Raise Your Hand

Don't miss an episode! Subscribe to the Madlik podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Link to Transcript here: https://madlik.com/2025/01/24/raise-your-hand/

... the Hebrew Bible is by far the richest source of gesture phrases in Northwest Semitic literature. In the Hebrew Bible, thirty gesture phrases and three phrases describing the cessation or redirection of a gesture are distributed in over two hundred textual passages. Several of these gesture phrases have more than ten occurrences, and most phrases either have more than one occurrence or are closely related to another phrase with more than one occurrence. .. In contrast, Ugaritic, Aramaic, and Phoenician inscriptions provide some examples of gesture phrases, but a given gesture phrase typically occurs only once or, at best, a few times in a corpus.

RITUAL GESTURES OF LIFTING, EXTENDING, AND CLASPING THE HAND(S) IN NORTHWEST SEMITIC LITERATURE AND ICONOGRAPHY, BY DAVID MICHAEL CALABRO, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2014

Nonetheless, when we approach this task (of dedicating a chapter to hand gestures in Jewish prayer) we are confronted with an interesting reality: The existence of clasping hands (and hand gestures in general) which are a constent in scriptural prayer and in good measure after scripture, dissapear completely from the sources of the Mishnaic and Talmudic period. There is nothing in the law (Halacha) or anecdotal evidence. there is only one talmudic source....

See (Hebrew) The non-Verbal Language of Jewish Prayer by Uri Ehrlich, Hebrew University Press 2003

According to Strine, the “našû-nadānu formula,” which is used to express the transfer of property in Akkadian texts from Ugarit, is a “semantic equivalent” to the biblical use of nɔśɔ ʾ yɔd in conjunction with lɔtet “to give.” Strine understands both expressions not as descriptions of symbolic legal gestures but as frozen verbal formulae. In his understanding, both employ the word for “hand” as a metonymy for power—or, more specifically in this case, ownership of property (the Akkadian formula is typically followed by a clause indicating that nobody will take the transferred property ištu qāti “from the hand” of the one to whom it is transferred).

C.A. Strine, Sworn Enemies: The Divine Oath, the Book of Ezekiel and the Polemics of Exile (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013) 72-97 from Calabro above p 105.

Making the Kinyan chalipin

1. The minhag is to make a kinyan chalipin for the obligations in a kesubah.
2. This is done by having one of the witnesses or someone else who is acting on behalf of the kallah, such as the mesader kiddushin, give a kli (utensil) that is fit to be used, such as a handkerchiefs, to the chatan who then raises it up. This act causes the chatan to become obligated to fulfill his obligations as outlined in the kesuba.
3. The chatan should be aware that his act of chalipin obligates him in his obligations of the kesubah.

See

Calabro says about raising a hand or both hands in prayer "it serves to expose the hands and heart to “divine view,” thereby proving that the person is pure and consequently prepared to be in the deity’s presence; it shows that the hands were not holding weapons, suggesting a kind of surrender; it attracts the attention of the deity; it shows the desire for the mortal to interact with the deity; it symbolizes life, which would suggest that executing the gesture in the presence of the deity is asking for God to give life; it displays the relationship between parties, suggesting subservience on the part of the one performing the gesture; the gesture is itself part of a larger, more complex ritual; and it is a “gesture of approach” performed as a mortal approaches the presence of the deity.

See: Raised Hands in Prayer as an Inducement Motif in the Psalms, Kelsi Cannon

With the advent of Hassidism, extravagant gestures became widespread in the revived prayer ritual. Here the hands were not held in a beseeching manner, but were part of fierce movements during prayer. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady (18th-19th century, Byelorussia) is said to have banged his hands on the wall during his fervent prayers, such that he drew blood. Eventually carpets were hung opposite his place of prayer so the hassidic master would not injure himself.

This practice was condemned by the opponents of Hassidism.

In a work published soon after the rise of the movement, the fiery scholar Rabbi Ya'acov Emden (18th century, Altona) censured the practice of movement during prayers, of which clapping during the service was one manifestation.

....

Despite advocating bodily movement, the hassidic norm did not strictly follow the biblical paradigms nor the talmudic dictum. Indeed, an eerie silence hovers over the issue of outstretched arms during prayer in much of the post-talmudic literature.

One notable exception is Rabbi Abraham, son of Maimonides (13th century, Cairo). Advocating a return to original prayer styles, Rabbi Abraham promotes raising the hands when petitioning God. No such gesture is prescribed when praising or thanking the Almighty. This approach is echoed in later authorities (Rabbi Eliezer Azkari, 16th century, Safed; and others), but does not seem to be the accepted practice.

Some halachists suggest that prayer with outstretched arms is the manner of gentile prayer, and therefore should be avoided (Be'er Sheva, 16th-17th centuries, Poland-Italy; and others). Modern scholars have demonstrated that a serious issue is at stake here: Christians saw Moses's outstretched arms as a prefiguration of crucifixion. This explains the reticence of Jewish artists to portray this biblical incident, while their Christian counterparts display no such hesitation in giving expression to this episode (Profs. Zimmer, Sperber).

..

Thus we see that cultural environs have impacted our prayer norms. Even the suggestion of Rabbi Abraham calling for outstretched arms while making requests of God may have been influenced by his milieu. There is no precedent in Jewish sources for distinguishing singling out requests when it comes to hand gestures. In all likelihood, such a distinction has its roots in Muslim ritual.

See: World of the Sages: Hand motions during prayer, By LEVI COOPER, MARCH 8, 2006