We had a hagbah workshop/practice after services this past Shabbat, and my hagbah skills continue to expand.
For those not in the know, hagbah is one of our weirder mitzvot, especially the Ashkenazi version. The idea is to show off the Torah portion. Ashkenazim keep the Torah scroll in a cloth robe, which is taken off to read, so the Torah is out there on the reader's table naked. After the reading is finished, Ashkenazim select someone (who knows what they're doing) to pick the scroll up off the table and hold it open, showing three columns of text, to the congregation, who chant a little bracha that says, in essence, "Yup, that there's the Torah."
(Sephardim and Italkim do it differently. My synagogue is Ashkenazi, so this is the version I'm learning.)
The thing is, a synagogue's Torah scroll is generally not a small, compact object. They do vary in size, but they are two large-ish wooden spindles (about 18 - 24 inches) with wooden discs supporting about 90 feet of handwritten parchment scroll. They can also weigh between 20 and 40 pounds. They are elegant, but not particularly stable, especially when you're holding the spindles shoulder width apart with just a Very Expensive piece of parchment connecting them.
Now, this can be done -- it is done in synagogues around the world, every week, without incident. There's Technique™ involved, too; it looks like a feat of brute strength, but, as our workshop instructor points out, quite a lot of it is body mechanics and balance. This is why we're having workshops, so that everyone has the opportunity to learn how to do it. The typical person chosen as magbiah (the person who performs hagbah) is a sturdily-built middle-aged man, but with the right technique, most adults can do it, even teeny tiny women in heels.
I can do a perfectly good hagbah with a lightweight scroll opened evenly. And I've done it twice for the Women Cantors' Network, with such scrolls. These last two hagbah workshops, I've been improving my skills with larger, heavier scrolls and, at the one this past Shabbat, the ones that are lopsided, like at the beginning or end of the Torah cycle, where we're in Bereshit or D'varim and most of the weight of the scroll is on one side or the other. (The secret here is modified technique.)
Our instructor was talking all about the rules of doing hagbah and all the precautions taken "for the honor of the Torah." Which I get -- we do things for honor all the time. What I don't get is . . . that's a lot of concern for honor in the details, but the mitzvah itself is an act that has approximately the same peril-to-potential-cringe-comedy rating as a kegstand. I guess a beautifully, elegantly done kegstand would be a thing of joy and honor, but it's still a kegstand.
The instructor agreed that there was in fact something fundamentally weird about Ashkenazi hagbah. But, of course, if you're going to do it, you have to do it right, both for the safety of the Torah scroll and your own personal safety. And, hey, I have successfully lifted a heavy, D'varim-lopsided scroll twice in practice now, though not in a service. All my service hagbah has been with smaller, more evenly rolled scrolls.
And then the instructor said that he was putting together an all-female hagbah team for the holidays, and that I'm probably going to be on it. YIKES.
