Last week we mentioned that after people take three steps back after Shemonah Esrei they do a little bounce, if you look carefully most people bounce up and down three times. We mentioned from R’ Chaim Kanievsky zt”l that he never heard any mekor for such a thing. That withstanding, many people, including many prominent rabbonim do this, so there must be some mekor.
R’ Ephraim Pinos shlita (from Mir Yeshivah) enlightened me with what he thinks the mekor is, and he told me that he told this to a number of rabbonim, and they were all very pleased with his explanation. He thinks, that the minhag especially amongst the Yekke’s, which is still in place today, is that only the chazon recites “Nekadesh es shimcha...”, the tzibbur only joins in with reciting kedusha from “kodosh, kodosh, kodosh”. The halachah is that one should only return to his place for kedusha. Therefore, since kedusha for the tzibbur only starts with “kodosh, kodosh, kodosh”, people use to return to their place just before “kodosh, kodosh, kodosh”, and then immediately bounce up and down three times for kedusha. From here came the minhag to bounce up and down three times when returning to one’s place after taking three steps back after Shemonah Esrei. Nowadays, many places have the minhag that the tzibbur joins in kedusha already from “Nekadesh”, therefore, they return to their place before “kodosh, kodosh,kodosh”. However, it used to be people only returned for “kodosh, kodosh, kodosh” and from there came the minhag to bounce when returning to one’s place after Shemonah Esrei. And once it crept in, people did it by all three tefillos, and even when davening alone.
The above seems like a good mekor, so why did R’ Chaim Kanievsky say there is no mekor? What we have to say is, R’ Chaim meant there is no valid halachic mekor, and something based on mistake is not really a mekor.
