Revii for a Kohen

How can this happen?

Someone received revi’i, the fourth aliyah, Shabbos morning, and, later that day, received back-to-back aliyos.

This question is not at all theoretical. I actually accomplished it this past Shabbos! How did I manage to do this?

Explaining the question fully provides a bit of a hint at the answer. Ordinarily, the only time someone receives back-to-back aliyos is when there is no levi in shul, in which case the kohen who receives the first aliyah also receives the second aliyah, that usually reserved for a levi. A kohen receives the aliyah because kohanim are members of the tribe of levi, and the same kohen receives the aliyah, rather than spreading the wealth around by giving a different kohen the levi-substitute aliyah because of a  rule ein kor’in lekohen achar kohen “We do not call up two consecutive kohanim.” Chazal ruled that one cannot call up two kohanim consecutively because of concern that someone will think that, after calling up the first kohen, they discovered a halachic problem with his status and therefore needed to call up someone else as kohen (Gittin 59b).

Now, as a kohen I can tell you that it is a very common occurrence that I receive two back-to-back aliyos, one as a kohen and the other bimkom levi. But how did I manage to get revi’i  without the gabbai making an error? A kohen always receives either the first aliyah of the Torah, maftir, or acharon. Now, since revi’i is never either maftir or acharon, how could a kohen ever receive the aliyah of revi’i?

This past Shabbos I attended a family bar mitzvah, where the minyan was only family members. Not only am I a kohen, but so are all my brothers and sons, as well as my nephew, the bachur habar mitzvah. Virtually everyone else in attendance at the minyan made in honor of the bar mitzvah were kohanim. The only non-kohanim in attendance were the bochur’s maternal grandfather, who is a yisroel, and a family friend who is a levi. Thus, the first three aliyos were: a kohen (one of the family members); the levi guest and the maternal grandfather, who received shelishi.

Now is where the fun starts. All other attendees at the minyan were kohanim, and yet we have four more aliyos, plus maftir to give out? What is a gabbai supposed to do?

Fortunately, this question is discussed by the rishonim, with a wide variety of answers. The Beis Yosef cites four opinions what to do for the four remaining aliyos.

1. Call up the same three people who were called up as kohen, levi, shelishi, as revi’i, chamishi and shishi, and then call up the original kohen for a third time as shevi’i.
2. The yisroel who was called up as shelishi should be called up again for revi’i, chamishi, shishi, and shevi’i since he is the only yisroel in the house.
3. Call up children for the remaining four aliyos.
4. Call up different kohanim for the remaining four aliyos.

What are the reasons behind each of these approaches?

1. Call up the same three people again.

Although Chazal required that we call up seven people for aliyos on Shabbos, nowhere does it say that one may not call up the same person twice. As we see from the case when the kohen receives the aliyah of the levi, someone can at times be called up twice and count as two people receiving aliyos. Thus, our best way to resolve this situation is to call up the same three people again, thus avoiding calling two kohanim one after the other. We also avoid calling up a kohen for an aliyah that implies that he is not a kohen, except for the one kohen who already was called up as kohen. Thus, no one should make a mistake that a kohen has any problem with his pedigree.

2. Call the yisroel for five consecutive aliyos.

At the time of the Mishnah and Gemara, there was no assigned baal keriyah, and the person who received the aliyah was expected to read for himself. The institution of an assigned baal keriyah began in the time of the rishonim, when it became a common problem that someone called up for an aliyah was unable to read the Torah correctly, thus calling into question whether the community fulfilled the mitzvah of kerias haTorah.

However, even during the days of the Mishnah it occasionally happened that a minyan of Jews did not include seven people who could read the Torah correctly. The Tosefta, a source dating back to the era of the Mishnah but not included in the Mishnah, discusses a case in which there is only person in the minyan who is capable of reading the Torah. What does one do? The Tosefta (Megillah 3:5) rules that we call this person up to the Torah seven consecutive times in order to fulfill the mitzvah of seven aliyos.

Based on this Tosefta, some explain that since we cannot call up two kohanim one after the other, when we have only one Yisroel in attendance, we call him to the Torah for all the yisroel aliyos (Beis Yosef, based on his understanding of the Mordechai).

3. Call up children

Our practice is that we do not call a child up to the Torah because it is not a sign of respect that a child read the Torah for a community (see Megillah 23a). From this comment, we see that, other than this concern, one may have a child accept an aliyah, even though he is underage to fulfill a mitzvah.

Therefore, Rabbeinu Yeruchem rules that, in the situation at hand, we should call up children for the remaining aliyos. Apparently, he considers this to be a better solution than calling up someone who has already received an aliyah. The only time we can give someone two aliyos is when there is no Levi in shul, and he also understands that we can never call two kohanim back-to-back. Therefore, our only alternative is to suspend the community honor and call up children for the missing aliyos.

If there are no children in attendance, he rules that we cannot continue the reading of the Torah!

4. Call up consecutive kohanim

All the approaches we have thus far quoted contend that there is never any exception to the rule that one may not call up two kohanim consecutively. However, there are rishonim who dispute this assumption, contending that, when it is obvious to all attendees that the reason you called two kohanim consecutively was because there were no other alternatives, that there is no concern that someone will think one of the kohanim has a yichus problem and therefore Chazal were not gozeir.

The Rashba contends that when everyone in attendance realizes that there are only kohanim in the minyan, we simply call up consecutive kohanim. There is no concern not to call one kohen after another in this instance.

The Shulchan Aruch concludes that the halacha follows the Rashba, and, to the best of my knowledge, this approach is accepted by all late halachic authorities. Thus, we now have answered our opening conundrum: How I received revi’i, the fourth aliyah, on Shabbos morning, and, later that day, back-to-back aliyos.

Provided courtesy of rabbikaganoff.com