Please note: I am not writing this about any particular leining or baal keriah I have ever heard. That's not an empty disclaimer; it's serious.
People who listen to kriat haTorah [the public reading of the Torah in the synagogue] value different elements:
Some listen for ivra, the proper pronunciation and accenting of letters and words.
Others listen for accurate and pleasant musical renditions of the notes.
Some look for a pace and an enunciation that will allow them to hear each word clearly.
And still others listen for a pattern of emphasis that indicates an understanding of the words being read.
For me, the most important aesthetic [as opposed to halachic] element of leining is Passion.
I am disappointed when I hear "Cardboard Leining", when the words are pronounced and sung properly, according to halachah, but without heart. Torah should be exciting, emotional!
I want to hear a baal keriah who reads the words in a way that shows the emotion behind them – the anger, the joy, the fear, the humour of a particular passage.
This is not confined to the "story" parts of the chumash, either; many of the Torah's laws can also be read with emotion. Think, for example, of Shemot 28:29, "And Aharon will carry the names of the children of Israel upon his choshen hamishpat breastplate when he enters the sanctuary, as a memorial before Gd." Or Shemot 29:45-46, "And I will dwell among the Children of Israel, and I will be their Gd. And they will know that I am HaShem their Gd, who took them out of Egypt to dwell in midst; I am HaShem their Gd."
Perhaps if we had a more emotive leining, the Torah reading would be less of an opportunity for people to read articles or step outside.
Showing posts with label Judaism: Leining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judaism: Leining. Show all posts
Monday, June 17, 2013
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
A leining note from this past Shabbos
For 12 years I was the regular "baal keriah [Torah reader]" for my shuls, as well as the main Bar Mitzvah teacher. One of the elements I always tried to accentuate for myself and for my students was to place the emphasis on the proper syllable in a word. Putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable in a Hebrew word can change the meaning entirely.
I noticed an example of this in opening sentence of the Haftorah this past Shabbos, Yeshayah 60:1:
קומי אורי כי בא אורך
Kumi ori ki va oraych
If the second word is pronounced with the emphasis on the end (oh-REE, like the first African-American in the NHL), then the translation is, "Rise, my light, for your light has come."
But if the second word is pronounced with the emphasis on the beginning (OH-ree), then the translation is, "Rise, shine, for your light has come."
The latter is correct - and it's up to the baal keriah to get it right.
I noticed an example of this in opening sentence of the Haftorah this past Shabbos, Yeshayah 60:1:
קומי אורי כי בא אורך
Kumi ori ki va oraych
If the second word is pronounced with the emphasis on the end (oh-REE, like the first African-American in the NHL), then the translation is, "Rise, my light, for your light has come."
But if the second word is pronounced with the emphasis on the beginning (OH-ree), then the translation is, "Rise, shine, for your light has come."
The latter is correct - and it's up to the baal keriah to get it right.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Have Yad, Will Travel
I was taught to lein (read publicly from the torah) by one of the finest baalei keriah (Torah readers) I have ever heard, and the ability has served me very well, in many ways, over the years since.
When I was in RIETS, I spent a year as baal keriah for Young Israel of Massapequa, a small shul on Long Island. I lived in the shul (it was a converted home) every other Shabbat, leined, taught a class on Shabbat afternoons, and had a great time. It was a warm community of great people (and it didn't hurt that they paid well).
Move ahead a few years and I was ready to look for a shul. My soon-to-be Rebbetzin was in school in Boston, so we needed a shul in the general vicinity – and we found, through a family friend, Congregation Ohawe Sholam (yes, that's the way it's spelled), the Young Israel of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They needed a rabbi as well as a baal keriah, and I fit the bill. It was a great match; what a fantastic community. I also learned “the signs” there – a code of hand-gestures a gabbai could use to lead a baal keriah with decent peripheral vision. I wasn't a believer in the signs until the day I had to take over at the second aliyah of Vayyakhel-Pekudei, without preparation, and was able to complete it on the strength of those signs.
Fast-forward four years and we moved to Allentown, where, again, the shul needed both rabbi and baal keriah. I nearly didn't get the job – the other candidate was more charismatic, as I recall – but my leining definitely helped. I taught a series of gabbaim those signs, just to be on the safe side. The result was a wonderful eight years.
Jump ahead eight-plus years, to this morning. I'm in Toronto for a few days of meetings, and nervously mulling the fact that the community is so large that people can get by without being actively involved in leading its institutions. Certainly, people can always help other people, and can find roles to play when they wish, and Toronto is known for its activism, but if people aren't sought out, how many just fall through the communal cracks, going through life without becoming involved in making thing happen? This bothers me; I don't feel comfortable in that kind of environment. After the past 12 years, I feel at home in a community of people who are taking their time to make things happen, whether school or shul, eruv or Federation or mikveh or JCC or vaad hakashrut.
So this morning, as I'm finishing putting on tefillin at the 7:30 minyan (what a luxury – a 7:30 weekday minyan!), a gabbai from an earlier minyan comes by looking for a baal keriah. I volunteered, and “got the job.” I had a chance to help. Just three quick aliyot, but it made my morning and set a good tone for the day.
It was a tiny thing, but it was a way to see that, yes, even in mighty Toronto they come looking for you to help. And if you know how to handle a Yad, you'll be able to respond.
When I was in RIETS, I spent a year as baal keriah for Young Israel of Massapequa, a small shul on Long Island. I lived in the shul (it was a converted home) every other Shabbat, leined, taught a class on Shabbat afternoons, and had a great time. It was a warm community of great people (and it didn't hurt that they paid well).
Move ahead a few years and I was ready to look for a shul. My soon-to-be Rebbetzin was in school in Boston, so we needed a shul in the general vicinity – and we found, through a family friend, Congregation Ohawe Sholam (yes, that's the way it's spelled), the Young Israel of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They needed a rabbi as well as a baal keriah, and I fit the bill. It was a great match; what a fantastic community. I also learned “the signs” there – a code of hand-gestures a gabbai could use to lead a baal keriah with decent peripheral vision. I wasn't a believer in the signs until the day I had to take over at the second aliyah of Vayyakhel-Pekudei, without preparation, and was able to complete it on the strength of those signs.
Fast-forward four years and we moved to Allentown, where, again, the shul needed both rabbi and baal keriah. I nearly didn't get the job – the other candidate was more charismatic, as I recall – but my leining definitely helped. I taught a series of gabbaim those signs, just to be on the safe side. The result was a wonderful eight years.
Jump ahead eight-plus years, to this morning. I'm in Toronto for a few days of meetings, and nervously mulling the fact that the community is so large that people can get by without being actively involved in leading its institutions. Certainly, people can always help other people, and can find roles to play when they wish, and Toronto is known for its activism, but if people aren't sought out, how many just fall through the communal cracks, going through life without becoming involved in making thing happen? This bothers me; I don't feel comfortable in that kind of environment. After the past 12 years, I feel at home in a community of people who are taking their time to make things happen, whether school or shul, eruv or Federation or mikveh or JCC or vaad hakashrut.
So this morning, as I'm finishing putting on tefillin at the 7:30 minyan (what a luxury – a 7:30 weekday minyan!), a gabbai from an earlier minyan comes by looking for a baal keriah. I volunteered, and “got the job.” I had a chance to help. Just three quick aliyot, but it made my morning and set a good tone for the day.
It was a tiny thing, but it was a way to see that, yes, even in mighty Toronto they come looking for you to help. And if you know how to handle a Yad, you'll be able to respond.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Orthodox Women should learn to lein
[Note: "leining" refers to singing the Torah’s text according to the "trop" (the traditional cantillation).]
I must admit that I am biased in this matter; my mother was the one who would listen to me practice leining on many Friday nights, and correct both my pronunciation and my trop. Nonetheless, I am dismayed by the modern practice of teaching boys to lein, and not teaching girls likewise.
A commenter here does mention one Bais Yaakov that teaches girls to lein, but that’s it – and this is a mistake. Women should learn to lein.
I attribute this omission in Orthodox women’s education to three factors:
1) The relegation of “leining” to Bar Mitzvah training;
2) A general lack of appreciation for the way that leining affects the meaning of a pasuk, and the way it helps children learn;
3) The lack of time afforded to chumash education in schools, in general.
To address the former two factors (because the last needs its own essay!): Leining is supposed to be fundamental to the way anyone reads chumash, and it is supposed to be taught when we first train our children to read chumash.
This is hardly my own thought; it’s an explicit gemara:
A mishnah in Nedarim (35b in the Vilna Shas) discusses whether a man may teach another man’s children if an outstanding oath currently prohibits him from “benefiting” that person. The mishnah says, ומלמד הוא את בניו ואת בנותיו מקרא, that this man may teach the other one’s “sons and daughters” chumash.
In the course of that discussion (36b), the gemara discusses teaching those children פיסוק טעמים, the use of music to read words and phrases, and the gemara makes it clear that both boys and girls classically studied this, as part of learning how to read chumash.
This teaches us two points:
1) Leining was taught as part of basic reading (and for more on this see a brief essay by Dr. Daniel Lasker here), and
2) Girls classically learned it, too.
Which brings me to an old article I happened across today, at the amusingly titled What’s Bothering Artscroll? blog. The article notes that the Artscroll Women’s Siddur does not include the trop notes for Shema, and wonders why the notes were omitted.
In truth, I did not know until very recently that there was an Artscroll Women’s Siddur. My wife, the grand Rebbetzin, wonders whether there should not also be an Artscroll Men’s Siddur. I think this would be an excellent idea. Perhaps it might contain an expanded Halachah section on how to deal with conflicts between the Super Bowl and night seder, how to send regards to your chavrusa’s wife without violating Shulchan Aruch Even haEzer, how often a tallit katan must be washed, and the like.
But to return to the matter at hand: If there must be a separate, women’s edition, why omit the trop? Women are supposed to know it, too!
I do not consider myself an innovator, but the restoration of leining education for women would be no innovation – it would be a return to the path laid down by the chachamim for educating our children.
I must admit that I am biased in this matter; my mother was the one who would listen to me practice leining on many Friday nights, and correct both my pronunciation and my trop. Nonetheless, I am dismayed by the modern practice of teaching boys to lein, and not teaching girls likewise.
A commenter here does mention one Bais Yaakov that teaches girls to lein, but that’s it – and this is a mistake. Women should learn to lein.
I attribute this omission in Orthodox women’s education to three factors:
1) The relegation of “leining” to Bar Mitzvah training;
2) A general lack of appreciation for the way that leining affects the meaning of a pasuk, and the way it helps children learn;
3) The lack of time afforded to chumash education in schools, in general.
To address the former two factors (because the last needs its own essay!): Leining is supposed to be fundamental to the way anyone reads chumash, and it is supposed to be taught when we first train our children to read chumash.
This is hardly my own thought; it’s an explicit gemara:
A mishnah in Nedarim (35b in the Vilna Shas) discusses whether a man may teach another man’s children if an outstanding oath currently prohibits him from “benefiting” that person. The mishnah says, ומלמד הוא את בניו ואת בנותיו מקרא, that this man may teach the other one’s “sons and daughters” chumash.
In the course of that discussion (36b), the gemara discusses teaching those children פיסוק טעמים, the use of music to read words and phrases, and the gemara makes it clear that both boys and girls classically studied this, as part of learning how to read chumash.
This teaches us two points:
1) Leining was taught as part of basic reading (and for more on this see a brief essay by Dr. Daniel Lasker here), and
2) Girls classically learned it, too.
Which brings me to an old article I happened across today, at the amusingly titled What’s Bothering Artscroll? blog. The article notes that the Artscroll Women’s Siddur does not include the trop notes for Shema, and wonders why the notes were omitted.
In truth, I did not know until very recently that there was an Artscroll Women’s Siddur. My wife, the grand Rebbetzin, wonders whether there should not also be an Artscroll Men’s Siddur. I think this would be an excellent idea. Perhaps it might contain an expanded Halachah section on how to deal with conflicts between the Super Bowl and night seder, how to send regards to your chavrusa’s wife without violating Shulchan Aruch Even haEzer, how often a tallit katan must be washed, and the like.
But to return to the matter at hand: If there must be a separate, women’s edition, why omit the trop? Women are supposed to know it, too!
I do not consider myself an innovator, but the restoration of leining education for women would be no innovation – it would be a return to the path laid down by the chachamim for educating our children.
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