The Fine Art of Torah Laining ("Reading") -- Part I

Torah Reader (courtesy of
http://www.majorreligions.com)

[For some background regarding this post, readers may wish to look at the April 4 entry in Notes to Readers]

The process of reading from the Torah scroll, often known as "laining" from the Yiddish word for "reading," is the modern manifestation of a folkway that was introduced when the Jewish people returned from their exile in Babylonia circa 538 BC(E). A public reading of the Torah was considered essential to ensure that the people had no barriers between them and access to the Torah, of particular importance in an era when the only access to the text was via scrolls that were handwritten on parchment and were not readily accessible.

It is thus more than a little ironic that, certainly outside of Israel, those who read the Torah, not to mention those who hear the reading, typically do not speak Hebrew as their first language, often do not speak Hebrew at all and, therefore, do not understand what they are reading. Moreover, this is true even though there is at least some rabbinical authority permitting the Torah to be read in the vernacular. But, as I've noted elsewhere (see my blog piece entitled The Role of Hebrew In The Prayer Service - Part II), there is something special, even magical, about the Hebrew and the Bible is just not the same in another language.

The solution to the language problem was to develop a system of musical notes and diacritical marks that enable a reader to recite the Torah portion based solely on an ability to, in my parlance, "operate the alphabet," i.e. to sound out the Hebrew letters even without knowing the meaning of the words that are recited. This system is known in Hebrew as "te'amim," or, in the more common Yiddish, as "trope" (and the latter will be used in this piece).

The sounds attached to the trope vary both within the Ashkenazic (German rite) tradition and the Sephardic (Spanish/Mediterrenean) renderings, with numerous regional and even sub-regional variations. For example, the trope I use is Lithuanian. I acquired it because it was the trope used by my Bar Mitzvah teacher (see An Appreciation of Rabbi Samuel Graudenz (z'l)); it sounds somewhat similar to standard German tropes but is clearly distinct. Readers curious as to the sound of this particular trope are welcome to sample it via this link. An example of a more standard Ashkenazic (German rite) Torah trope can be found via Wikipedia's article on Cantillation using this link.

Here is a chart of the teamim/trope, so you can get a sense of what they look like: 

But it is a little inaccurate to talk about the trope in terms of musical notes only. Their placement also indicates phrasing and grammar and a reader who does not understand Hebrew, if the trope is studied very carefully, can do a highly credible job reading the text even without understanding the Hebrew.

The traditional process by which Torah reading is learned and the trope is absorbed is through the use of a book called a "Tikkun." The Tikkun contains two columns of text; on the left appears the unvowelled Torah portion; on the right there is a column in which the same words contain vowels and the trope. Readers can study the text from the vowelled/trope of the Tikkun and then transfer the acquired knowledge to the unvowelled side. Here's an example of a Tikkun page [you can click once and one other time to magnify the text below]:

[Trope Trainer (tm), from which the above sample page was obtained, is a computerized version of the conventional Tikkun (and much more) that is worth a review in and of itself, which I will do at some point, along with a review of some of the different Tikkunim that are currently available.]

[Ed.:  I have since done that review, entitled Product Reviews – Trope Trainer™, PocketTorah & Tikkun Korim.]

Some Torah readers are what I might call "textbook naturals." They acquire the text seemingly without effort and are capable of reading long portions with relative ease. Others, like me, find the process much more laborious. Yet others struggle and, sadly, some just don't do it quite right. There is considerable variation in both the skillset and the attention paid by readers, so much so that I have generally classified Torah readers into four categories, which I describe below.

Category One -- Text & Trope Together

The best readers I know combine an understanding of the Hebrew with the technical skill to apply the trope. Readers in this category can often do with Torah laining (reading) what an opera singer can do with a libretto -- interpret the text through the chanting (although much also depends on the text -- passionately reading the great narratives of Genesis is one thing; reciting the list of what the High Priest is wearing is quite another matter). Add a pleasing voice and such readers are a treat and often an inspiration. They are also few and far between, at least in the United States and, in particular, on the West Coast outside of the Greater Los Angeles area. One of the particular joys of the independent minyan of which I am a member, the Mission Minyan, is the consistently high quality of the laining, even if it makes more plodding readers like me work all that much harder to meet a high standard. [See also The Role Of Hebrew In the Prayer Service -- Fourth In A Series (Discovering the Mission Minyan)]

Category Two -- Trope Well Lained

Readers in this category are dependent on the trope to flesh out the outlines of the reading. Practitioners who learn both the mechanics of the reading and the trope carefully can produce a highly credible rendition of the Torah, one that can be very close to, if not equal, to Category One, particularly if the reader studies the text in translation to help with the phrasing. Just as there are courses in how to sing opera without knowing the vernacular of the particular aria that is being sung, a really good Category Two reader can figure out the way the text is put together even without understanding the Hebrew.

Cagtegory Three -- Trope Not So Well Lained

This category, sadly, seems to be more prevalent as more and more synagogues, certainly in the Conservative Movement, dispense with the services of a paid ba'al koreh (Hebrew for "Torah Reader") and standards drop for lack of proctoring and supervision. (This is not unrelated to the demise, in many congregations, of professional cantors as such people often had responsibility for Torah laining or at least supervision.) Such readers pay less attention both to the text and the trope and produce a middling product. Notably, one of the real deficits of such readers involves the phrasing of the Hebrew. The default rule in Hebrew is for the accent to fall on the second syllable -- which is counterintuitive for most English speakers, certainly American ones, with the result that, when left on their own, there are a high number of instances where the accent is placed on the wrong part of the word. For people who understand Hebrew, or at least how Hebrew is to be pronounced, listening to Category Three readers is something of a trial, at least to those relatively few in the congregation who actually know what is going on.

Category Four -- The Tape Recorder Readers

Learning the trope, even badly, requires effort. Sadly, some wannabe readers, particularly those who are reading for a specific occasion, take the easiest possible way out and just learn from a tape (or digital equivalent). Such readers are typically pretty bad and often trip themselves up as they have no fallback due to their not learning the trope, much less understanding what they read. I've seen more and more of such readers both among Bar/Bat Mitzvah students (particularly in the Reform Movement) and among adults who want to read the Torah on one particular occasion but are unwilling (or unable) to acquire the trope or put the time into the project that it really requires (or have no one to assist).

Readers in all categories make mistakes from time to time, of course. That is simply a function of human nature. There are therefore two gabbaim (functionaries) who are typically stationed at the table from where the Torah is read whose job is to correct the reader when such mistakes are made. Correction is itself an art, and I'll explain precisely why in Part II of this piece [which can be found at The Fine Art of Torah Laining ("Reading") -- Part II, posted on April 14, 2013.  Ed.]