Please Rise / Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat; Sitting, Standing, & Which Direction to Face (Part 1 of 3 of a Series on Embodied Prayer)

Thanks to the Adult Ed Committee of Temple Israel of Natick, Rabbis Sam Blumberg, Ethan Tucker, Avi Killip, Ebn Leader, Gabe Greenberg, Michael Broyde, Sefaria, Dr. Sol Mowshowitz, and Tamar Fox for their help and inspiration

Put examples in chat of motions, gestures, or postures that accompany prayer

What's the connection between the posture and gestures of prayer and the words and ideas?

What are some of the reasons that we might stand for a prayer?

What about sitting?

What did Rabbi Tarfon do wrong, according to the sages?

Mishnah Berurah 1884, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, commentary on Orach Chayim section of Shulchan Aruch

MB 7: To stand – This specifically is forbidden, because it appears to everyone that he is doing it to follow the stringency. However, if he is standing he is permitted to sit down, because it does not look like he is following a stringency but rather just needs to sit. This is only true in the morning – in the evening, he should not lean over or sit if he is standing, because it will look like he is following the Yeshiva of Shammai [who said that one should stand up in the morning (“and when you get up”) and sit in the evening (“and when you lie down”)].

Sitting/Standing Joke (that's the tradition!)

Rabbi David Golinkin:

1. Sitting for Kaddish

Rav Natronai Gaon (ninth century) was asked:

A person who enters the synagogue and finds the congregation who are responding to Kedushah or Yehi Shemo Hagadol [ = the refrain of Kaddish] when they are standing for Kedushah or sitting for Kaddish, may he answer when he is sitting and they are standing or vice versa, or what is the correct practice?

So it is good to do: When they stand, stand; and when they sit, sit; and don’t stand out from the entire congregation.

The questioner was not directly interested in our topic, but we learn from his question that the congregation normally sat for Kaddish.

Maimonides (1135-1204) says (Hilkhot Tefillah 9:1-5) that the congregation sits until the Amidah and only the Sheliah Tzibbur (the prayer leader) stands beginning with Kaddish and Barekhu.

2. It is Forbidden to Stand for Kaddish or Barekhu Because of Yohara

Rabbi Yehizkiya of Magdeburg (Germany, 13th century) ruled that those who stand in the synagogue for Barekhu or Yehey Shmey Rabbah [the refrain of the Kaddish], it seems to me that we protest because it appears like yohara [=haughtiness to appear more observant than others]

3. If One Asks the Answer is “No”, but One Does Not Protest if One Stands

This was the response of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (ca. 1220-1293): “Of course, one who asks, he is instructed not to stand, but [if he stands], one does not protest, since his heart is directed towards Heaven”. In other words, one who stands for Kaddish and Barekhu is not guilty of yohara; he does so out of true piety and we do not protest.

4. If One is Standing When the Sheliah Tzibbur recites the Kaddish, One Continues to Stand

This was the custom of the Maharil, R. Ya’akov Moellin (Austria, ca. 1360-1427) and the Ari, R. Yitzhak Luria (Safed, 1534-1572). According to his disciple R. Zalman, the Maharil would not stand neither for Kaddish nor for Barekhu, but any Kaddish that caught him standing, he remained standing until [the Sheliah Tzibbur] finished” Amen, Yehey Shmey Rabbah”.

5. Standing for Kaddish

This is the opinion of Massekhet Soferim (21:5, ed. Higger, p. 358):

[On Shabbat] after the Torah scroll is returned to its place, they recite Kaddish. to teach that Kaddish is not recited on Rosh Hodesh, fast days, Monday and Thursday, Hol Hamoed, Hanukkah, Purim until they return the Torah scroll to its place, when the people stand and they respond Yehey Shmey Rabbah while standing.

Massekhet Soferim is considered by many modern scholars to be a Palestinian work from the eighth century...

Judges 3:5 in which Ehud Ben Gera says to Eglon King of Moab: “I want to tell you the word of God, and [Eglon] stood up from the chair”.

Indeed, standing for every Kaddish became the standard practice among many Ashkenazic Jews, due to the influence of Rabbi Moshe Isserles, the Rema (Cracow, 1525-1572). (see below)

Rabbis Ethan Tucker and Avi Killip:

Rav Eitan: It became very common in many Ashkenazi communities to stand for kaddish, but also important to remember that the earlier practice, and still the practice in most non-Ashkenazi communities and in a number of Hasidic communities is not to stand for kaddish.

Hadar Podcast: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/339284.28?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

(note from KR: I quoted this fantastic podcast at length below, only quoting a few snippets in class, but I recommend listening to or reading the whole thing)

Rav Eitan Tucker: So what you just said is actually beautifully captured by the first text I want to share here, which comes from another kind of marginal extra-canonical tractate called Masekhet Derekh Eretz. Basically, you know, the tractate of behaving like a decent human being. And here's what the text says, it's really kind of an amazing text. A person should never be awake among those who are sleeping, nor sleeping among those who are awake, crying among those who are laughing, laughing among those who are crying. One should not sit among those who are standing, nor stand among those who are sitting. One shouldn't study scripture, you know, Torah, Tanakh, in the midst of people who are studying Mishnah, nor vice versa. And then it says here's the general principle: a person should not make themselves very different from the disposition, I would translate it as, of the people around them. Alright?

Now, this is an amazing text, before we get too nervous about the conformity that this is potentially imposing -- this is an amazing text, kind of framed in very halakhic language, that is saying you need to be very sensitive to your surroundings. And part of the way you should comport yourself is to look around and don't stick out like a sore thumb. When the mood is jovial, don't you go around and start crying and throwing everyone off in an emotional way, and vice versa. And, you know, what's great about this text for our question is, that extends not just to kind of the overt emotions of things like laughing and crying, but to the sort of implicit emotions involved in things like standing and sitting, sleeping and being awake -- these are all very meaningful postures and states of being that have to take into account our context.

Rav Avi Killip: The thing that makes me nervous about this text is that it makes me wonder, should I just stay home if I'm different? Am I supposed to change to match the community, or does it mean don't be a part of community when you're in a different mode?

Rav Eitan: Yeah. So let's go to the second text, because I think you're not the only one who was nervous about it. The Talmud in Ta'anit tells us a story about the Babylonian sage Rav. And here's what happens. Rav goes to what seems to be a synagogue in a certain town on a public fast day, okay? The public fast day piece here seems to indicate a lot of people are there, and it's a kind of, you know, intensely emotional time, and one of the things that happens during the service he's at is everyone is falling down flat on the floor. They're doing nefilat apayim, what many people do today during tachanun, the kind of supplications after the amidah every morning, where you kind of do this little leaning over, maybe on your arm -- that used to be a much more dramatic posture of really going significantly down to the floor, much like, let's say, people still do on Yom Kippur, other times like that. And Rav is in a community where everyone is doing that.

But, the story says, he does not. Okay? So the image you should have is, in exact contradiction to the text that we just read, right, everyone is down flat, and Rav is standing up. The Talmud wants to know, first of all, just technically, well, why didn't he? Like why didn't -- you know, when in Rome, why did he not do as the Romans did? And they offer three different possibilities. One possibility is that, well, there's a law where it's forbidden to fall down flat on a stone floor. This goes back to an interpretation of a verse in Vayikra, in Leviticus, and it turned out that Rav had a section of stone floor right in front of him where he was standing in that synagogue.

Rav Avi: This sounds a little bit like an excuse to me.

Rav Eitan: Well… apparently no one else had it, he did. And he therefore felt it was forbidden for him to do what everyone else was doing. Why didn't he just move away from that place? The Talmud says he didn't want to bother people. Either it was very packed -- you know it was a public fast day, and he would have had to sort of elbow people out of the way -- or it might be that by the time he got there, he'd be starting later, he would delay things. Whatever it was, he felt uncomfortable, and therefore because there was no kind of permitted way for him to bow down there, he didn't do it. That's option one.

Rav Avi: So one way to read that option is, if you have some extenuating circumstance that makes it reasonable that you would be behaving differently than other people, that's reasonable. So his maybe the floor, but mine may be, you know, I have trouble standing or, you know, whatever the reason is. That's one reason why I might be doing something different.

Rav Eitan: Yeah.

Rav Avi: One legitimate reason.

Rav Eitan: That's right. Reading it even -- if we were to read it most conservatively, it minimally says well, when there's, like, a reason that would forbid you from actually behaving like everyone else, then we don't expect conformity. And I think your question implicitly is, how far could you push that? Let's come back to that in a second, because I think that comes out with some of the other dimensions here. So that's suggestion one of why he didn't go down. Suggestion two is interesting. More in the direction you're suggesting, not really a prohibition, but something else.

The Talmud suggests that maybe everyone else's practice was when they would do this sort of bowing down ritual, they would kind of go down on their hands and knees, but not fully extend and prostrate. Rav, however, had the practice that whenever he went down flat, he would fully extend his arms and legs, and prostrate. And that he couldn't do this on, in this version, the stone floor that covered the entire synagogue, because elsewhere there's sources that say, well, going down kind of on your hands and knees on a stone floor is okay, but to actually fully extend yourself on a stone floor is not allowed. And Rav said to himself, well, I could avoid the problem of going fully extended by just doing what everyone else is doing, which is this mini bow, but that's not my practice, and I don't want to depart from my usual practice, and if that's the choice, I'd rather just not bow at all. That's option two.

Rav Avi: So it's the classic, if I can't fully prostrate, I won't prostrate at all.

Rav Eitan: Yes, apparently pretty inflexible on that front. But I think we all know many people who are pretty stubborn around the way that they are used to doing things. So that's option two. And there, I think, following up on what you're saying, to the extent we reconcile this with the other text at all, it seems like having a kind of an established practice of the way you do things might itself in some way justify departing from the norm, even though it does seem like it's gonna be pretty disruptive. So we'll have to come back and sort of piece that together.

The third option is, no no no, Rav didn't bow down because Rav was a very important person, and important people, the Talmud says, are not supposed to bow down flat to the floor. Basically only if you're guaranteed, like, Yehoshua bin Nun, who the Talmud says bows down flat in front of an angel that comes to him -- here, very confident that G-d will answer you if you bow down flat to the ground, then you're allowed to, but otherwise important people should not be essentially, I think the idea is almost demeaning themselves in that way, by being flat on the ground with everyone else.

Rav Avi: That is a tricky one.

Rav Eitan: Yeah -- why, because it's self-policing?

Rav Avi: It's… you know, what's so interesting to me about that one is that I think sometimes when you're in a congregation, for example, where everybody is sitting and one person is standing, there is a sense of, what, does he think he's more important than the rest of us? Like, what does she think, she's holier, she's frummer than we are, she's more pious than we are, that's why she's insisting on standing even when we're all sitting? And this seems to be saying yes, exactly that, that is exactly what he's thinking in that moment.

Rav Eitan: Yeah. So I think your question there is exactly on the money, because this goes to now -- let's sort of take the question head-on. This is raised later by Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulai. He explicitly brings this story about Rav and the Talmudic discussion of it into dialogue with our Derekh Eretz text that we started with. So, how could Rav have stood among those who are sitting? And one possibility that was offered by an earlier sage was, well, Rav was important! Important people don't have to abide by the rules of context; they're allowed to stand out.

And it's interesting, Rav Azulai says I don't really buy that. He doesn't spell it out, but I actually think he's probably getting at something like what you're saying, which is if the point of saying that people, you know, shouldn't stick out is they should somehow let the people around them feel that they're taking note of them and kind of being conscious of them and what they're doing, it makes very little sense to say that important people have some kind of exemption from that, because that potentially triggers a whole set of reactions exactly like what you're saying, of when you deviate from that, then people will say oh, this guy thinks he's so important. Right? It only sort of reinforces in a dramatic way how different you are from everyone else. So, Rav Azulai basically looks, is gonna look for something else as a justification for why someone can stand out, because importance, I think he probably thinks, risks becoming self-importance.

Rav Avi: Yeah. I think modern American values pull in both directions on this. In one direction of saying no, everybody is important, and therefore everybody should do their own thing, and also in the reverse, of, you know, everybody's equal and nobody is more important than anybody else, and therefore everyone should conform. I could see it going in either direction, actually.

Rav Eitan: Yeah, no, it's a great point in how it sort of plays in the current reality. So Rav Azulai suggests two other ways of thinking about why Rav's case was different, and I find them actually very helpful for thinking these through. One, he says, maybe Rav was allowed to stand while everyone else was going down because people wouldn't really have noticed it. If you think about the average other person in the community, they're going down flat on the ground, they're not paying attention at that moment to whether anyone else is up, and if they get up and see that Rav is standing, they'll just think he finished earlier.

That is to say, the only reason that Rav allowed himself the leeway to behave differently from everyone else was because it basically would be undetectable. And that, I think, is one very useful way of thinking about how does a person potentially kind of maintain their own distinctive practice while nonetheless blending into a community. To the extent there is a way to do what you need to do without in a dramatic way disrupting the context, this reading would say, that's the way you should pursue it, in a sort of non-demonstrative way.

Rav Avi: We had an episode a while back where we talked about eating or people who actually need to eat on fast days, and I think we came to a similar idea, of if you need to eat on a fast day, then eat, but don't eat in the middle of shul around everybody, you know -- do it discreetly, in a way that people don't necessarily need to see or know.

Rav Eitan: Yeah, that's a great example. I think that's another perfect example of that kind of dynamic. So that's one. Second thing he says, which is really interesting, and goes back to what you were saying earlier: he says maybe a person is allowed to stick out from the context when it's for a principle, and you have a substantive reason for your behavior. And in this case, he says, Rav has such reasons. Now, that makes a lot of sense in the version that we read where his reason is, oh my G-d, it would be totally forbidden for me to bow down on this section of stone floor, which no one else has, but he equally asserts that Rav being able to say, well, it's my custom to always prostrate fully, and since I can't do that on a stone floor, I didn't want to deviate from my normal custom and I just didn't bow at all -- that is a good enough reason, Rav Azulai says, for him to be able to kind of defend his behavior as not demonstrative and non-judgemental, but just sort of maintaining his own personal tradition.

Now, part of what I think is implicitly being said here is if you're going to be different than everyone else around you in a way that's potentially disruptive to them, you ought to be able to have a reason that you can articulate for why you did that, that might persuade or might be able to contextualize your behavior for others. If you're just, I don't know, it's not how I, you know, saw it done so I don't feel like doing it that way, and you don't sort of have a sense of, no no no, this is my practice, it's how I was raised, then the context actually should weigh more on you, I think Rav Azulai is saying here. And that's an interesting way of kind of calling on people, to the extent they are going to manifest difference, to do it from a place of, well here's where I am, and here's why. At least in a context where the fear is that by being different you're jeopardizing some sort of communal moment.

Rav Avi: It's interesting -- I think that sometimes people have a feeling of cop-out, that they don't know enough, I'm not really, I don't know my practice, I'm just copying the person sitting next to me, and that makes it less legitimate. And what you're describing is really the opposite: it's to say no, doing what you're doing because the person next to you is doing it is actually a value, and unless you have some competing value, that's what you should be doing. And that's not a cop-out; that's actually totally reasonable and even laudable.

Rav Eitan: Yeah. It's, you know, if you were invited to do some group singing with people, you wouldn't break out into the song you wish they had chosen right in the middle of the song that everyone else was singing, right? You would sort of acknowledge, I'm actually here to do something as part of the group. And I think there's a sense in which the choreography of various things actually contributes in a meaningful way to that.

And on this specific kaddish question, just to sort of bring it back, what I would recommend as the concrete piece here is, I would say as a default, given the kind of very complex history of whether people stand or sit, I would say as a default, you should do as the Romans do. If you're in a synagogue where only the mourners stand for kaddish, then you should sit if you're not in mourning, and if you're in a synagogue where everyone stands, you should stand and not demonstrably stick out. That said, if you really feel yourself to have been either raised with a standing practice or to really in a deep way feel that that's really the right way to instill, you know, seriousness for this, and you're prepared when someone comes up to you at kiddush and asks you, hey, why were you standing, to explain that in a gentle and sincere way, then I think there's room for saying okay, we don't have to quash your different practice on this. But you should think through whether you really need to manifest it in this moment.

What are some possible answers?

What are some of the reasons for facing Israel?

Temple Israel as an example. (ark in sanctuary is to the South, in the chapel to the West)

What are some of the reasons we might face the ark, even if it's not in the East?

Ark vs. Jerusalem: https://www.torahmusings.com/2012/10/orientation-during-prayer/

R. Michael J. Broyde

Rabbi Michael J. Broyde is a Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law

The Ark Question

To this point, we have established according to numerous halakhic views that one should orient oneself toward the land of Israel. Yet, what happens when we introduce the concept of a designated symbol for God in a different direction than Israel? (Of course, this issue arises only when the Aron is oriented in a different direction than toward Israel.) This additional conflicting focal point creates a number of practical problems. Should one face toward the Aron or Israel? Would facing one disrespect the other? Should one contort one’s body to face as much of both as possible? These are some of the practical ramifications that the Acharonim struggle with. This also begs a deeper question, which the Talmudic sources attempted to address: Why do we orient ourselves during prayer, so we face towards Israel or towards God?

The Rishonim do not address any of the difficulties posed by the location of the Aron Kodesh. To the modern reader, this seems like a glaring omission. In fact, this is not an omission at all, but reflects a change in practice over the course of Jewish history: The custom to have a fixed Aron Kodesh did not exist in the classical and early medieval periods.[48] In the era of the Rishonim there was no physical focal point at the front of a synagogue; rather, the congregation assembled around a central bimah. The Torah scrolls were in moveable boxes that would be brought into the synagogue when they were to be used. At other times they were removed and stored outside the main prayer hall.

The practice of having a fixed Aron Kodesh was becoming increasingly prevalent by the time of Rabbi Mordecai ben Abraham Jaffe, the Levush (late 16th century). As we noted above, he instructs that synagogues be built with the wall of the ark set to the direction the congregation should face.[49] These later commentators acknowledged that the advent of the set ark created a new focal point that could distract those praying from facing directly toward Israel. Indeed, how much consideration one gives the positions stated in Bava Batra might very much affect how seriously one ponders the possibility that the presence of an Aron Kodesh (on a wall that doesn’t face Israel) should shift one’s direction away from Israel.

The Ark Does Not Change Anything

Regardless of the existence of a new focal point, Taz[50] and Ateret Zekeinim[51] unfailingly support facing Israel. This view would seem to take the harder line in their approach to the conflicting Talmudic sources. Instead of an attempt at reconciliation, it seems to side completely with Berakhot and ignore the question of the location, so to speak, of God, discussed in Bava Batra. This idea is supported by the Kenesset Hagedola and cited by the Baer Heitev,[52] who notes that even if the ark is in a direction that is not toward Israel, one should face toward Israel. The Kaf ha-Chaim,[53] however, uses weaker language when he says that regardless of ark location and where the congregation directs itself, one may still pray to the east.

The Ark Matters Most

Other Acharonim seem to disagree. The Peri Megadim[54] addresses another problem with ark orientation. He suggests that the rabbi of a congregation stand to the north of an ark (which has been placed on the eastern wall) so that when he faces south to become wise, he will actually be facing the ark. If he stood on the other (southern) side of the ark, then when he faced south, he would be turning his back on the ark. That possibility is seen as problematic. Both the Peri Megadim and the Ateret Zekenim[55] note that the Levush’s suggestion of placing the ark and wall in the southeast would be successful in terms of properly facing Israel, but would create a problem for those members of the congregation on the north side of the ark who would like to pray facing north (for wealth) or those on its south side who wish to face south (to become wise). They may not do so, as that would present the unfortunate appearance of people turning their backs on the ark. The Kaf ha-Chaim[56] also addresses the issue of turning one’s back on the ark with regard to turning in one direction or another and tries to avoid this problem. Implicit in all of these arguments is that the ark requires some extra form of consideration that did not factually exist at the time of Rashi and the Tosafot.

These views consistently note a problem of having one’s back to the Aron, but allow for the possibility of having one’s back to Israel. These Acharonim are clearly giving significant weight to the views in Bava Batra, even preferring that source to the Beraita in Berakhot.

Ark Location as One of Many Factors

Arukh ha-Shulchan, who rules that orientation need not be exact, notes that if the ark is placed north or south and the congregation prays in that direction and an individual wants to pray to the east, he may not do so, since this could cause others to bow to him.[57] Instead, the individual should pray in the same direction that the congregation is praying, but turn his body slightly to Israel.[58] This is true only when one prays with the congregation. In a situation where one prays alone he should face Israel and not the Aron.[59] This writer suspects that the Arukh ha-Shulchan would adopt the same view if the Aron was improperly set westward.

R. Michael Broyde

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1778&letter=A. As noted by others, the liturgy said in the Ashkenazi rite reflects this change. Initially, the Aron Kodesh was carried into the sanctuary, and the worshipers chanted the verse “Vayehi binsoa ha-Aron…” to reflect the fact that the Aron is moving, akin to the traveling Aron (of the Mishkan) in the desert; once the Aron became fixed in location, the verse “Ki mi-tzion tetze Torah…” was added to reflect the common custom of the ark being affixed to the wall facing Israel—the direction from which the torah was now “emanating.”