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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>RAF writes:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:4.8pt'>> It is very important to appreciate that the gemara in Megilla is talking about a system in which each oleh/olah read <b><u>for themselves</u></b>. Women (<b>if not for Kevod haTsibbur</b>) and Minors could get aliyyot - provided they read for >themselves. We make this >point very clearly and repeatedly in the paper. How someone not obligated (woman or minor) can read for the tsibbur is also discussed at length. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I agree, the discussion in the gemara in Megilla is indeed talking about a system in which each oleh/olah read for themselves. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>However the minhag amongst Sepharim, as evidenced by the katan who read when the Chief Rabbi came to visit a few weeks ago, includes for katanim to read *for gedolim* (as well as, sometimes, for themselves, and sometimes having an aliya when a gadol reads). Indeed, were a katan to be limited to only reading for himself, he would only end up learning one aliyah in a given parsha. What the system produces, however, are katanim who, by the time they are 10 or 11 and have been reading for 3-4 years, know virtually the entire Torah, with trop. It is an extraordinarily effective chinuch system, and sets the boy up for life.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This (ie katanim reading for gedolim) is a widespread practice in numbers of Sephardi communities, and we have absolutely no reason to suspect that it has not been going on ever since the split between the oleh and the ba'al koreh occurred over a thousand years ago. And this is the first suggestion, as far as I am aware, that there is any problem with the common practice (once it is accepted that katanim can have any involvement in the Torah reading at all). ie this is the first suggestion that distinctions need to be made within the roles that katanim can take vis a vis the Torah reading.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:4.8pt'>> But focus of our paper is not on this issue but on the question of how the <b><u>Oleh</u></b> can make a berakha when he is not the one who >does the ma'aseh mitsva, i.e., the one who reads aloud - but the ba'al korei. The institution of Ba'al >Korei did not exist at the time of >the Talmud and was introduced around the year 1000 just before the rishonim period. Once there is a bifurcated system, with one >individual making the berakhot and another doing the ma'aseh haMitsva -<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>And the majority rishonim, including the Rosh and the Beis Yosef, are fully cognisant of this problem, and resolve it by explaining that the oleh does do the ma'aseh mitzvah, he reads from the Torah - albeit quietly along with the ba'al koreh. Nothing has changed in that regard, just that the tzibbur does not hear him, rather they hear the ba'al koreh who is likely to be a more fluent reader who is more pleasant to listen to.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Even if the oleh does not actually read along (at least somewhat) in the Torah, so long as he is able to perform the ma'aseh mitzvah, it can be argued that he can still make the brachos on the basis of Rav Zera’s priniciple of kol haroyi l'bila ain bila makeves bo.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The problem is with a blind man who *cannot* perform the ma'aseh mitzvah. Some other solution has to be found if one is to allow for a blind man to have an aliyah. One suggestion posited by the minority rishonim and various achronim to allow a blind man specifically to have an aliyah is to rely in this case on shomea k'oneh. But there is no need, nor any suggestion, that thereby they are undermining the position of the majority rishonim that in the normal case the basis for the brochos is the quiet reading by the oleh. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In other words, the simplest and most straightforward reading of all the sources is that the majority position stands for the normal case, and in the special case of a blind man and similar, an alternative halachic justification and mechanism has been found, relying on minority opinions.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>However, what you appear to be arguing for is a situation where allowance in the special case is then used to dismiss the majority understanding in the normal case, and posit the special case as normative. And the fundamentally problematic nature of such a suggestion is that it thereby illegitimates practices that go back hundreds if not thousands of years in many communities involving katanim layning and gadolim getting the aliyos.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:4.8pt'> > "However, at this juncture we need to distinguish between minor males and adult women. Regarding minors, while they are not >fully obligated, there is an obligation for majors to educate them (hinnukh) in the fulfillment of mitsvot – >including keri’at ha-TorahThis educational obligation is sufficient to validate a one-directional transfer from the major to the minor. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But it is not one-directional as evidenced as above. If you want to argue that shomea k'oneh is the dominant mechanism even for normal aliyos, then you are ruling out the widespread minhag of katanim reading for gedolim across the Sephardi world. . I do not believe the Meharil or the Rema (who according to the Aruch HaShulchan (Orech Chaim siman 137 si’if 7) accepted the minhag of giving aliyos to blind men only reluctantly, it not actually being his opinion set out in the Darchei Moshe) ever intended or contemplated such a wholesale rejection of the majority rishonim and Shulchan Aruch. Rather they were merely allowing for a particular set of exceptional cases, and in those exceptional cases only, they were prepared to allow for minority halachic mechanisms such as shomea k'oneh that could run side by side with the normative majority supported ones that applied in the normal case. But such an understanding means that the normative situation remains: and katanim can read for gedolim, and ketanim can say brachos on their quiet reading from the Torah while a gadol ba’al koreh reads out loud, without needing to resort to questions of one directional transfer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:4.8pt'>>Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Regards<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Chana<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>