The Mishna (Yoma 5:1) tells us that when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, “He came out by the way he entered.” Just as he entered, with his face towards the Ark, so did he leave. he didn’t walk around, but walked backwards.
The Talmud (ibid. 53a-b) adds that all Priests, Levites and Israelites – when they left the Temple after having fulfilled their respective tasks did not turn their backs to the Sanctuary. They walked backwards.
The Talmud continues: “So also a disciple, taking leave of his teacher, shall not turn his face around…” and cites two instances of Amoraim taking leave of their masters, walking backwards.
The sages also said that on completing one’s prayer, one should take three steps back. This was a sort of taking leave.
The Midrash (Bemidbar Rabba 5,8) relates that the front bearers of the Ark did not face the direction in which they were walking. Their faces turned towards the Ark. They were walking backwards!
From this Midrash we can learn — says Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Moshe de Vidas, the author of Reshit Chochma (Sha’ar Hayirah, chapter 15) – that one should not leave the synagogue with one’s back to the Ark which contains the Torah, but walk backwards, and so one should also do when descending from the Bima, on which a Torah has been placed.
A similar custom is observed by the Jews of Alsace with regard to the Sukkah. Robert Weyle writes in Juifs en Alsace: Culture, Societe, Histoire (Toulouse, 1977, p. 310) that the Jews of Alsace on leaving the Sukkah on the last day of the festival, are careful not to turn their backs to it. They walk backwards in order not to be mevayesh the Sukkah.
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In various communities it was the custom to seat the Chatan Torah and Chatan Bereishit on special chairs.
The late Avraham Yaari writes in his book Toledot Chag Simchat Torah (Jerusalem, 1964, p. 121) about the Sephardi community of Amsterdam: “The Chatan Torah and Chatan Bereishit sat on special chairs. These chairs have been preserved until this day. When the Chatan Torah and Chatan Bereishit came to the synagogue on the eve of Simchat Torah and the eve of Shabbat Bereishit, they were greeted with Baruch Haba by the community. They took their seats on the special chairs and occupied them during the entire service.
The word “chair” used by Yaari is perhaps not a fitting description for the special seats of the Chatan Torah and Chatan Bereishit of the Sephardi community of Amsterdam. These were wide sofas.
They were probably first used when the Amsterdam Sephardi community was one of the largest and richest Jewish communities of Western Europe.
Yaari did not relate in his book what happened to these sofas during World War II, when the Netherlands were occupied by the Germans, who killed about 80% of the country’s Jewish population.
Marshal Hermann Goering, one of the leaders of the Nazi party and the “Third Reich” was a collector of art. He amassed great treasures which he had robbed from private and public collections in Germany.
After the war I visited Amsterdam. I went to see the Portuguese Synagogue, which was built about three hundred years ago and is one of the most famous synagogues of Europe. On the platform before the Ark, I saw two beautiful sofas. One was a little torn. An official of the synagogue explained to me the use of the sofas on Simchat Torah and told me they had just been returned from Germany and for this reason were on the platform. The official added that one of the sofas had been damaged by the Germans.
Oct. 13, 1989 p. 5 American Jewish Times