A yad (, literally "hand"; ''hant'', "hand") is a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

ritual pointer, 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 a ...

from the

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "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. In that sense, Torah means the ...

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 reasons for this: handling the parchment renders one ritually impure and the often-fragile parchment is easily damaged. Moreover, the

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

parchment does not absorb ink so touching the scroll with fingers will damage the lettering. While not required when chanting from the Torah, it 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 with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

is common, especially used in crowning the yad. In some cases, a ''yad'' is covered with fabric.

Mountain Jews

The

Mountain Jews Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews also known as Juhuro, Juvuro, Juhuri, Juwuri, Juhurim, Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews ( he, יהודי קווקז ''Yehudey Kavkaz'' or ''Yehudey he-Harim''; russian: Горские евреи, translit=Gorskie Yevrei ...

had a peculiar way with 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 together 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'' ( he, אצבע, "finger") and ''

kulmus ''Ktav Stam'' () is the specific Jewish traditional writing with which holy scrolls (), tefillin and mezuzot are written. ''Stam'' is a Hebrew acronym denoting these writings, as indicated by the gershayim () punctuation mark. One who writes su ...

'' ().

References

{{Torah reading Torah reading Jewish ritual objects

Rationale

Manufacture

Mountain Jews

See also

References