Shabbat Parashat Matot Masei 5784

Ask the Rabbi: The Laining of a Reading Challenged Boy

Question: A boy in our shul with moderate learning disabilities has an upcoming bar mitzva. He wants to lain like his friends. His parents believe he can do a reasonable job but cannot promise to what extent he will be reading, as opposed to reciting by heart with some prompting from familiar letters.   

Answer: The child’s feelings are very important. After fleshing out the problem, we will search for halachic justification for leniency.

The gemara (Yoma 70a) relates to an instance when it is permitted to read a Torah passage by heart (see Rishonim’s explanations, ad loc.). The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 139:3) rules that one may not lain even one letter by heart. For this reason, he disallows giving an aliya to a blind person, who cannot read the letters of the sefer Torah. The Rama (ibid.) accepts the minhag to let a blind person have an aliya, but that is based on the thesis that the ba’al korei’s reading is the critical one (Mishna Berura 139:12). When necessary, it is possible to read from a Megillat Esther scroll missing a large minority of text (Shulchan Aruch, OC 690:3). However, this is a leniency regarding Megilla, which is called an iggeret (see Mishna Berura 690:10), and probably not concerning laining from a sefer Torah.

Still, we can allow the boy to read for a combination of reasons. We will start with mitigating opinions. The Rambam (Shut 294) posits that a shul without a kosher sefer Torah can read with berachot from a pasul one. In that discussion, he says that one can read with a beracha even by heart. The Shulchan Aruch (OC 143:3) does not rule this way, but “it is still a Rambam,” and the Rama (ad loc. 4) cites both opinions.

In fact, the Rambam’s general thesis is accepted in a related case. If a p’sul in the sefer Torah was discovered in the midst of laining, the Shulchan Aruch (ibid. 4) says that after taking out a kosher sefer Torah, b’dieved we rely on what was read. In that context, the Mordechai (Megilla 392) writes that if one encounters missing words before he has read three p’sukim, he should read those words by heart and continue until a place one may stop. He argues that the problem with reading by heart is the prohibition (ed. note – see Orach Chayim 49; we tend to be very lenient on this) on reciting the Written Torah not from a text and that this does not apply here because the intention had been to read from a kosher sefer Torah. This bar mitzva boy also intends to read from the text, and we are just nervous about his success. It is a good question to what extent we accept the Mordechai (see Living the Halachic Process III, A-14), but it is not a dismissed opinion.

Another mitigating opinion is admittedly a less accepted one. The Kolbo (cited in Beit Yosef, OC 142) states that if a ba’al korei makes a mistake in reading, we can rely on the oleh’s correct reading of the text. The above opinions along with significant embarrassment of a child whose disabilities disallow him doing what his peers do (see Rama, OC 139:3; Beit Yosef, OC 142), might suffice to be lenient.

Now to fundamentals. As one who thinks a lot about Kri’at Hatorah, I assure you that if there were an absolute need for ba’alei kri’ah to fully read every letter, we would often not be yotzei. Experts will tell you that we standardly look at a word and recognize it based on key letters and context, without always actually processing every letter (that is why proofreading is difficult). Since we have the ability to read every letter (see Menachot 18b) and process the word by looking at it in a manner everyone calls reading, that reading relates to every letter. An expert on the reading of children with challenges confirmed that this child will, in all likelihood, not read by heart. Rather, his high familiarity with the text will help him read. While it may be somewhat different than the average person, it is considered reading from the sefer Torah.

Therefore, this boy may lain. His teacher should train him, like all bar mitzva boys, to read from the text. If he can move the yad along properly, he is reading!!

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