3:04 PM
Gil Student
One the first Yom Tov after I was married, in my in-laws' shul, I noticed someone standing with his back to the kohanim. As we all know, we are not supposed to look at the kohanim during dukhening, so we either look down or cover our faces with a tallis. Therefore, I was and still remain only aware of what the few people near me do during dukhening. I had never before seen someone turn his back to the kohanim and it struck me as being blatantly incorrect - against an explicit Rashi. The Gemara in Sotah 38a is as follows:
"So shall you bless" (Numbers 6:23) - face to face. You might say: Is it face to face or face to the back of the neck? We are taught, "say to them" - as one speaks to a friend.During dukhening, the kohanim must stand face to face. As we all know, the kohanim start out facing the synagogue's ark and then turn around to face the crowd. Rashi (ad loc., sv. o eino...) explains that one might have thought that the congregation need not face the kohanim and that only the kohanim must face the congregation, whether the congregation's faces or backs, but the Gemara deduces from a verse that the congregation must also face the kohanim. Clearly, anyone who turns his back to the kohanim for whatever reason, even the praiseworthy reason of avoiding looking at their hands during the dukhening, is disregarding his obligation to face the kohanim.
On that first Yom Tov I saw this practice, I mentioned it to my new wife who surprisedly told me that all the women in her synagogue turn their backs to the kohanim. I told her to continue doing that if everyone else was, since she should not publicly deviate from the community's practice even if it is mistaken (not that she asked me what to do). But after some consideration I thought I could justify the practice.
The Sefer Haredim (4:18), in his list of biblical commandments, writes that Jews who stand quietly and listen to the dukhening also have a part of the mitzvah. The Hafla'ah (Kesuvos 24b) deduces that, according to the Haredim, not only the kohanim but all of the Jews are obligated in the mitzvah of birkas kohanim. However, the Minhas Hinukh (378:4 in the Mekhon Yerushalayim edition) cites the Ritva (Sukkah 31b) who explicitly states that the obligation is only on kohanim.
Perhaps, an obligation to face the kohanim can only apply if the congregants are obligated in this mitzvah. If, as the Ritva maintains, the congregants are not obligated in this commandment, then they cannot be required to do anything regarding this mitzvah. How can they be, if they are not obligated to take part in it? Therefore, perhaps Rashi shares the view of the Haredim that the congregants are obligated in this mitzvah and, therefore, requires them to turn to face the kohanim. Others, who might share the view of the Ritva that the congregants are not obligated in this mitzvah, would not require them to face the kohanim.
According to the Ritva and others, the Gemara in Sotah can be read as requiring the kohanim to face the congregants rather than the ark, and not requiring anything of the congregants. This is how the Poras Yosef (printed in the back of the Vilna Shas) understand the passage, and the Meiri seems to as well.
Thus, the practice of a congregant turning his (or her) back to the kohanim may be problematic according to only Rashi and the Haredim. But according to the Ritva and Meiri it would not be a problem.
However, this entire analysis faces difficulties when we consider the Devar Avraham's convincing argument (vol. 1 no. 31) that the Haredim never intended that the congregants are obligated to hear dukhening. Rather, he wrote that they fulfill a non-obligatory commandment (mitzvah kiyumis) if they hear the dukhening. However, what we can say is that according to Rashi and the Haredim, if the congregants wish to fulfill the commandment then they must face the kohanim. According to the Ritva and Meiri, there is nothing for the congregants to fulfill and, therefore, there is no need for them to face the kohanim.
The Devar Avraham further attempts to prove that the obligation of being "face to face" during dukhening is only a rabbinic obligation, with the verse serving merely as an asmakhta. If that is the case, the above arguments can be discarded. Everyone would agree that there is no biblical obligation for the congregants to face the kohanim. The only question is whether the Sages applied an obligation to them. The Sages could very well have affixed a rabbinic obligation on the congregants to face the kohanim and enable the kohanim to fulfill their commandment, even if the congregants are not biblically obligated in the mitzvah at all.
If we accept this conclusion of the Devar Avraham, we are left with what seems to be two different views in the rishonim. According to Rashi, the congregants must face the kohanim. According to the Meiri, they need not. The source of the disagreement could merely be due to differing texts (see the Poras Yosef).
