Chanting, or leyning, the Torah dates back over two thousand years when it was read on market days — Mondays and Thursdays. These twice-weekly readings ensured that everyone, not just scholars, would become familiar with the Torah’s laws and narratives. The Torah reader depended on a partner who offered hand signals that delineated for the former the various cadences of the chant. Then, as now, the Torah was also chanted on Shabbat morning and afternoon. Eventually, the hand signals of the marketplace were transcribed into trope symbols. What labanotation is to ballet, trope symbols are to Torah chanting.
Although my heart pounds every time, I love chanting Torah. Once I have the verses down, they become a mantra of sorts. They live in my head. They live in my memory. Chanting Torah is a curious mash-up of quasi-memory and word-by-word recitation. Because there are no vowels in the Torah, one begins with a voweled facsimile. Once my voice remembers the vowels and my eyes can imagine them, I shift over to a voweless text identical to a column of Torah.
A recent portion, B’Shallach, recounted the parting of the Sea of Reeds as the Children of Israel fled Egypt. Of the weekly readings I’ve learned, B’Shellach (in the sending away) is my favorite. In places, the cadences mirror the action described in the text. When the Sea of Reeds parts, we read that the water became walls to the right and to the left. The tropes mirror this movement reaching a crescendo before descending once again. The recounting of the drowning of Pharaoh’s horsemen and their horses is chanted in a minor key. The switch from major to minor keys serves as lamentation for the deaths of our enemies.
When I chant Torah I become part of this ancient tradition. Though no woman would have been allowed the role back then, I am part of the line nevertheless. Each time I am called up to chant, I tremble before and heave a sigh of relief afterward. Between the trembling and the sighing, Torah’s holy words carry me though on dry land.