A yad (; , ) is a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

ritual pointer, or stylus, popularly known as a Torah pointer, used by the reader to follow the text during the

Torah reading Torah reading (; ') is a Jewish religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll (or scrolls) from the Torah ark, chanting the ap ...

from the

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

scrolls. It is often shaped like a long rod, capped by a small hand with its index finger pointing from it.

Rationale

Beyond its practical usage in pointing out letters, the yad ensures that the parchment is not touched during the reading. There are several suggested reasons for this, including the mistaken idea that the fragile parchment is easily damaged by skin oils. However, the reason provided by the Talmud and other aspects of Jewish tradition state that the original reason was related to ritual purity. While not required when chanting from the Torah, a yad is used frequently and is considered a ("embellishment of the commandment") of reading the Torah.

Manufacture

A ''yad'' can be made of any number of materials, though

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

is common, especially used in crowning the yad.

Mountain Jews

The

Mountain Jews Mountain Jews are the Mizrahi Jews, Mizrahi Jewish subgroup of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. M ...

had a particular way of handling pointers: they were held in pairs forming a

V-shape Many shapes have metaphorical names, i.e., their names are metaphors: these shapes are named after a most common object that has it. For example, "U-shape" is a shape that resembles the letter U, a bell-shaped curve has the shape of the vertical ...

dividing the text into passages. They were made and donated in pairs, even joined with a chain when they had inscriptions related to the same event. Their shapes were of two types: a flat bar and a bar twisted into a long tight screw-like shape with a flat part. In both types, the pointing part is made in the shape of a flat broad leaf with a rounded tip.Ariella Amar, "Torah Filials and Pointers in Azerbaijan and Dagestan", In: ''Mountain Jews. Customs and Daily Life in the Caucasus'', Muzeon Yisrael (Jerusalem), 2002, , Section "Poointers": pp. 57-63 From the inscriptions on the pointers, one may deduce a specific ritual of Mountain Jews: before reading, the Torah is displayed to the congregation and the pointer indicated to it as a conceptual parallel to the guiding hand of God. There are a number of different names for the pointer used by the Mountain Jews, indicating the variety of traditions. Most common ones are ''etzba'' () and '' kulmus'' ().

References

External links

{{commons category, Torah pointers Torah reading Jewish ritual objects

Rationale

Manufacture

Mountain Jews

See also

References

External links