https://youtu.be/zTRI4kaKKjI# Vezot Hatorah | LondonAs many of you will know, Hagbaha or Levantar is not taken lightly in the Spanish and Portuguese tradition.For a Snogeiro, the performance of the Mitsva of Levantar constitutes a specialist calling. Its performance is restricted exclusively to members of the 'Santa Irmandade dos Levantadores', a sacred brotherhood to which admission is approved only after a program of rigorous training and testing.The actual execution of Levantar requires the Levantador to open the Sepher Torah, adorned with its silver finials, to a width of at least five columns. He then elevates and rotates the open scroll through 360 degrees giving sight of the week's Parashah to the entire congregation.*To accompany this procedure, two verses - Deuteronomy 4:44 and 33:4 - are sung by the congregation. At its conclusion, as the Sepher is eased back on to the reading desk, the Hazzan chants verse 31 from Psalm 18.The present recording is based on the style of the London Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi community. Variants of this melody, deriving from the traditional Sephardi psalmodic mode, are known both in Amsterdam and New York. In the latter however, musical caution was thrown to the wind (in the early part of the twentieth century), and this ancient chant was supplanted on Shabbatot and Mo'adim by a relatively recent composition.*In the Snoge in Amsterdam and the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, the Levantador pauses in his rotation at each of the 4 points of the compass to allow the congregants a more prolonged inspection of the text. At each of the four points those facing the open scroll chant Vezot Hatorah. Please like and share, and if you haven’t already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.For an mp3 of this recording please visit my website, where there are over 170 selections available for free downloading.