the Eight Days of Chanukah

[abigailnus]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "IggyMcSnurd" <coyoteschild at p...> 
wrote:
> > Susan:
> >
> >Forgive my ignorance but what are Golden Yads?  I am familiar with 
> >the rest.
> >
>  
> Iggy here:
> 
> A Yad (or is it spelled Yod? Yahd? Yohd?... I can't remember... Can
> someone Jewish out there please correct the spelling?  *grin*) 

Well, since the spelling is in another alphabet, there's really no correct =

form.  Phonetically, Yad is correct.  It's the hebrew word for 'hand', for =

obvious reasons.

is a
> small... wand, for lack of a better term, with a small hand on the end
> with a pointing finger.  It's often gold or silver (so I've been told)

I've seen lots and lots of silver (or silvery-looking, possibly silver plat=
e) 
Yads, but I've never seen a gold one.  The precious metal isn't required.  =

It's just that Jews don't tend to have a lot of ornamentation in their holy=
 
places, so all those urges tend to get poured out on the Torah scrolls.   
They are usually wrapped in covers made of velvet and emroidered, and 
have 'jewelry' placed on them - ornate silver finials for the scroll 
handles, and large decorated plates hung around them like necklaces.  
Same thing goes for the Yad, which comes in close contact with the 
Torah.  

> For one thing, it's used because one of the older beliefs of the Jewish
> faith includes that if a single character in a holy book is smudged (and
> it's easily done so by the sweat and dirt on a person's finger), it
> renders the entire book/scroll itself useless.

Yes and no.  The use of the Yad is meant, from a more practical 
standpoint, to prevent smudging and dirtying the scroll, but it is more 
generally a form of respect.  Nowhere does Judaism come closer to 
idolatry then in its treatment of the Torah scrolls - people stand up when =

they are revealed during prayers, it is considered a grave honor to be 
asked to carry one, and when the Torah is carried around the room, people 
will kiss their fingertips and then touch it.  The Yad is an extension of t=
hat 
perception - it is disrespectful to directly touch something so holy.

It is true, however, that if during the writing of the scroll, the writer m=
akes 
even a single error, the Torah is ruined.  It can't be used, and is usually=
 
buried.  This is (or was) as much a matter of self-preservation as of 
religious fervor.  For the longest time the Torah was the only thing that 
kept the far-flung Jewish people connected.  To allow mistakes to creep 
into the text would be to allow the beginnings of schisms and 
unresolveable differences of opinions.  Scholars and rabbis of the last 
2000 years therefore demanded absolute 'purity' out of the text (which is 
not to say that mistakes haven't crept in, because we are talking about 
humans here, but they are relatively minimal).

Abigail