Keri’at Ha-Torah I: The Reading

The Torah commands the Jewish people to gather at the end of each Sabbatical year to hear the king read from the Torah. This assembly is known as hakhel:

Once every seven years, hakhel provides an opportunity to echo Sinai: to hear the words of the Torah as part of a powerful experience amidst the entirety of the Jewish people, and to learn from that Torah.

The institution of ritual public Torah reading, keri’at ha-Torah, on a more regular basis is not commanded in the Torah. However, the practice goes back even farther than the first hakhel, to an enactment of Moshe Rabbeinu:

According to the mishna, part of Moshe’s enactment was to designate the portions for each Rosh Chodesh, special Shabbat, and holiday that highlight the day’s significance.¹ The Talmud adds that the initial enactment of keri’at ha-Torah included regular Shabbatot, Mondays, and Thursdays, ensuring that the Jewish people would not go three full days without the essential spiritual nourishment of Torah:²

From our earliest weeks as a people, we thirsted for the connection that comes with hearing God’s words. This seems to have been the focus of the first weekday and regular Shabbat Torah readings.³ They were brief; either one person would read three verses or three people would read one verse each. This provided a sort of minimal meaningful unit of connection:

The symbolic linkage of the number of verses with Kohen, Levi, and Yisrael fits neatly with the halacha of first calling up a Kohen and then a Levi to the Torah.⁴ This symbolism also emphasizes the shared bond of all parts of the Jewish people to Torah.⁵ To strengthen that connection, Ezra the scribe issued a Torah-reading enactment of his own, expanding on the first one:

Ezra’s enactment added a reading on Shabbat afternoon, and established a new structure for keriat ha-Torah: three readers and at least ten verses total for Shabbat afternoons, Mondays, and Thursdays.

Both Moshe and Ezra themselves formally read Torah to the people.⁶ Ezra’s reading incorporated many of the ritual features of keri’at ha-Torah still in place today: a gathering of all who can understand—male and female, reading from atop a raised platform, opening the Torah so all can see, the reader reciting a beracha, and the people responding to it.

Ezra focused on making the Torah “explained” and understood, so that the reading could be a means of both hearing God’s word and learning it in public, as hakhel had been. The institution of a metargem (translator) who would repeat every verse, translated into the Aramaic vernacular, also derives from Ezra’s reading and further entrenches keri’at ha-Torah as a communal act of Talmud Torah (learning Torah).⁷ Rashi explains that the Targum is meant to ensure that the unlearned, both men and women, could understand the reading:

Keri’at ha-Torah, like hakhel, harkens back to the revelation at Sinai, as an act of listening to the word of God “with quaking and trembling”⁸ and of learning from it for the entire Jewish people. The reader, in a sense, plays the role of God on High or of Moshe, His intermediary, to whom the people respond. The Talmud Yerushalmi makes this comparison explicit, referring to the metargem:

Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik develops the idea:

A symbolic reenactment of receiving the Torah demands the presence of a symbolic representation of the Jewish people. Perhaps this is why Torah reading appears in the mishna’s list of rituals requiring a quorum of ten men.

Many halachic authorities thus view Torah reading itself as a davar she-bikdusha, an act that sanctifies God’s name.⁹

We’ve seen that Moshe Rabbeinu’s enactment entailed a minimum of one reader and three verses, and Ezra’s at least three readers and ten verses. In another step, noted by the Mishna, the other Shabbat and holiday readings took on numbers of readers that varied with the special features of each day:

For some readings, the mishna permits adding to the number of readers (in practice, typically restricted to Shabbat and Simchat Torah).¹⁰ The mishna also mentions the institution of a reader from the Prophets, known as maftir, who would first read from the Torah in order to show honor to it¹¹ but who would not count toward the seven.¹²

We have seen that keri’at ha-Torah requires the presence of a minyan. The obligation of keri’at ha-Torah is typically understood as communal.¹³ An individual should participate in a communal ritual obligation, but may be required to do so only if otherwise there will be no quorum.

The Talmud relates that Rav Sheshet would learn by himself during the Torah reading.

Though it is possible that Rav Sheshet’s was a unique case, a simple reading of this passage seems to indicate that he had no personal obligation to hear the reading, and thus that the obligation is communal.

Indeed, Ramban describes keri’at ha-Torah as a communal obligation. He explicitly contrasts keri’at ha-Torah with keri’at ha-megilla (megilla reading) on Purim, which is an individual obligation:

Ramban specifies that the communal obligation applies to “those who are obligated in the matter.” His meaning is unclear,¹⁴ in part because the nature of a communal obligation is subject to debate. Once keri’at ha-Torah is taking place, individual community members may be free of any obligation.¹⁵ Or they may be free of obligation so long as a minyan of them listens attentively.¹⁶ Or perhaps all present have an obligation to hear the Torah being read.

In the Talmud, Rava teaches that we should follow the lead of the people of Ezra’s time and spend the Torah reading in quiet attention. Rava may view the obligation of keri’at ha-Torah as communal, but require attentive listening among those present, as a show of respect and awe.¹⁷

Shulchan Aruch records a range of views on what is required of those present for keri’at ha-Torah. He ultimately describes attentive listening to keri’at ha-Torah as fitting, but not clearly obligatory. He contrasts this with the personal, Torah-level obligation in Parashot Zachor and Para:

The view that keri’at ha-Torah is a communal obligation to hear the Torah has been widely embraced, including by more recent halachic authorities such as Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Ovadya Yosef.¹⁸ Rav Auerbach writes that an obligation to hear the Torah only applies to those already present in synagogue.

Now that we’ve looked at the nature of the obligation, we can ask how it relates to women hearing or reading keri’at ha-Torah.

According to the prevalent view that keri’at ha-Torah is indeed a communal obligation, the individual’s basic responsibility is to ensure the presence of a minyan so that it can take place. Since a woman does not count toward this minyan, she cannot be included in the communal obligation to help form it.

Some early halachic authorities make a different argument for women’s not being obligated. They view keri’at ha-Torah as a communal act of Talmud Torah (Torah study), and infer from women’s exemption from the formal mitzva of Talmud Torah that women are exempt from any obligation in keri’at ha-Torah. This would be in contrast to minor boys, who are not themselves obligated in Talmud Torah, but whose fathers must teach them.

Though women’s exemption seems straightforward among early halachic authorities, we find more ambiguous language in Masechet Soferim:

That “women are obligated to hear the reading of a book like men” implies an obligation in keri’at ha-Torah. However, a close reading seems to indicate that Masechet Soferim refers specifically to Megillat Eicha (in which case, the meaning of “obligated” here is unclear),¹⁹ while women’s hearing the Targum of keri’at ha-Torah is desirable but not obligatory.

As above, women were part of the reason for the institution of the Targum in the first place, as an opportunity to understand Torah and mitzvot. Women were included in hakhel and in Ezra’s reading. Does this rich history of women hearing keri’at ha-Torah have halachic implications?

Magen Avraham suggests that it does. He interprets the phrase “reading of a book” in Masechet Soferim broadly. Based on that phrase, on women’s obligation in the mitzva of hakhel, and on a Talmudic statement (that we’ll get to shortly), he suggests that women might in fact have an obligation to hear keri’at ha-Torah, at least when present for it:

Magen Avraham concludes his comments by citing a custom in his locale for women to leave the synagogue during the Torah reading. While it’s not clear why the women would leave, it may have been a function of the lack of Targum into Yiddish. His acknowledgment of the custom without protest implies a concession that any obligation for women to hear keri’at ha-Torah would apply only to those present for it.²⁰

A couple of centuries later, Aruch Ha-shulchan rejects the comparison to hakhel and argues vociferously that women are not obligated in keri’at ha-Torah in any way. He cites the relationship of keri’at ha-Torah to the formal mitzva of Talmud Torah as one reason, and then notes that keri’at ha-Torah is a positive and time-bound commandment, from which women are typically exempt,²¹ a suggestion raised centuries earlier in Tosafot (below).²²

Halachic consensus remains that women have no obligation to attend Torah reading. Common practice reflects this. As Aruch Ha-shulchan notes, hearing keri’at ha-Torah every week would not be practically tenable for many women. It remains praiseworthy, though, for women to hear keri’at ha-Torah.

Even assuming she is exempt, a woman should listen attentively when present for keri’at ha-Torah. In so doing, she voluntarily participates in fulfillment of a communal mitzva.

As in our discussion of tefilla be-tzibbur, communal prayer, it is not clear whether a man has an obligation beyond ensuring the minyan, while it is widely agreed that a woman does not. On the other hand, when a woman hears keri’at ha-Torah, she is a member of the community fulfilling the mitzva. (See more here.)

Many women arriving late for synagogue make up prayers during Torah reading. Rav Elyashiv, however, rules that this practice is not ideal:

In other words, though a woman arriving late to synagogue may be permitted to make up Shemoneh Esrei during Torah reading, this is specifically when she will otherwise miss the time for prayer. In other cases, it is preferable for a woman to delay making up prayer until after Torah reading, so that she can listen to it and thus, as Rav Shachter notes, fulfill the mitzva.

Who can read from the Torah in public? The Talmud tells us that the fundamental halacha allows for “everyone” to count toward the seven readers on Shabbat, including women.24. However, the same passage teaches that women are not permitted to read in practice, because of an ancillary reason: kevod ha-tzibbur, the honor of the congregation.

We discuss kevod ha-tzibbur and the resulting practical halacha, here. Our current focus, though, is on the rationale behind a woman’s being able to read at all, even in theory, given that women do not count toward the minyan for keri’at ha-Torah and are widely understood to be exempt from hearing it.

Halachic authorities have explained this rationale in a few ways, following from their understandings of the halachic role of the person reading the Torah.

I. Discharging Obligation Is the role of the reader to discharge the obligation of keri’at ha-Torah? Only a person who is fully obligated in a mitzva can discharge others’ obligation in that mitzva.

If women are fully obligated in keri’at ha-Torah like men, then that could help explain why women count toward the seven readers. In fact, this line of argument is what first led Magen Avraham to suggest that women are obligated in keri’at ha-Torah.

Given that Magen Avraham’s view is rejected, though, one could argue instead that keri’at ha-Torah requires only some readers to discharge obligations, and that our sages expanded the pool of potential readers beyond those able to discharge the obligation, in order to facilitate finding seven qualified readers.

This view also would explain how women might count as readers without counting toward the requisite minyan. Similarly, Rabbeinu Nissim suggests that women can be some, but not all , of the readers, because women cannot fully discharge the obligation:

The minimum number of readings that adult men must perform in order to discharge the community’s obligation may be more specific. The minimum may be three readers, to satisfy Ezra’s enactment, which would leave up to four readings open to women. Or it might suffice for a single reader to discharge obligations, to satisfy Moshe’s enactment, leaving up to five open to women, after a Kohen and Levi have read the Torah.²⁵

Alternatively, as Maharam reportedly rules regarding a bondsman, who is exempt from positive time-bound commandments like women, the mishna might only allow for a woman to count for the seventh reading:

In our next piece, we’ll see Tosafot make a similar suggestion.

II. Making it Heard If the obligation in keriat ha-Torah is simply that the Torah be heard, then perhaps it is irrelevant whether the reader can discharge obligations. The reader’s essential role might be to read the Torah audibly, in which case it may not matter who does so. Meiri cites this view with respect to a minor:

Rav Moshe Feinstein applies this reasoning to women readers as well.

Either understanding of the reader’s role in keri’at ha-Torah can account for why a woman should theoretically be able to read Torah for the congregation. Since the first two aliyyot are reserved for a Kohen or Levi, though, and since the Talmud speaks only of the Shabbat reading, even that theoretical ability is limited. According to the view that the reader discharges obligations, it may be limited further to the last one or four of the seven readings on Shabbat.

Still, theoretical and practical limitations on women’s reading do not detract from the halachic value of women hearing keri’at ha-Torah.

In our next piece, we’ll look at the aliya la-Torah and at readings in women’s tefilla groups.