are available. There is considerable discussion in the law making a connection between personal garments and the Ark curtain and Torah coverings. For example, there are many questions as to whether worn garments can be converted into an Ark curtain or Torah covering, or whether used-up Torah coverings should be made into shrouds for the dead and thus decently disposed of by burial. Hence, in order to come closer to our subject, it would be logical to consider the white garments worn on the holidays and to draw whatever analogy we can.

There is, of course, a widespread custom firmly based in the legal literature that the white kittel (the East European name) or the sargenes (the West European name) be worn by the worshiper on the Day of Atonement. It is also obvious that the white kittel was associated with the shrouds worn by the deceased. This fact is referred to specifically, for example, in the Hago’os Maimoniot to the Yad Hilchoth Sabbath, Chapter 30, where it is called “the garment of the dead.” Also, Moses Isserles in Orah Hayyim 610, where the Day of Atonement customs are discussed, says (4): “So it is the custom to wear the kittel which is white and pure and also is the garment of the dead.” If this interpretation of the meaning of the white garment is the correct and the basic meaning, namely that it is the garment of the dead and therefore is worn in humility on the Day of Atonement, then we would have to conclude by analogy that the white Ark curtain and the white Torah covers should be used only on the solemn days of the High Holy Days.

However, this somber interpretation of the white garments clearly is not the original or the basic one. Even as a garment to be worn on the solemn Day of Judgment, the earlier sources give it a different interpretation. The classic source for the older meaning is in the Palestinian Talmud, Rosh Hashonah, Chapter 1:3, where it is said: “Normally when a man has to face judgment, he wears black garments (to be humble in the face of a stern judge) but we wear white garments in joyous confidence that God will perform a miracle for us.” In other words, the white garments were garments of joy. This is also clear from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbas 114a, in which it is said that brides and grooms wear white. This Talmudic understanding of white garments as garments of joy is borne out by early Jewish custom; for is not the white kittel worn by the head of the household at the Passover Seder and by the cantor who prays the Mussaf on the last day of Succoth and the first days of Passover (i.e., for rain and for dew)? Furthermore, one of the earliest of the Rhineland authorities, Eliezer ben Joel Halevi (first half of the twelfth century) says in his code Raviah (Sabbath 197) that the sargenes was made especially for Sabbath wear, which certainly is a day of joy.

All this indicates that the basic and original meaning of white and the white garment was not somber dread but confident joy. Nevertheless, it is true that for historical and psychological reasons the white garment began to be associated with sorrow, and even the non-High Holy Day uses of it were given a somber meaning. The wearing of the white by the bride and groom was now described as due to the fact that their marriage day was a fast day (they were required to fast). The fact that it was worn at the Seder and otherwise at holidays was explained as a solemn warning to think of death in the times of joy. In other words, the white garment, originally a joyous garment even for the Day of Judgment (according to the Jerushalmi) eventually became, in its every use, associated with the shrouds of the dead. (See the description of this process of change from joyous to gloomy in Berliner, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, especially p. 48.)

How, then, should we decide our question? According to the law and the original meaning of the white garments, the white can be used for any occasion one wishes, and certainly for joyous occasions. But in accordance with the development of Jewish custom and mood, it has become associated with solemn and serious thoughts. I believe that we should respect the moods of the past few centuries (even though there is no strong legal ground for it) and keep the white garments primarily for the High Holy Days and perhaps for an occasional other holiday. It would be contrary to the mood of our tradition, though not of course of its strict law, to make the white coverings a permanent and common usage.