HOLY GARMENTS
Seforim are considered “the garments of HaShem,” no less. Indeed, Chazal teach us that a person who treats them with respect will be respected by others; the reverse applies to a person who does not.
(אורחות יושר פ"ה, אבות)
Reb Shimon ben Tzemach, author of the Tashbetz, treated seforim with such loving care that he brushed the dust off them with a special silk cloth. In this merit, his reward was that the seforim which he authored would never be infested with bookworms. In all the libraries that the Rebbe Rashab visited, he found that even when the seforim standing immediately near the Tashbetz were affected with bookworms, that sefer alone stood untouched.
(שנה בשנה תשכ"ג ע' 490)
Respect for seforim includes: placing them in a respectable bookcase, keeping them off the floor or a surface on which people are sitting, depositing torn pages in sheimos, setting them right side up, and keeping them at a distance from anything unclean.
(רש"י ור"י לאבות ד,ו, ר"ח שער היראה פט"ו, א"ר סי' מ סק"ה, שוע"ר סי' מ"ה ס"ג, פסקי הסידור סוף הל' תפילין)
The Maharil – a Rishon who is a major source for many current minhagim – used to show his respect for seforim by telling anyone carrying a sefer to pass through a doorway ahead of him. Whenever a sefer fell, he would lift it up and kiss it.
(ליקטי מהרי"ל סי' צח, צט)
Reb Yehuda HaChossid, a contemporary of Rambam, gives us numerous instructions on caring for seforim. For example: If a sefer and other valuables fall to the ground, one should lift the sefer first. Similarly, if liquid spills on a sefer and on other items, one should dry the sefer first. A sefer should not be placed near the edge of a table where it is likely to fall, and when handing someone a sefer, one should do so with his right hand. Finally, a sefer should not be used for any mundane purpose.
(ס' חסידים סי' תתקכג, תתצז, תתקכב, קט)
LOVING REVERENCE
A sefer should of course be positioned on the shelf right side up, not upside down.
It once happened that a certain fellow took a Gemara down from its shelf for reference and unknowingly replaced it upside down. Suddenly it crashed to the ground. He picked it up and replaced it – once again upside down, and the same thing happened. After this repeated itself again, he realized that something was amiss. He checked how he had placed it, and once the sefer was positioned correctly, it remained in its place.
(קב הישר פנ"ד)
The Rebbe related: I was once in the presence of the Frierdiker Rebbe when another person present got up to leave without closing his sefer. Though the Frierdiker Rebbe was always careful not to trouble others, he called the man back and gently reminded him to close his sefer. After the man left I asked the Frierdiker Rebbe, “I know how careful you are not to trouble others. Perhaps you could have instead asked me to close the sefer?”
The Frierdiker Rebbe answered that aside from the importance of closing the sefer, it is preferable that the learner close the sefer himself.
(שיחו"ק תשכ"ד ע' 246)
Reb Yechiel Meir of Gostynin was a student of Reb Menachem Mendel of Kotzk and later a chassidic leader himself. While studying in Kotzk he had a stealthy custom: Late at night, under cover of darkness, he would steal into the beis midrash unnoticed and return every sefer to its proper place.
(היהודי הקדוש ע' יב)
After recovering from an illness, Reb Elimelech of Lyzhensk related what he had then seen in the higher realms:
“As I approached the entrance to the heavenly yeshiva of Reb Shmelke of Nikolsburg, I met Mordechai, the late seforim-binder of our town. Knowing him to be a simple, unlearned individual, I asked him how he had merited reaching such a lofty sphere. He told me how at his judgment, the Beis Din shel Maalah brought all the torn pages that he had collected over the years from the damaged seforim and placed them on the scale. This had earned him a direct entrance to Gan Eden. However, since he was so lacking in learning, he first had to be taught Torah, beginning with nigleh, the revealed dimension of the Torah, and now he was ready to study nistar, the Torah’s hidden dimension – at the yeshiva of Reb Shmelke.”
(אוצר הסיפורים ח"ה ע' כט)
SEFORIM AS PROTECTORS
The Rebbe taught that in addition to their obvious benefits, seforim protect a home and those who live in it.
The elder chossid, Reb Foleh Kahn, related: In the year תרע"ו (1915), when the Rebbe Rashab left the village of Lubavitch, he left behind a full crate of valuable kisvei yad (manuscripts) written by many Rebbeim and gedolei Yisroel in the Moscow home of a chossid by the name of Reb Zelka Parsitz. When I once visited Reb Zelka with another few temimim, we opened the box and saw what it contained. Reb Zelka told us that his home had been searched by the dreaded Secret Police numerous times, yet its officers had never once opened the box. He added, “This box saved me a number of times.” When he was eventually asked to return it to the Rebbe, he was saddened, and said, “Who will now protect me at home?”
(לקו"ש חי"ג ע' 213, שמועות וסיפורים ח"א ע' 116)
CONSIDER
To whom is one showing esteem when according respect to a sefer?
Why is closing a sefer and returning it to its place an act of respect towards the sefer?
